Fairies and the Fine Art of Iteration

Taylor's Take on Tinkerbell

June 24 was International Fairy Day.

How cool is that?

When I think of fairies, I think of Tinkerbell—specifically, the movies. I have always loved those movies!

It is amazing how every fairy has a talent they excel at—one where they truly belong and thrive. There are a ton of different groups like Water, Animal, Garden, or Tinker fairies. The most iconic are the Tinker fairies (ahhh - TINKERbell!). The Tinkers are crazy good at building stuff and being creative.

Now, I don’t think I would be a Tinker Fair, but I respect them a lot.
So, I had to *attempt* to recreate Tinkerbell’s dress on a Picture This template.

I chose Tinkerbell’s Fall outfit. I thought the different colors would be more fun to design with.

Image Credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/tinker-bell-is-ontrend-for-fall-in-2022--436075176433808378/

I grabbed some crayons, printed a template (free, here), and got to work!

I used two different colors to create the contrast that we see in Tinkerbell’s outfit (reference Tinkerbell image above!)

Honestly, I liked this design! I thought it was simple and cute.

But it just didn’t feel right.

I consulted the astoundingly artistic Jaimee, and she suggested, “Think like a fairy! What materials might Tinkerbell use to make her outfit?”

Nature! (Ah-HA moment!)

I ran outside and grabbed a random assortment of leaves and grass.

Then! I attempted to place them. Tinkerbell’s dress has lots of cuts in the leaves. Replicating that using nature was harder than I expected!

I didn’t love this design.

I ended up coloring some of the template green and not using leaves under the entire design. The turnout wasn’t as great as I wanted it to be. BUT. I kept working and reworking until I got a better handle on what I was doing.

For my next attempt, I used the dark green leaf as a base for the entire thing.

Then, I used some differently shaped leaves to add some variety to everything!

This looked pretty good to me.

I liked the different leaves on the top and the bottom, with the little belt in the middle! Anticipating the printed result, I think the texture will look so cool! I’m glad I kept reworking it until it felt -right!

At this point, Jaimee recommended I create a third design using a different medium so that I could see the contrast of how things print. I chose to use paint.

Paint has an entirely different texture than crayons and isn’t quite as interesting as leaves.

I decided to keep this look more similar to the crayon one—a pretty simple two-color combo to recreate her dress.

I did a few different coats of paint to fill in all of the white spots. 

The paper got pretty crinkly in the process (if you look closely on the right side, you can see where I dripped some of the water I used to rinse my brush out.)

I ordered all three of the dresses and eagerly anticipated seeing the printed results.

Designing all three was a lot of experimenting!

Here's a recap of some things I learned:

1. It’s okay to redesign and redesign and redesign. (Iteration is an art in itself!) 🔄

2. Using different mediums to design the same concept was just fun! It was neat to see how differently each one turned out. 🎨

3. You can use whatever you want in a design. Seriously. Anything you can take a picture of works! 🤯

I know that every medium looks different when printed, but seeing them all next to each other was pretty interesting.

I have so many opinions on each dress!

Crayons

In general, crayons tend to be more muted colors. Crayons don’t really allow for super-saturated color, so this dress isn’t very vibrant.
You can see every line that I drew. If that’s an effect you’re going for, mission accomplished!

Leaves

This turned out pretty cool. The leaves look completely real. It is bright, detailed, and so pretty. All of the shadow textures are amazing!

Paint

When I painted this dress, I had to use quite a few coats, and because I did this on plain printer paper, the moisture from the paint warped it. You can see that in the printed design, which is its own unique kind of effect.
The colors are pretty bold, and the lines are exactly how I designed them.

Each style has its own pros and cons. I like understanding how different types of materials will turn out!

For the project of creating a Fairy-inspired dress, I think the leaf design is my favorite. Which one is your favorite?

What other materials would you try for a Fairy-inspired challenge? (Leave a comment!)

I love seeing the direct comparison. I will use this lesson in the future as I choose how to design!

🧚‍♀️ Taylor