A floral pattern I designed a while ago... it was initially designed as part of a ladies wear collection, but I could definitely see it on kids as well. I love children clothes with a more sophisticated colour palette!
Some children's cards I did a few years ago...
I am really busy doing a children's book illustration at the moment and the deadline is in a months time. So I thought I would post some cards I did a few years ago, when I worked at UK Greetings.
Some of my cards in Clintons...
I saw some of my cards in Clintons a while ago. I did these a few years ago just before I left UK Greetings to start my freelance business...
Children's Greeting Cards
I'm really busy with work at the moment...which is a GREAT! This is the first quieter day for a while,,,so I thought I would post some of my older work.
Here's a range of children's greeting card's I designed last year.
Childrenswear Pattern Repeat...
Anyone for ice cream!
My 1st watercolour class for about 8 years...
I really enjoy painting, but I always feel the fear and procrastinate when I do it.
I used to go to a watercolour class with a really talented artist Fran McGarry when I lived in Bristol about 8 years ago, and then I moved up North for my job.
Now I am back home (between Bristol and Bath) I am going to try and go to Fran's classes every tuesday morning, to build up my confidence. The great thing about the class, is I end up painting something that is totally different to my normal style.
If you live in the Bristol area and fancy a spot of watercolour painting Fran's Facebook page is here
https://www.facebook.com/FranMcGarryWatercolourArtClasses/
I enjoyed this morning…Thanks Fran :)
Here is my painting... I will blog about it, so I can see how and if I improve.
Watercolour Bird Pattern Repeat...
I had developed a pattern, from the birds I had designed for the Global Talent Search 2015 final.
At the time I didn't have an A3 printer and had not printed it out onto paper, before sending it to Spoonflower. When I received the fat quarter I realised that the scale was much smaller than I had thought.
I now realise the importance of printing out a design on paper before sending it to be printed on fabric. It looks so very different on screen and I find the scale is quite hard to judge, especially in photoshop.
Here is the art file of the bird pattern...
and here is the design printed on fabric.
It's too small in scale and the design is too busy for what I had in mind... I am going to make it bigger, take out some elements and mix it with a chevron stripe co-ord.
Hopefully 2nd time around I will prefer it :)
Oooops I have neglected my blog...
It is my new years resolution to update my blog regularly and even though it is now March and I have failed dismally, I am starting afresh from today.
I was so disappointed at not being picked as one of Lilla's artist's in the final of the global talent search 2015... but that's life. It took a week or so to get over the disappointment and then I had to pick myself up and start growing and promoting my design business again.
I do find it hard to promote myself, it is difficult putting my work out there and also finding the time to do personal work as well as paid work. I heard someone in the business say that you need to spend about 25% of your time marketing yourself and that is what I am going to try to do from today. Here goes !
Here are some of the home decor products I designed for the final of the global talent search 2015.
I'm a Finalist in the prestigious Lilla Rogers Global Talent Search…yippee!
GTS Semi Final Brief...
I am over the moon to be selected for the semi finals of Lilla Rogers Global Talent Search competition. The second project brief was to design a tin, to be sold in a boutique gift shop owned by Antoinette. Here is my project, I really hope you like it…if you do please vote for me on the following link.
Thanks so much :)
http://lillarogers.com/wp-content/plugins/lilla-rogers-gts/viewimg.php?img_id=2816&post_id=22301
GTS Semi Finalist…yippee!!!!
Yay, I am beyond thrilled to have made it to the semi finals of Lilla Rogers Global talent search competition!
The brief was to design a pair of sneakers for a hip young woman called Antoinette living in New York City. Antoinette owns a popular boutique and likes to stock her shop with beautiful gift products.
Some of her favourite things are peonies and she also adores all shades of robin's egg blue… this was the inspiration for my design.
Howdy little elephants...
Here are a few more jungle characters I have been working on recently...
Jungle characters for kids...
I have been working on a jungle inspired project recently…such fun!
Experimenting with different techniques...
Since finishing the MATS Home Decor course, I have been feeling really inspired to try different creative techniques. I have done a few online courses on https://www.creativebug.com, one was blind contour drawing with Molly Hatch, which was fun…I like the naive look of the drawings, I might make a pattern for some blinds in my kitchen! :)
MATS-Wood week
Wood week was the last week of the course and the brief was textures. I decided to base my design on the kitchen this week and my main products were oversized vintage style chopping boards with recipes on them...
MATS Ceramic week
I was really looking forward to ceramic week, I have always been fascinated as to how the finishes are achieved. This weeks ceramic brief was to include hand lettering in your design. I stayed with my painterly style and felt more pleased with the final outcome on this one...
MATS Glass week...
The brief for glass week was to include pattern on your products.
Having felt the need to start painting again over the last 2 weeks of the course, I took the plunge and got cracking and boy did I feel the fear!!
I decided to keep the actual products quite simple, as I was concentrating mainly on painting, so I did 3 plates in various sizes. The florals were based on buttercups, dandelions and various grasses and weed type shapes.
MATS Fabric Week
The brief for fabric week was florals, which was lovely and you could also include the birds from the previous week.
When I started this brief I found that it was quite difficult for me. I normally design cute, quite colourful work and the mood board I had selected for the home decor course had fairly muted and quite sophisticated colours. I found it hard, as I kept wanting to add cute birds or quirky characters, but I was trying to achieve a more grown up look. It took a bit of getting used to.
At this stage I also felt I should be doing a more painterly style, as this is big in home decor at the moment. But having not painted for a good few years, it was kind of scary, so I stayed with my normal style of hand drawing everything and then live tracing in illustrator, apart from the bird canvas on the left hand side that was done with watercolour paints.
I was pleased with the final designs, but also felt frustrated, as i knew it should have been more painterly...
MATS-Home Decor...
I have been super busy over the last month and wanted to share the rest of my home decor assignments on my blog. The course was so enjoyable, I learnt loads about the home decor market and I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in this.
I tweaked the first weeks Metal assignment slightly, so I have reposted that again...
Lilla's Home Decor Course Wk 1…Metal
I have been really looking forward to doing this course, my dream would be to produce a line of home decor products and I have always wondered, what the different techniques are called and how to explain this on your artwork. The course is presented by Lilla and Margo Tantau, VP of Creative for MidwestCBK.
I started off the week feeling really excited, I wanted to produce some screen printed looking designs, fairly simple, but bold and contemporary. I have no screen print experience (although I am planning to do a course shortly in Bristol at Spike Studio's) so I played around with hand printing. The theme was birds, and I got crackin (as Lilla says) and produced some hand printed textures that I thought were ok, scanned them in and experimented in photoshop. By Wednesday I had a design that I really liked... but by Thursday I was not so keen :)
I am not sure why this is, but when I finish my art in photoshop, it always feels to me more traditional in styling and I was looking for a contemporary piece.
So my work started off like this...
and then it went to this...
there was still something that I wasn't sure about, it was bugging me, so I tried another...
On friday I had a complete re-think... I realised that my taste in home decor is quite different to my normal paper products/surface pattern design. I had recently moved back to Bath from North Yorkshire, where I was working as a greeting card designer for a big company, to set up my freelance business and my house needs some re-vamping, as it has been rented out for 5 years. I wanted to design some products that I could make for myself, to put in the house. My taste is quite natural when it comes to home decor, I like white walls with patterned accessories, adding life to the place ...muted cols, natural fabrics and wood, but still very contemporary.
I drew some very simple shapes of florals and birds, scanned them, live traced in illustrator and then I played around with the colour to produce a design that was more me!
I am much happier with this design and feel I learnt absolutely loads last week, not only about the process, but also about the way I work differently, on different products.
My final design...
