The creation of our Poppy print

I’d like to share with you all a little bit about our process of designing a new print for Luckyleo, one of our favorites yet, called “Poppy”!  This one was so much fun to research, and I did a lot of vintage botanical print gathering for inspo as I drew out each poppy.  I am finding that the more time I spend researching the flower I’m drawing, the more I love the final outcome of the print.  For this one, I took inspiration from pinned florals, both painted and photographs, to use as a starting point.  From there, I let my hand lead me and tried to artistically emphasize the fluidity I saw in these gorgeous flowers, always keeping in mind the soft look that I had in mind for the resulting print.

 

I tested out some ideas with watercolors, but the softness of color that was being produced by my paints just wasn’t radiating with me when I saw it.  So, I went for using Acrylics as my medium on these floral paintings, to truly evoke a sense of passion and energy with a brilliant orange toned red.  I loved the way it turned out with using the acrylics, since it feels so vibrant and joyful and truly brings out the unfurling petals of each poppy flower.

 

When Heather and I surveyed the final pieces of art, we immediately agreed that this print had to be epic and large scale.  The flowers were just screaming to be displayed in all their glory, not scaled down and shrunken.   So we opted for an especially large scale representation when we sent off the first test to our printing company.  Heather placed the flowers digitally, and she did some expert tweaking of coloration to bring out the colors and make everything shine on the black background we selected for this print. 

 

The print company sent us our first round of tests, and I have to say we were so excited when we opened up the package!  It’s a mixture of pure happiness and dread that it will turn out terrible (kinda like that moment prior to stepping out on stage where you hope for the best but also a small part of you dreads the worst becoming reality)…But the print turned out so beautifully that we had nothing that we wanted to change about it!  The scale reads perfectly on a full-body style like ALLURE or ELEGANCE, and the color of red turned out just like we imagined it would.  Also, we printed the leotard on our new Dream fabric, made with a higher stretch content, and it just feels divine when you wear it. 

 

I hope that you all love this print so much, since we designed it with you all in mind.  We love to celebrate the beautiful and graceful things in life, and florals are one of the best ways to do that.  It's so much fun getting to design prints for our leotards and knowing that you all will wear them and love them for years to come.  Let us know your thoughts about this print in the comments below!  We would be thrilled to hear what your take on this one is, or any ideas you might have for prints we might design next!  Until next time, and happy designing!

 ♥ Chelsea Early

Shop our Poppy Pre Order HERE!