Summer Fabric Designs: Crickets and Fireflies

After a few months away from Spoonflower, I finally got back into it this summer.  I've been entering many of the weekly contests, which has been great practice and a lot of fun. 

Two of my summer designs were for the crickets and fireflies contests, and here are my designs.

 

I have to say that I was really happy with how each of these designs turned out; however they didn't do too great in the contests.  Go figure.  I can never predict which designs will make it to the top.  I usually vote for about half of them and the other half is always a complete surprise.  Therefore, I have to remember to design things I am happy with and know that not everyone will love it. 

I tried something a little different with my fireflies design.  I colored in the fireflies freehand using the brush tool.  I like how it looks imperfect, like they are doodles in a child's coloring book, making it a great design to decorate a kid's room with. 

The great thing about Spoonflower now is that you can also buy wallpaper, wall decals, and wrapping paper!  Wouldn't these be fun to wrap a child's birthday gift in? 


Pin It Now!

I'm Still Here

Hi everyone!

Life has been busy over the past year since I started this blog.  It's been the best year of my life thanks to the decision I made to quit my job and go back to school for design.  I've met new people, had some great teachers, learned gobs of new things, and created like a mad woman.  And it will be continuing for another year.

This semester, I'm taking 3 art classes- life drawing, digital drawing, and art history; and 2 web design classes- HTML and Dreamweaver, and Flash.  It's been a crazy start to the year!  I have no doubt that I'll continue to learn at least a handful of new things every day.

Lately my mind has been going crazy with plans for the future.  I have a new idea at least once a week.  Business ideas, specialty areas, websites I want to create, freelancing, new techniques to try... the list goes on and on.  My husband hears me say all the time "Andy, guess what..." and then I get all serious and excited with probably this crazed look in my eyes like an animal that's been in a cage for the last decade and now is finally free to roam around.  I guess I'm nuts; but in a good way.

A fun project I have in the works right now in my digital drawing class:

Pin It Now!

Abstract Pastel Drawing

School update!

 

One of our drawing projects this semester was to take a still life and abstract it.  We first drew the still life realistically (mine had a pedestal, grapes in a small pot, two flowers in a large bottle, a leafy plant in a pot, flourescent lights and poles in the background, and lots of tall leafy greens in the foreground). We then studied the objects and broke them down into basic shapes.  Then we did some sketches and chose one to be our final drawing while focusing on shapes, lines, overall composition, and a split complimentary color scheme.

 

We could decide to what extent the abstraction was (mine was on the far end of the spectrum), what colors to use, how the objects would be arranged, if we wanted it to be flat or have dimension, and if the space would be realistic or ambiguous. 

 

Here's about halfway through, as I was getting my basic colors in place:

 

 

I gave some objects some sort of dimension with some highlights, and I wanted my space to be ambiguous- so I tried to have my objects "fall into" each other, overlap in odd ways, and not make a lot of sense. 

 

Close to being done, with some colors that have yet to be blended & some spaces yet to fill in:

I really like how it turned out!  It has been, by far, my favorite drawing to complete.  The process was enjoyable from beginning to end.  I think abstraction is my thing. 

And here's some details with just a few of the many many many things my amazing drawing teacher has taught me! 

I love you, school!

Pin It Now!

For the U.S. History Teachers teaching the Great Depression

A big part of what I think about on a daily basis, is how to use my new graphic design skills to

a) help people
b) make myself happy
c) be successful possibly working from home
d) incorporate my teaching skills

I created this Great Depression info sheet for my sister, who is a seriously awesome new teacher.  I asked her to try out this idea with her class to see if anyone liked it, and to see if it was helpful.  So I thought I'd post it here in case it can be helpful to any History teachers out there in the world! 

I know FDR looks pretty weird, but you know... any attention grabber with high schoolers is probably a good thing. 

Fingers are crossed that if you click on the image, you'll be able to print it full quality.  But if not, please let me know and I will gladly email you a high quality PDF.

Happy weekend!



Pin It Now!

Illustration Friday- WOOL

This week's illustration topic was wool!  Fun!  I couldn't wait to try out something new, and here's how it ended up. 

I love the look of a mix of traditional and digital techniques, and I've really been wanting to play with it more to see what I can come up with.  So here's how I got this particular look.

We've been working with soft pastels in drawing class, so I thought I'd give them a try this week to draw some sheep.  To be honest, I've been struggling with them for some reason, so any chance to use them more is a good thing.  Then I added a streaky sky with my watercolor pencils.  And here's the image I started with:

Not too pretty yet.  But I knew I was going to just use it to play around digitally, so it didn't have to look great or finished at this point.  So first I scanned it and deepened the colors a bit in Photoshop.  Then I took it into Illustrator and tried the different live trace settings to see how I could get it to look. 

I ended up liking parts of the Color 6, Simple Trace, and Comic Book versions, so I saved each of them and then took everything back into Photoshop.

That's when I got to have fun, cut apart the images, use the parts I liked & delete what I didn't like, mess with the layer modes, rearrange, flip, duplicate parts, change the colors, and basically collage everything into my final image!

How do you think it turned out? 

You can go check out all the other "wool" themed illustrations at Illustration Friday!




Pin It Now!

Illustration Friday- Wheels

Pinwheels!

As soon as I saw last week's topic of wheels, this image almost immediately came to mind after deciding to go with pinwheels.  Isn't he cute?  I sort of think he's my husband as a kid. 

The stomach flu chewed us up and spit us out earlier this week, but I had to get this entry in just at the buzzer!

Happy weekend, everyone!

Pin It Now!

Australian Animals Fabric + Contest

 

This week's Spoonflower contest is all about the amazingly loveable animals of Australia!  I had so much fun designing this fabric and I love the way it turned out.  Today I thought I'd share my design process.

 

I tend to get an immediate picture in my head when I first start a design, whether it be fabric for Spoonflower, a print or card for Etsy, or a project for school.  But once I have an idea to start with, it may change depending on how it looks once I start sketching things out and arranging them on the computer.

 

I'm lucky to be in a graphic design program that is part of what I believe is a solid art program.  My teachers believe in learning traditional art methods as well as the Adobe programs.  Even though it is just a two year program, it includes three semesters of drawing, as well as separate 2-D and 3-D design classes, in addition to many others.  My graphic design teacher also emphasizes sketching several thumbnail ideas before beginning work on the computer, which I love.

 

For this fabric, I knew I wanted to include animal silhouettes, so I began by sketching the animals I chose.  Absolutely nothing fancy.  

 

I scanned in my sketchbook pages, darkened the lines using Levels in Photoshop, and then placed the images in Illustrator so I could trace the outlines, fill in the shapes, and fix up anything that didn't look quite right.

I have to admit, I was sort of impressed with myself at this point.  It was like "ohmygoshthosearesocuteANDYCOMELOOKATMYANIMALS!!"  God bless him for looking every single time I asked him to :)  And I hope I'm not totally immature and annoying for getting excited about making something I think looks good.  But look at the funny kookaburra with the big head!  And the tough little cute ferocious tasmanian devil!

Next up was the fun part- arranging everything!  Here's where I played with colors, created my color palette, mixed up the sizes, duplicated shapes, added the circles and background, and made sure it looked visually balanced and would repeat well as a fabric design. 

At this point, I am sort of thinking about composition and design elements that I've learned in school, but a lot of it is also just my natural instinct, and what looks right to me.  I spend a lot of time making small adjustments, scooching objects a hair this way or that, changing colors, scaling things up or down, looking at the spaces between objects, etc. until I'm satisfied with how it looks to me.

I did some things in this fabric that I think give it depth and interest, such as overlapping the shapes in the foreground and adding the on-purpose unevenly spaced horizontal and vertical lines in the background.  It was amazing how much adding those stripes changed the way the whole design looked!

Here's how the design repeats at the size of a fat quarter for you sewers and quilters out there.

 

I think it's my favorite fabric creation so far!  What do you think? 

 

If you like it, please go vote in the contest!

 

Is your creative process anything like mine, or completely different?



Pin It Now!

New Thank You Cards in Boju Designs!

Remember this ink drawing I did when I was snowed in over Christmas break?

I really liked it, but I didn't know if it would work well just as a print to frame, so I decided to try note cards!

 

I had so much fun coloring these digitally in Illustrator, and it was so satisfying to see something that I had hand-drawn come to life on the computer.  I decided to go with four different crops and four different color schemes and include one of each in the set. 

You can check them out in my shop here.

What do you think?  I already have some other ideas for cards filling my brain, but I'm curious, what would you like to see as a card?

Pin It Now!

Snake Scale Chevron Fabric

Hi everyone!

I was so excited to be able to design a new fabric over Christmas break and enter it in the current Spoonflower contest: Year of the Snake.

I knew I wanted it to be abstract, and once I had the scales placed, I played with different color patterns.  I started with vertical wavy stripes, but then switched to a chevron pattern and really loved the way it looked.  I'm also really happy with the fun colors.

Here's the screen shot of the fabric from my shop, a fat quarter size.

What do you think?

Pin It Now!

Digital self portraits

So one of my classes right now is Digital Imagery, where we learn all about Photoshop.  I've done some things in Photoshop with photos, but this was my first project where we worked exclusively with the paintbrush tools.  It was challenging, but really fun, and I got to explore my style a little bit.  We had to paint our own self portrait, using a photo and sampling the colors from it to paint ourselves in a new layer.  The final digital portrait is completely painted, with no part of the original photo showing through.

Here was my first one, which I didn't really love.  But it was really good practice with different brush tools and shapes, blending the colors, and using lots of layers and effects to get the smooth look to the skin and trying to get the hair right.  It took forever!

Do you recognize it?  (Looks like I forgot the earrings... oh, and the slight bags under the eyes...)

Here was my second one, which is the one I turned in.  I LOVED this style so much more!  It was made with bigger blocks of color, blended just lightly with the smudge tool.  I was going for an impressionistic look, and I am so happy with how it turned out.  (The colors look off because I printed it and then photographed it... the colors are much better in person.)

And here's the original photo.

How do you think they turned out? 

I am just so happy with all the things I'm learning!  I'm so thankful every day for this opportunity I have to be back in school and to be creative daily.  It feels amazing.  I have so many new goals and dreams for my future I think I could just explode!  In a good way.


Pin It Now!

Silly Halloween Fabric

Hi everyone and happy Friday!

I'm so excited to share my newest fabric design with you!  I created it for this week's Spoonflower contest with the theme creepy crawlies.

I started with the spiders as the creepy crawlies and added some other fun and goofy looking Halloween creatures.  I don't like the scary Halloween stuff!  Goofy and silly with googly eyes for me, please.

I love the way it turned out!  The design worked so well with a half drop repeat also.  Here's a screen shot from my Spoonflower shop.

There are so many fun designs in the contest this week; you can go here to check them out and vote for your favorites!

I'm off to spend time with my family!  They are driving 6 hours to visit me, and I have to say that I am one lucky lady!  

What are you up to this weekend?  Hope it's a good one!





Pin It Now!

My principles of design collage book

Hi everyone & happy Monday!

A few weeks ago, I completed a project for my 2D design class that took hours and hours and hours... and our relationship was definitely touch and go for a while there...

But when I finally finished, I could not have been more proud of the finished product!

The assignment was to:

1.  Make a book out of paper, chip board, thread, and fancy paper.
2.  Create a spread for each of the 8 principles of design, using both collaged images and hand applied media, to show complete understanding of each principle.
3.  Use cut out images from books or magazines in each spread.
4.  Add your own black and white "stuff" to each spread.

Here's my book!

Completely unnecessary disclaimer:  The obviously professional cut out images are not my own, and I do not claim them to be.  They were used in this project for educational purposes.

I really wanted each spread to have images that represented the principle, plus I wanted the collage as a whole to represent the principle, and I wanted the written title to represent the principle.

I spent forever finding images, planning what I could draw on each page, how I could connect everything, and how I could make sure it all came together to represent the principle of design.  I also spent a lot of time sketching the titles, writing them on graph paper, tracing them, and writing them in with ink.

Some problems I had included the book not opening and closing correctly (I had to cut it apart and make it again), the ink bleeding through (luckily this happened before I had everything glued in, so I was able to change some layouts to cover it up), and time management in general (I bet this took 20+ hours, which was frustrating to find time for in one week, knowing it was just worth 20 points!)

When I showed it to Andy, he said "Looks pretty cool... but I don't really get it."

Hahaha... oh Andy...

So... how do you think it turned out?  Do you 'get it'?  



Pin It Now!

Thrifty art purchases including my favorite print of all time

 First purchase:  the set of Andy Warhol inspired Campbell's soup cans from Target!  I mean honestly, they only cost 75 cents each!  My plan is to cut off the labels and frame them as prints, and I'm so excited to see them up on the wall!  Beautiful and so so fun.

Second purchase!  When my friend Erin was visiting, we decided to peruse some local vintage stores in search of wedding decor for her reception... but look what I found for myself! 

 Holy oh my gosh!  I picked it up and did not put it down until it was resting safely in the bag after I bought it.  I don't often make impulse purchases, but I just HAD TO HAVE this!  Look at that sweet child's face all glowing... with that lighting... and that bright book cover... I can't look away!  It was like it had the strongest Earth magnet inside and attached itself to me.  An amazing print to encourage children to read?!?!  Um, could I love anything more?!?! 

Here's what was written on the back.  To add to my love for this print, it was from the year my grandma was born.  I can't even take it, I love it so much.  Jon Brubaker, you are a genius.

So before I decided to stop teaching, I had just started my master's program in Reading.  I loved loved loved teaching reading.  It was my favorite part of the day, and I was hoping to one day be a reading specialist and really help students and a school in a broader way.  But then... well, you know how that story ended...  But just because I left my teaching career doesn't mean I stopped loving kids or caring about literacy.  I love reading, look forward to reading with my own children one day, and hope to be involved with children and literacy in some way in the future.  Like maybe designing reading program layouts/ graphics?  Illustrating children's books?  Working for a company that is child focused?  Designing educational websites?  Fingers are crossed starting now until my dreams come true :)

You can read more about Children's Book Week here.  Please help promote literacy!


Pin It Now!

wanna know what you do in art school?

You sketch a lot.  A lot, a lot.  You learn to use cool phrases like "negative space" in casual conversations (i.e. Did you know the FedEx logo has an arrow in the negative space between the e and x?)  You have long 2-3 hour classes, but you get a lot of work time, which I'm finding is very calming and awesome.  You get to be creative 100% of the day and are inspired by the talented and creative people around you.  You carry 1,000 pounds of art supplies to class.  You have 4 sketchbooks.  You have lots and lots of homework. 

Here are a few of my first assignments.



This was my first sketchbook assignment for my drawing class.  We are learning how to get the proper scale and proportion.  See those guide lines going through areas of the first sketch?  That's what we're practicing.  We aren't worried about shading or details or anything else yet.  Just getting the right sizes and placement for each object.  These sketches were about 6 hours of work.  Checking the proportions is a lot of stopping, seeing, checking, re-sketching, and so on. 

In the second sketch, we had to make our 3 objects come to life and it had to tell a story.  Ha.

I have never considered myself an artist, and have never thought I was great at drawing.  But I can't believe how much learning this one strategy has already boosted my confidence!  I would have never been able to draw this 3 weeks ago!  It's amazing, and I am absolutely excited about the semester. 

Here's my first real project.  This one was done in Adobe InDesign for my type and digital layout class.  This was the class I was most excited for because I love fonts, using words as art, layouts and making everything look right.  I love it! 

This assignment was to take 3 personality words and put them in a meaningful layout.  We had to use the four types of font (serif, sans serif, script, and decorative), 3-7 colors, had to draw at least 3 shapes, and had to do it in a way that showed the meaning of the words.  How do you think I did?  (excusing the poor picture quality and streak the lab printer left me as a parting gift)

I say "I love art school" at least once a day.  Sometimes it's even "I can't wait to go to school tomorrow."  This weekend, I missed it.  I'm not sure if this is normal behavior, or if I'm just in my honeymoon phase... but I am so on cloud nine.

Hope your week is treating you right as well!

 

Pin It Now!

Hands off my Crayons

This week's contest theme is school supplies!  I'm so excited to check out all the fabrics and vote for my favorites.... because, well, I love school supplies!  Especially crayons.  Those were just the best things to buy and use.  I mean, come on...

They're beautiful.  They're colorful.  They're organized.  They come in huge boxes which hold approximately one million of them.  They have cool labels.  They have a distinct smell.  If you get a big enough box, the colors will have amazing names.

How could I NOT choose to create my fabric based on these little guys?

Now, go vote!

And don't forget to... 





Pin It Now!