A Sweet New Collection

August 5, 2016

It's about a week into August and I'm not sure where the summer went but that's ok. I'm kind of glad summer is almost over because it means things will start to slow down! In June my family and I started our moved back to North Carolina so for those who are wondering, yes, I am finally back in Southern Pines. I am thrilled to be home again and thankful that my schedule is finally back to normal.

Despite being super busy with the move and getting settled in, I've still managed to produce a good amount of artwork much of which I've turned into adorable patterns. As a result, I've got a lot of new designs available for purchase in my Spoonflower shop and more on the way.

My sales on Spoonflower have finally started picking up. I'm finally making enough to pay for my swatches which is awesome, it means I'm finally getting somewhere with this.

In my opinion, my latest collection, Sweet Piggies, is the best design I've done this summer. I'm extremely impressed with the quality of fabric swatches I received from Spoonflower, the colors are vibrant and the line quality is crisp. As with every design, these sweet piggies and their snacks started as a simple black and white doodle.

My Pig is Always Flying

May 26, 2016

The phrase "When pigs fly" is an idiom similar to "when hell freezes over". It's a funny but rather pessimistic phrase, however it's one of my favorites. To me the flying pig is a symbol that represents the opposite, it is a symbol of the possibilities that are born from the imagination. Pigs aren't supposed to fly, but here they are, I made them fly. With a little creativity we can make anything we imagine come to life in some shape or form, even if it's just on paper. That's the beauty in being able to create. So whatever your pig is, give it a set of wings and let it fly.

I carved this sweet flying pig on a 5x7 block of linoleum. Once it was done I digitized it and turned it into a pattern that will be available in two different colors by the end of June as a fabric, wallpaper or wrapping paper on Spoonflower.

The version of my flying pig pictured above with a blueish background is available as an art print, pillow, cell phone case and more in my Society6 shop. If you are interested in an actual linocut print, shoot me an email and I will put you on my waiting list. I will produce a limited number of flying pig prints once I get settled in to my new home in July and hopefully lots of other prints too. More to follow on my move in another post :)

Intro to Stamp Making

May 14, 2016

For anyone who's been following along over the past few weeks I've been exploring print making with hand carved stamps and lino-cuts for making patterns and other works of art. Today I'm mostly going to touch on stamp making. Stamp making on rubber is pretty simple, lino-cutting is a little more complicated only because linoleum can be pretty tough to carve. There are several different mediums that can be used besides rubber and linoleum but so far I've only explored those two. I'm finding that the linoleum is great for working on a print that's going to have a lot of detail, it also requires a bit more work to get a good print to include print making inks. Rubber is good for stamping and a simple ink pad is all that's needed to make a mark. I like to create rubber stamps if I need something quick and simple for a pattern I am working on.

My daughter Mia making a print with her very first hand-carved stamp

To get started I recommend using rubber first. You'll need some scrap paper, a pencil, a sharpie, a rubber speedy cut block and a Speedball linoleum cutter. These items can be purchased via the links on Amazon (free shipping with Prime) or you can stop by your local Hobby Lobby. Unfortunately Michael's doesn't carry block cutting supplies. Once you have your supplies in hand spend some time researching your ideas and drawing thumbnails. Start with something simple and remember that you'll need to put your design on your rubber in reverse, especially text, otherwise you'll end up with a backwards mess. The nice thing about the rubber and linoleum is that it takes well to pencil so sketch your design out first in pencil and then go over it with a sharpie if needed. When you are ready to carve, start with the V cutter, moving it carefully away from your body. The U tools are useful for carving out larger areas but with the Speedball tools I find the larger V tool gets the job done. When you are done carving just ink, stamp and repeat. It's that easy.

When I'm done with my stamps I usually bring the imprints I make with them into Adobe Illustrator and create patterns, that's just one of many ways to use hand-made stamps.

If you need a little more direction, here's a quick CreativeBug video on stamp making, you can sign up for a free trial if you don't already have an account with them. There are also plenty of good tutorials on YouTube and a few good books. A good and really pretty starter book is Making an Impression: Designing & Creating Artful Stamps, by Geninne Zlatkis.

Good luck and please let me know how it goes by leaving a comment! Be sure to sign up for my newsletter for upcoming posts and tutorials.

Dinosaurs

May 12, 2016

This week Spoonflower's weekly design prompt was floral dinosaurs. The creative aproach I took to this project was my new favorite way of making art, lino-cutting. I'm pretty happy with how these cute dinosaurs came out. I envision the final product being used as nursery decor or for a little boys room. Head over to Instagram and be sure to like the image I posted of this pattern to help my chances at getting featured by Spoonflower.

Like this pattern? It'll be available as a fabric, wallpaper or wrapping paper in a few weeks.

Giant Squid

May 11, 2016

This squid was created for Spoonflower's Bucketfeet ocean conservation challenge. Voting opens on the 19th. The winner will get a licensing contract for their design with Bucketfeet among other prizes. To learn more about the contest click here. There's also a giveaway for a pair of Bucketfeet shoes that anyone can enter. I'll let everyone know when the voting opens so you can head over and vote for my design :). Be sure to sign up for my newsletter or follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to get a reminder.

My entry for the Spoonflower/Bucketfeet Challenge. Will also be available as a fabric/ wallpaper/ wrapping paper in a few weeks. Here's the link.

I'm Still Making Patterns

May 11, 2016

Today was day 20 of making patterns everyday and my plan was to make sure I did a blog post every week and post them as I went along but this pattern making thing has kept me really busy and it's starting to pull me in an interesting new direction.

I discovered homemade stamps last week- or linocut printing, and now I don't even want to share any of the work I did up until then (but I will). I really like the way it feels to work with my hands on tangible art and I think that's why I'm enjoying this method of making art so much. It's a good marriage of tangible and digital and I think with practice I'm going to be able to produce some really cool stuff. Here's some of the patterns I've created from stamps I've carved. The donut was actually carved by my daughter Mia. She's pretty talented.

Avocados and Flamingos

April 25, 2016

Today marks my 7th day of making patterns everyday for The 100 Day Project. I've decided to start my weeks on Tuesdays and end them on Mondays since the project officially started on a Tuesday. To save time i've decided to revisit past sketchbook entries for the patterns I make which in turn influences my current sketchbook entries. Last night I was drawing chili peppers and couldn't stop thinking about what a delicious repeat they'd make. I have a feeling poblanos will be on next week's pattern menu.

I had a lot of fun with the patterns I made this week. My favorites were the avocados and flamingos. The flamingos are actually a cross between a flamingo and a quail, but for the sake of category I think they most resemble a flamingo. The avocados were the easiest of the patterns I made. It usually takes me a while to pick colors and find the perfect repeat but with these they just fell into place. I think the avocados came so naturally because I've been eating a LOT of them lately.

My least favorite pattern was the Vintage Flower pattern. It was late when I started it and I didnt want to have to start on anything else so I just saw it through. It came out alright but I don't love it so I unless someone specifically requests it, I do not think I will include it in my Spoonflower shop.

Eat the Frog

Tomorrow starts another week of pattern making. This week I was challenged with time constraints but to my surprise I didn't let them interrupt my progress. Time has gotten in the way of a lot of my past creative projects and this year I've been working hard to overcome that hurdle. I heard a saying a while ago: "Eat the frog". When there's a project looming, no matter how excited I am about it I tend to procrastinate. "Eat the frog" basically means to just get it over with. To get around my procrastination and time issues I try to make this the first thing I do when I sit down at my desk to work. Not only does it get my daily pattern creation out of the way, but it also ignites my creativity spark for the rest of the day.

100 Days of Pattern Starts Today!

April 19, 2016

It's time for #THE100DAYPROJECT Instagram challenge that starts today and ends July 27th. The project was started by artist Elle Luna two years ago and has rapidly grown in popularty among artists around the world with thousands of creatives participating. I'm looking forward to being a part of this collaborative effort to create every day. The project can be anything you choose as long as it's something creative. Since I've fallen hard for pattern over the last few months I chose to create a pattern every day. I believe this will be a great opportunity to get some practice, refine my skills and hopefully get some exposure.

I'll be posting weekly here on my blog and daily on Instagram and Spoonflower. At the end of each month I will order swatches of my patterns to make them available for purchase as fabric, wrapping or wall paper. So please follow along on those channels and sign up for my newsletter to get updates or to join me in this challenge. Encouragement will certainly be helpful as I work through this project.

If you are doing your own creative #100DAYCHALLENGE let me know in the comments so I can follow your progress on Instagram.

Spring Wildflower fabric collection available on Spoonflower.

My first Fabric Collection on Spoonflower

April 7, 2016

One of the things I've always loved the most about being an artist is seeing my creation in print. I've been playing around with the online print on demand fabric shop Spoonflower for a while now but never actually took the leap and ordered swatches until last week. Spoonflower's policy is that in order to sell your designs on fabric, wallpaper or gift wrap you have to purchase a test swatch first to check colors, repeats and anything else that might not be noticed until the design is in print. I like this policy because it means people have to invest in their own designs before they are made available for other people to purchase, it's a nice layer of quality control.

Size difference: Gold file's resolution was 300 dpi and pink file was 150 dpi.

First time printing with Spoonflower!

After deciding it was time to invest in my designs and make them available for purchase I spent about two weeks perfecting the collection I planned to launch on Spoonflower. This collection is called Spring Wildflower and it's inspired the beauty I see popping up around me as the first wildflowers of the year begin to bloom. It comes in two color ways pink and gold. Both color ways can be found in my Spoonflower shop. I was extremely impressed when the sample swatches I ordered arrived. The colors are true to what I see on my screen and so is the size. The pink colorway is a little smaller than the gold and here's why: because this was my first experience with printing on spoon flower I wanted to compare sizes and differences in resolution. Spoonflower recommends uploading a file sized to 150 dpi because that's the resolution they print. I followed this advice and exported the pink color way from adobe illustrator at 150 dpi. For the gold color way I exported at 300 dpi. My 300 dpi files uploaded a little bigger than the 150 dpi but in print I think it actually came out crisper even though it shouldn't have made too much of a difference since Spoonflower prints at 150 dpi. I missed the size difference on the gold color way when I printed, had I caught it, I could have easily adjusted the size by selecting Spoonflower's option to make the design smaller. This would have printed both color ways at the same size. Now I know for next time but for this collection I plan to leave the gold color way as it is. I love the way they came out in the larger size and I wish I would have uploaded the pink in the larger size as well.

I'm working on finishing up my next collection and I'll share it as soon as I get the swatches ordered and approved so stay tuned!

Does anyone else have anything to add or share?

In Love with Pattern

March 29, 2016

A few years ago Adobe Illustrator came out with a pattern tool that made it possible to create patterns. I was amazed and would spend hours playing around with it but couldn't wrap my head around getting the pattern to repeat for the purpose of making a fabric, wallpaper, wrapping paper or some other textile that required a repeat. Over the past few months I've become very determined to learn all I can about patterns and pattern design. Learning to create a repeat was my first goal and honestly it wasn't that difficult thanks to a wealth of online resources.

Now that I've unlocked the my ability create and understand a repeat I see them everywhere! It's kind of crazy, I see patterns in a totally different light! What I love the most about pattern design is that it's fun! I can take a simple doodle and turn it into anything. It's like play time and when it comes to creating, that's extremely important.

Now that I've got the repeat down and I can't stop myself from making more patterns I'm working on figuring out the textile industry and where I fit in. I'm not sure where it's going to take me, but I know it's where I would LOVE to be. My next goal is to get some of my patterns on fabric and make something.

For those who are also interested in pattern design and want to learn with me, I'll share what I know and what I learn as I go along, but in the mean time, check out this Creativebug documentary, How to Design Fabric. It's a 5 part series that does a great job teaching what goes into making a pattern and the business of pattern design.

Thoughts? Questions? Please share in the comments below.