After a year of learning everything there is to know about surface design, I’ve finally managed to sign up and open a store with Redbubble a print on demand company who work with artists to print their designs onto all sorts of items from clothing and notebooks to mugs and cushions.
I’ve uploaded my first collection of designs, the first ones to come out of Summer School 23 with Make It In Design, available to purchase from Redbubble. The link is here, and this is my collection.
All four designs in this first collection can be purchased on many different products so I’m excited to see where this takes me.
Anyone who’s ever taken a walk with me will know I usually come home with a few ‘finds’ in my pocket which I use either as inspiration for a drawing, digital sketch or just to photograph and scan into Illustrator. These were my finds from last week, a collection of seeds, nuts and berries gathered during a long walk in the forest with my dog.
I love this time of year especially for the seed heads which are everywhere. I find them just as fascinating as the flowers they started out as. Sometimes they’re even better and more interesting. This collection made a perfect study for drawings and photos.
By the middle of the week I had a few images ready to work on in Illustrator.
After a bit more work plus finding a suitable colour palette to work from I came up with a few designs I really love. I’ve turned these into greetings cards which are now in my Etsy shop.
I’m super happy with how they turned out and so glad I walk everywhere with my eyes on the ground and a little net bag in my pocket.
We’re having an amazing autumn so far weather wise. It’s gloriously sunny and warm here in Luxembourg so we’re making the absolute most of every second knowing that it can and will change at any moment. It’s so warm that it’s hard to let go of the summer. Creating summer themed designs is also making it difficult to accept the new season.
In my previous post I shared how I’d been getting to grips with surface design and managing to complete my first collection of patterns. Although I knew the patterns themselves needed some work before I could see them being printed, the foundations were there. This rainbow was the first design I came up with and is my favourite so far. Starting out as hand drawn elements, I wanted to keep it bright, quirky and fun. I altered the original image a bit and changed the colour pallete completely to subconciously turn it into my signature aqua colour! After designing the main image I used it to create a further two patterns to support it.
I think it looks great on a notebook cover and once I’ve made a couple of tweeks I’ll be adding this notebook to my Etsy store.
Meanwhile I’ll just keep dreaming of blue skies and summer days.
Wow such a lot has happened since I last updated the blog. If you wondered whether I’d left the country or perhaps decided to take a rest, you’d be wrong. These past few months (almost half the year in fact) I’ve been busy teaching myself surface design and pattern design. It’s been a long old process and at times I’ve wondered if I’d ever get it at all. With a computer full of images, drawings and paintings waiting to be digitized and ideas coming out of my ears, I made a few steps towards fulfilling an ambition to see my designs on actual products. With my background in papercrafts naturally I’m gravitating towards prints, cards, journal covers and wrapping papers but of course there’s nothing stopping me from seeing my prints on fabrics, wallpaper or mugs. Just about anything is possible so I’ve learned.
After taking many workshops and courses over the past few months to learn properly how to create patterns in Illustrator, I enrolled into Summer School with Make It In Design. It turned out this was just the push I needed to put all my theory into practice. We were given real briefs from trend experts and encouraged to source our own inspiration, come up with images and designs then try them out on mock up’s.
My first few patterns were a bit dodgy until I found my feet but once I started to think like a pattern designer it became much easier. I’m beyond thrilled with myself. I joined their intermediate track as I didn’t think I had the skills to go advanced but I’ve definitely surprised myself with what I’ve achieved. I think Summer School has really given me the push I needed to take all of the theory I’ve learned over the past few months and put it into practice. I’m not sure if it’s all totally cohesive to be a collection but I like it.
Most of these designs started out as hand drawn sketches, painted, or in the case of the doily’s gel printed and I love it. It’s been an amazing experience and I’ve learned a lot for sure.
