Pauline Greuell
A Textile Design Studio
Work and inspiration
I am a self-taught fabric designer and printer. I work from my own studio in Utrecht in heart of the Netherlands. My designs are exclusively designed and printed by hand, mostly using a stencil printing technique. It is a technique that I happened upon by accident and that I have thoroughly explored over the years. It is the way I can best express what lives inside me on fabric. The slowness of this way of designing forces me to be really deliberate about what I want to create.
For inspiration I look at nature around me and also at designs from bygone eras – for example at the Wiener Werkstaette and the Arts & Crafts movement - where patterns were exclusively designed by hand. There is a playfulness and sense of freedom of expression in the designs and the movement in many of the patterns that is enormously inspiring to me.
I produce the printed fabrics myself in my studio as well as make the products in my shop. I like to collaborate with brands that feel like a good fit to me.
How the textiles are printed
The stencil printing technique I am using is one that I have developed over time. It is a different from most stencil printing techniques I have come across. I use a number of brush techniques to create different effects like transparency, gradients and depth. I layer stencils to create more complex designs, often using about 10 layers to make a print, in the way block printers do. The ink I am using is a transparent screen-printing ink which shows the fibre of the fabric through the print. There is a lot of information about my supplies and techniques on my blog. I also teach my techniques in basic and advanced classes.
