a NEW YEAR of Surface Pattern Designs!

Below are a few of my original textile or surface pattern designs---the top 2 are hand painted with watercolors, and the bottom left flowers on the black background are hand painted in gouache. The design on the bottom left was completely designed on the computer--in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Can you tell I really love creating floral designs and I love hand painting?

I usually do not create NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS because I have learned over the years that I rarely keep any resolutions I make. How about you? What is your success rate on annual New Year resolutions?

However these designs have been languishing in my portfolio----(stored under my bed!!!!)---for 2 years now and I have decided it is time I make a real effort to sell them and/or the many other surface pattern designs I have in my portfolio. So I am creating a plan for marketing my designs in 2012....is that a resolution? well not exactly. Which is good, as I want to avoid my usual failure---so I am planning for the NEW YEAR--how about you?

F is for Flowers

One hand painted watercolor textile design


and one textile design created completely on the computer in Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop

"I'm late, I'm late for a very important date..."

Working at home---I struggle with time management--do you?

There are those "time wasters" right here on the computer. For me, it is Facebook and my fave wordgame Bookworm...oh! and Stumble Upon.

It is just so easy to get sucked in----surfing and reading and looking at other's crafts, rather than creating my own stuff. Then, before I know it several hours have passed. What to do?

1) try using a timer? to limit my facebook and other net time?
2) allow myself to read facebook and post there as a reward for getting work done?
any suggestions--- are welcome and THANKS!

oh--and I don't count daydreaming or my mind wandering as "time wasted" because I know that is necessary for my creativity.

This design was painted in gouache and then scanned into photoshop for layout, colors and so on...(I call it: "I'm late, I'm late for a very important date...")

Gotta go--time's 'awasting!

Applied Product Design: Foxyarts Shop

In between working on my fabric designing, I am trying out placing a few of my designs on products at Cafe Press. So far, I am testing how they reproduce with one design---I call this design "Meow!"

You can purchase these or take a closer look at the blank journal and mug at my Cafe Press shop Foxyarts.

Jungle Surface Pattern Design

This "loose" style design is created with a felt tip pen for the line work and dyes for the colors....this playful design could be used for textiles, wrapping paper, scrapbook paper.....or for any number of products--how about a nice shower curtain with a jungle on it?

Of course, I am only showing a small portion of my design here--the original is 18" x 24" in size, and there are more animals....this is just a preview. I had fun creating this design ;-)

Creative Every Day!

I've joined an online "challenge"---to be creative every day--and to post my daily creative endeavor on this blog. I may not post an image every day, but I will be CREATIVE EVERY DAY.
So, here is my creative piece for today---postage stamps from Zazzle.com with one of my flower designs. I originally created this all-over flower design for my textile and surface pattern design portfolio, and now I am using the design for postage stamps to promote my design business. The original design is painted in gouache. And yes, these are actual U. S. postage stamps which I can (and do!) use to mail letters.

Fabric Journal

I have started a visual fabric journal-- well the journal is sewn--but I am mixing paper and fabrics on each page. The paper is all my own designs---mostly small "roughs" from my fabric design classes (visit the design school here)--in color palettes I ended up not using, or designs I haven't completed. I wanted to create a textile "sample book" or "swatch book" with some of my designs--and so far this is the result. I used grommets and ribbon for the binding. Here the large flowers in purples and green on the pink background are my design--painted in gouache. I eventually chose a very different palette to use with this design.

The left page here is part of a of a flower design I created in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, and the right page has part of a design painted in watercolors with inked linework (midpage).

On this page the orange arrows on lavender are my design--painted in gouache.

Here the left side is part of a "doodled" design--but I used a very different color palette for the finished design. I drew this in black and white, then scanned it into the computer and colored it in Photoshop. On the right, the dark gold, brown, and red design is another "doodle"--never used. The nice thing about the ribbon/grommet binding is that I can easily add pages as I make them since this is an on-going journal.

Painting Flowers

I have been obsessed this past week with painting an intricate flower design in the Jacobean style---a large design (17"x 24") in 9 colors. This is an assignment for my Fabric Design classes.

Here are some examples of the details---a small part of the overall design which I have completed so far. These photos were taken at my work desk inside--so the colors are not quite true. First I painted a "ground"--the background color (a beige, with some green in the color)---covering the whole 17" x 24" area, then I traced my design onto the ground, then began painting the design. The designing of the pattern and palette took several weeks--with many changes. I painted several "roughs" of small areas of the design, and revised my colors from these roughs--several times. It was a relief to finally get to the actual over-all painting, once I had my colors all mixed to match my approved roughs. The paint is gouache. The outlining is a red archival Pigma felt tip pen.




QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts." ---Rachel Carson

Plaids

I have been spending quite a bit of time lately designing plaids in Photoshop--an assignment for my Fabric Design Classes, which hooked me in---so much fun seeing how this color blends with that color! So--here area few of them--I have many, many more---but I like these ones---at least today they are some of my favorites...tomorrow--who knows?





QUOTE FOR THE DAY:
"Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises."
Elizabeth Zimmermann, 1910-1999

Doodle Flowers or Patterns of Life

Since I was a small child, I have loved patterns--patterns in nature, and human made patterns--which are mostly derived from the natural world. The noted anthropologist Angeles Arrien says in her book THE SIGNS OF LIFE, Five Universal Shapes and How to Use Them, "I discovered that five basic shapes appear in the art of all cultures: the circle, the square, the triangle, the cross, and the spiral...the study [she conducted] also confirmed that people in different cultures do give similar meaning to these shapes. The circle symbolizes wholeness, the square indicates stability, the triangle represents goals and dreams, the cross stands for relationship, and the spiral means growth. It also became evident to me that the meaning attributed to each shape stands for a process of human growth, and the shape carries this process within itself."

Thus--patterns I am attracted to carry cultural meanings--which most of the time, I don't even think about or consider. Today I wandered around our house, snapping photos of a few of the patterns we are surrounded with.





Perhaps that is also why I am drawn to poetry---since poetry tends to arrange language and words into patterns much of the time.

I will speak to you in stone-language
(Answer with a green syllable)
I will speak to you in snow-language
(Answer with a fan of bees)
I will speak to you in water-language
(Answer with a canoe of lightening)
I will speak to you in blood-language
(Answer with a tower of birds)
----Octavio Paz



Arrien's book has a process to use the five universal shapes "as an effective tool that can be used to determine the connection between a person's preference for certain shapes and the same person's inner, subjective states." For example, if you are drawn toward circles and triangles--what does this say about you and your cultural world view?





Since I could draw--as a young child--I have drawn and doodled repetitive patterns, and now--in my fabric design classes, I am learning to create repetitive patterns---from these universal shapes, or from nature.

I call this "pattern" I designed DOODLE FLOWERS.

Playing around in Adobe Illustrator today I created this "pop" self-portrait thanks to this post by Terry grant of Portland, Oregon--she directed viewers of her portrait to this great quick tutorial "how to do pop portraits".



this was fun--and the "pop" aspect--with minimal drawing allows me to appear nice and young---like going back in time some.

I have been taking classes in both Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Adobe Illustrator CS2 at the California School of Professional Fabric Design, where I am a currently studying to be a designer. A year ago I would not have known how to do this--to draw this in Illustrator (the basis was a digital photo)and save the image for the web, and upload it to my blog...
Now, thanks to the Fabric Design School computer classes I am exploring more and more creative ways to use these great design programs.

And for more practice (and fun!)I also created this pop-portrait of my partner, Larry...the quintessential folk musician.

Studio Walls

This morning I decided to share some images from my small art studio walls; some of these are works in progress, some are studies for larger fabric designs, some are just unfinished drawings(or "doodles"), and some are unfinished beaded pieces. Those of you who know me (in person) know I doodle all the time--rather obsessively. I fill notebooks, and sometimes a doodle becomes a fabric design or morphs into a large painting...and or course in between the partially finished pieces, are inspirational quotes and bits of beadwork I have picked up at thrift stores and garage sales. To some, my studio walls may look cluttered--but I only hang up images or pieces that I find pleasing to my eye--and the walls are constantly changing; I think of it as a sort of art-in-progress collage.








This beaded white owl I am creating by embedding the seed beads in wax---someone gave me this bird's nest they found---the nest and finding the "white owl" cigar box were inspiration for this piece. For awhile now I have been doing art mostly about animals and our natural world because much of the time our only interaction with wild animals is destructive to them or their habitat. I believe we must find new ways of thinking and seeing that allow us to approach our relations with other creatures in a way which balances our power over them with the dignity, reverence, and gratitude every living creature deserves.



If you read my bio here, you know I spent over half of my life working on commercial fishing boats in Alaska--hence I have a life-long fascination with sea creatures and mermaids, and with whales, and all aspects of ocean life. Mermaids tend to show up my my artwork quite often--this is only a "doodle" sketch in pen/ink, colored pencils and water color gouache.

Toiles de Jouy

For my fabric design course I have to design a Toiles de Jouy fabric. Toile de Jouy originated in France in the 1800s. In the French language, the phrase literally means "cloth from Jouy-en-Josas", a town of north-central France.



The first step in designing a classic fabric pattern is always research. While scouting for toile fabrics I also discovered I really like this style of fabric design. Here are just a few of the toiles I found--aren't they lovely?






Toiles are typically designed in white or cream colors with a classic blue, red, or black print. Toiles used to be used mainly for home decor--such a pillows or curtains---but recently I have been seeing toiles used in clothing and on bags and purses.