Illustrator Interviews: Eva Bellanger

Today we’re spending some time with French textile designer Eva Bellanger. As you might know, I’m a fan of black and white line drawings and mark making, so when I first noticed Eva’s cool black and white patterns on Pinterest I tracked her down to learn more about her and her work. Let’s get started!

With my first textile design degree I studied print, screen printing, knitting, and weaving. I simply fell in love with this last technique and then studied weaving (and embroidery) for two more years. I graduated on June 21, 2013 and started to work on June 24, 2013 in an embroidery workshop for haute couture. At the end of my first mission, I legally registered as textile designer and continued to work for haute couture in several workshops (as a “petite-main”). I really loved/love that but I missed weaving and I missed creating my own stuff! So I saved up to buy a loom but I was lacking time for weaving and started to draw and create small patterns instead, with no professional ambitions, just for my well being (because create nothing drives me a bit crazy and depressed!). Finally I enjoyed making patterns so much that I decided last year to add it to my activities. Now I’m working more as a textile studio and create patterns and bespoke textiles.

You license your work to fashion, interior design, and paper goods companies. How did you first begin to build those relationships and get your work noticed?

I first fell in love with your black and white pattern designs Edifice I and Erritmo. Will you walk us through your creative process on those? How were you first inspired to create them, how did you get started working on them, and ultimately how did you decide that you reached your final versions?

Thank you Melanie! I hope you won’t be too disappointed but the creative process is very simple!

I started to work on this black and white designs when I was in school, during sciences class! I did a double textile cursus but sciences, economy, and French lessons were the same for both diplomas so after a while I was slightly bored in class. I used to draw lines, dashes, and squares, without thinking, on every scrap of paper I could find (it’s a really relaxing exercise!). The more my markers ran out of ink, the more the depiction was textured and interesting so I continued making marks. After a while I started to combined all these random elements and organized them by thickness, ink density, etc. until I found the composition well balanced. Like weave combinations and threads (yes, we always return to weaving!), lines and masses cross and become entangled to finally form a graphic fabric.