Egyptian Textile Pattern

This pattern was designed to be repeated throughout a textile. The theme was inspired by Egyptian design between 4500 BCE and 30 CE. Since ancient Egyptian design includes many natural tan colors and navy blues, the main color scheme within this textile is a split complementary triad; the primary color is orange and its complements are blue-violet and blue-green. The design has a large emphasis on oranges and blues, which are a complementary pair. The texture is primarily rough like the carved rocks in ancient Egypt. The main focus of the textile, however, is the Egyptian god Horus, which looks smooth. These differing textures provide contrast in the image, while the similar values between the columns and Horus create harmony. As seen in this textile, Egyptian design contains both straight and curved lines, and the god in the center shows curves. The hieroglyphics at the top of the design illustrate both of these types of line. I chose to incorporate hieroglyphics since so many ancient Egyptian walls were covered in them. The main background is an Egyptian textile design with altered color, and the center image is the Egyptian god Horus. The outside columns reflect a very common Egyptian architectural style, and I altered them to have more shading and a darker value.


I like the way I used half a column on each side of the textile so that they would match up when connected. I also like that I placed Horus in the center because many Egyptian wall carvings included a god or goddess in the center of their designs. I improved my Photoshop skills with this project, but struggled with making the pattern match up perfectly from square to square. I am pleased with the final product of this design, and think it encompasses a few important elements of ancient Egyptian design.

This image shows the grayscale view of the above textile. It emphasizes the value changes throughout the design, and shows a large focus on Horus and the columns.

This is the final view of the textile checkered three times across and three down. Though I like the design, if I were to do it again, I would make it look more like a classic textile and either exclude the columns from the design or incorporate them in a different way. Although I like the design, I don't think it looks much like a fabric.