Giant Squid

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. 

Squid carved on linoleum

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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

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

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!

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. 

   By Elle Luna

My first Fabric Collection on Spoonflower

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. 

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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

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. 

Easter Egg Plant

While painting Easter eggs my son, Miles asked me to draw him a picture of an Easter egg plant. I loved this concept so here it is... an Easter egg plant or three with a cute little bunny. 

Garden Bird

Lately I've been obsessing over gouache paint. I love that it's similar to watercolor in the way it can be rewet to be used again after it dries and that it's semi to completely opaque depending on the color and water to paint ratio used.

So here I am writing about gouache paint and how much I love it so it would seem that this painting I'm presenting in this blog post is gouache but it's not. I have to be honest, it's a digital painting. However, I did download a set of gouache paint brushes that can be purchased on creativemarket.com. These $7.00 brushes were created by an artist named Kyle Webster and were recommended to me by one of my digital illustration instructors. At first I was skeptical because I've purchased plenty of digital brushes in the past only to be disappointed by the low quality or digital look of them, these brushes however have none of that. They actually behave a lot like real gouache, the quality is AMAZING and once I got the hang of them I really enjoyed creating this painting with them. While my digital painting skills are not exactly where they need to be (yet), I think it is a good reflection of how well the brushes work. 

This painting is available for sale on Society 6 an art print, pillow, tote bag and more. 

*post contains affiliate links to products I love and use in my creative process. 

Angel on the Other Side

From way back in the day: Auntie Diane on the left & my mother on the right. 

I wrote this for my cousins who lost their mother a few days ago. And for my uncle who lost his partner in life, his wife. 

Angel on the Other Side

They say you’re on the other side. 
Where is that? A place so far away.
A place I can’t see. 

If you’re on the other side,
why is it that when I close my eyes, 
I’m met with memories so vivid and real. 
I can smell your skin and hear your laugh. 

This other side, it just can’t be. 
These memories are like roads
Twisting and turning
They are fast and slow
I fear I am lost. 
No matter how hard I try,
I just can’t find the other side. 

Suddenly you appear, hand on my chest. 
And then you say:
Relax my love. I’m resting in your heart. 
Beating with you and for you.
I’ll be your music and we’ll travel on together. 
Love always, your angel on the other side.

I'm All Over the Place

I'm all over the place! Or at least I feel like I am. These past few weeks have been a bit crazy for me. In an effort to get school over with faster I increased my course load. Simultaneously, my work load also increased... and so did the ballet practices for my girls! When it rains it pours right? Regardless, I know this is only temporary and this period of being uncomfortably busy is actually forcing me to be a little more decisive in my creative process. And when I'm decisive, I find I'm more productive :) Perhaps I should just stay busy for the sake of making good art. 

Anyway, here are two little illustrations I did this week for one of my classes. 

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An illustrated "set design" for school

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Characters