Meet the Mancunian maximalist pattern maker, Patricia Shea

The way Patricia Shea has combined her textile design skills with print-on-demand services is simply mesmerising, offering plenty of inspiration for aspiring illustrators and designers.

You’ll have to forgive our headline. Patricia Shea doesn’t like being pigeonholed, but as a pattern designer, her hand-painted creations within that field are rich and varied. There are light and whimsical Art Deco designs, traditional floral creations that hark to the Arts and Crafts, folksy artworks with an Eastern flavour, and there’s no ignoring her sweet, sweet pink cupcakes.

Those cute cupcake illustrations – as seen on everything from wallpaper to smartphone cases – are one of Patricia’s biggest-selling lines and even appeared in the background of the feature film Psych 3. They also inspire her online handle, Design Confections.

“I am a brand,” says Patricia. “Design Confections came about because Patrcia Shea was already taken on Instagram, and I like to think of my design work as delicious. It references my very popular cupcake and my passion for patisserie.”

After dropping out of Manchester Polytechnic because the textiles course she was on wasn’t focusing on textiles, she went to New York and landed a job in fashion. Then she went freelance for many years, taking a whole range of commissions – from ceramic tabletop designs to medical and golf illustration and on to paper product graphics. Now back in Manchester, Design Confections brings together Patricia’s creativity – she paints her motifs by hand – with her expertise in applying patterns to different surfaces.

Her knowledge and skills are valuable in the world of print-on-demand, and Patricia has capitalised on them. But let’s not overlook her innate talent. Whether it’s blue denim paisley, a spinning mandala or folk art assembled from geometric shapes – she knows just how to enthral the viewer. Little hints of shading, texture and artefacts of the handmade process make the work all the more engaging, going against the grain of clinical computer-generated ornamentation.

“I adored paint by numbers, Spirograph and fine illustration like botanical illustration and artwork by the Pre-Raphaelites, whose paintings I visited regularly at Manchester City Art Gallery. All of these things I think you can now recognise in my work in the form of tight realism and geometric patterns and the combination of both,” says Patricia.

While we often focus on beauty, colour and the clever combination of forms in a pattern – they excite us, perhaps – the calming effect of repetition has always attracted Patricia. Early on, her tutors recognised this and encouraged her towards surface design. Today, her creations are shipped to customers worldwide, and new ventures are on the horizon.

“I just adore repeating patterns and creating them,” she continues. “Once I start in a groove, I can create so many coordinated designs from a few base motifs, which I do through the amazing auspices of Photoshop after scanning and cleaning the motifs and illustrations up.”

As in so many other areas of creativity, AI casts a dark shadow, and Patricia has seen her designs scraped and homogenised, turned into lookalike products for which she doesn’t earn a penny. It’s very disheartening. “But I do think the ultimate outcome, which I am seeing a glimmer of right now, is that hand-created, original work by humans will be elevated and more appreciated than ever. How long it will be before that’s the norm, who knows?” she ponders.

Just like she adapted to print-on-demand and capitalised on it, Patricia is now focusing on the idea of the handmade original. She’s begun selling her work, which is emotionally tough, having become accustomed to keeping her ‘children’ at home. Another venture she’s exploring is teaching pattern design.

“Last year, I taught a mandala workshop in Marrakech at an eco-hotel owned by a lovely Mancunian, and I will be doing more of these workshops as I move forward. I am continuing with my PODs; I’m just also diversifying as you always seem to need to as a creative,” she says.