My class project has a theme and that is to chose a culture/country and generate fabric patterns and designs that draw on this country and its heritage. I choose to research China, the traditional paintings, and its landscape. I studied the most popular colors and textures found in traditional Chinese fabrics.
Once I gathered sufficient visuals, I sketched several ideas in my sketchbook. Then, I create a relief - a stamp made out of cardboard and Styrofoam. For this relief, I decided to go with geometric shapes I located in common fabrics. Below you can see how I combined a total of four stamps into various pattern options.
Have you ever tried relief or block printing? Let me know!