The beautiful work of Lily Reilly of Petal to Petal!

It has been a while since my last post and I have been meaning to post loads of interesting things on the run up to Christmas but December is a bit mad in my part time job so I've not had much time to myself!  Looking forward to the 23rd when I'll be 'Driving home for Christmas'!

I have the pleasure of featuring the exquisite work of Lily Reilly of Petal to Petal.  She has such an intricate style that is gorgeous to look at up close and from afar.  At first you don't realise the amount of detail she puts into her work but when you actually take her drawings in they are truly beautiful works of art.

A little about Lily and how she became interested in surface pattern design:

As far back as I can remember, I have always been drawn to detail and when I was 11 years old a family friend introduced me to the work of Charles Renne Mackintosh. His work has had a huge influence on me and from there I found out about other artists such as William Morris. I loved the whole ethos of the Arts and Crafts Movement. A quote by William Morris really stuck with me- "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. " It just made so much sense to me. And isn't that the aim of a Surface Pattern Designer- to make the world a more beautiful place. 

What about your creative journey, your style and what inspires you?

I studied Design Communication and then trained as an Art and Design teacher, both at Crawford College of Art and Design in my hometown, the beautiful Cork City in Ireland.   Soon after I started studying, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and began exhibiting and selling my artwork. This year I moved to Berlin with my boyfriend and started studying Rachael Taylor's course 'The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design'. The subject matter of the patterns I design is primarily quite feminine- I love to work with florals, hearts and other positive imagery that I hope will make the world a prettier place. 

My style is quite intricate and I use a lacing pattern that I have coined 'flowerbomb' in a lot of my work. I particularly love working in monochrome and just concentrating on the shapes and detail of a pattern.

 

I am inspired by so many different things- the stunning classic designs that the greats have left behind, work by talented designer friends and established designers today, the seasons and patterns in nature, trend boards and blogs. Living in this city, you can't really go anywhere without getting inspired. I work from home so it's good to get out of the apartment (especially if my kitten Poppy is in a hyper mood!). The area that I live in is jam packed with lots of beautiful little shops and cafes and I like nothing more than to disappear to a cafe and sit drawing for hours, accompanied by some creamy Cappuccinos! 

What about the future?

I have so many hopes and dreams for the future. I hope that I can keep making work that brings happiness to people, and that I can make a career out of this. I am currently working on building up a strong signature collection and hope to find agent representation to develop the licensing side of my business. I am also open to commissions and love collaborating with other creatives. 

Who knows if being named after a flower has something to do with my love of florals!

Where you can find her!

Petal to Petal - Website
Facebook
Twitter
Blog
Etsy
Society6

Introducing the very talented Sarah Fleming!

Here is a little interview and showcase of the lovely Sarah Fleming, one of my fellow surface pattern designer friends.  I absolutely love her delicate style and can't wait to show you some of her work!

First up a bit about her:

Sarah has always been interested in Art, having drawn, made patterns and cards a lot as a child, but her love of textiles grew through the courses she took at college and university.  She is a Yorkshire girl (like me!) and studied at Park street college in Hull then went on to Cleveland College of Art and Design.  It was here she found her love for designing for home furnishings which is what she wants to do as a career.

The detail in her work is just beautiful (I love the hand mirrors above, bottom left).

She has completed some pretty amazing internships with Kate Usher Studio and TRENDART SRL LIMITED, having several of her drawings actually featuring in Kate Usher's current wallpaper collection as well as various designs for TRENDART aswell!! Are you impressed yet?

Below you can see the Kate Usher designs

 And here are some of the TRENDART SRL LIMITED pieces

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to keep my hand steady for that kind of work!

Sarah will be jetting off to Melbourne, Australia (jealous!) in February to take part in a placement with Belladonna digital imaging.  In the meantime she has been working on her own collections for home furnishings and gifts and has her first Christmas card collection out.  You can see them below, and if you are interested in buying some of these lovely cards at £3 for 10 cards from Sarah then just get in touch with her via facebook here.

Finally a little from Sarah about her style and inspiration:

Your style,

"My style shows me as an observant, neat, professional designer who takes pride in everything that she does. I like to spend time on my drawings and illustrations, capturing colour and detail as accurately as possible. I have developed a detailed, tight drawing style similar to those seen in designs by high end companies that I am very much inspired by, like Cole & Son, Zoffany, Sanderson & Timorous Beasties. However, I am also capable of producing quite innovative, experimental development sheets, which I feel shows I am a versatile designer capable of adapting where relevant to produce designs for both commercial and more niche markets."

And your inspiration,

"I find inspiration wherever I am in whatever I see. I am particularly inspired by the detail and beautiful patterns found in nature and my surroundings, which motivates me to achieve beautiful, highly informative observational drawings."

Facebook - www.facebook.com/SarahFlemingDesigns

Blog - www.sarahfleming11.blogspot.co.uk/

Twitter - @sfleming12

Hope you liked it!

Have your advent calender at the ready!

Seeing as though it is the start of advent tomorrow I thought a showcase of some of the most interesting advent calendars I have found is pretty fitting.  I'm definitely going to try some of these out, it's a shame I found them so late, maybe next year.

A little advent forest

Such a cute idea to use baby socks for each day!

A lovely way to hang up a little present for each day

Or keep them bundled in a basket

Hanging pyramid garlands are a cute way to hold little treats 

Or if you want to do activities or give tokens each day these jazzy envelopes are a great idea!

My favourite so far are these sewn parcels 

Although this all edible calendar is a pretty good idea too!

My designs on products!!!

I've recently put some new designs in my society6 shop, the best thing about this is I love seeing my designs on products!  It really brings them to life, although I would love to have my own shop and sell my own products it is certainly a step up from seeing flat designs to 3D mock ups.  Here are a few of my throw pillow designs for you to have a look at.

I'll be showing some of my designs printed on to fabric, perfect patterns for little boys (Tractors!!!!), these will be on the blog soon! :) Aswell as some features on some very talented fellow designers! Can't wait to show you their work!

Tried my hand at some typography

Tigerprint's most recent competition was hand drawn typography, when I saw what the theme was I was so excited because I had tons of ideas and couldn't wait to get it all down on paper.  However as soon as I sat down to do some designing it didn't come very easily.  I really struggled with this theme and I'm not sure why, I think I need more practice!

Here are my designs anyway, any suggestions for improvement or lovely words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated =)

All images are Copyright Emma Hawman of Emma Frances Designs

A mountain of inspiration to share with you!

I've been collecting bits of paper and patterned designs for a while now and didn't know what to do with it all.  I couldn't bare to throw any of them away, you never know when these things may come in handy (I'm pretty sure Matthew is rolling his eyes right about now....).  So before any of my little findings got (accidentally....ye) thrown in the bin I've complied a new inspiration journal that I can dip into if I'm ever stuck for ideas.  I know Pinterest is a good source of inspiration and I do dive into that if I need a nudge in a specific design direction.  I like to be able to put together boards around a certain theme when I'm working to a brief or competition guidelines.  It's nice to have something solid and in your hands to flick through sometimes.

Take a peek

Geometric legging design

Today I whipped up this little design for the Front Row Society design competition, the theme was geometric vs tribal, so I went with geometric and spent the day developing this design.  We had a colour palette given to us so the colours chosen were the ones I had to work with.

Here is the page with my design on, the design hasn't come out as sharp as it is so you can see the pattern below more clearly and see how it would look on the leggings by following this link

Innes Mcdougall's stunning paintings

Here is an artist I came across this week and I was amazed at how beautiful these paintings are, they have definitely inspired me to get my watercolours out.  I showcased more amazing watercolour pieces in a previous blog post here.

Innes also paints almost photographic quality pieces but it was these paintings of eyes and lips that drew me in, leaving the majority of the page white made them dramatic.  The use of colour also drew me to them, I love bright colours and it definitely makes these paintings more interesting to looks at.  Innes has been able to show a lot of different emotions through just painting the eyes, it is interesting to see how this is done as you can see below.

Patterns for boys

I've recently designed a collection for boys which I wanted to share with you today.  I was lucky enough to have someone to show my designs to who happened to be perfect for this particular brief.  My little brother approved of my designs before I sent them off and gave me very honest feedback, he loved them all and is now wanting his room full of these patterns.

The theme was vehicles and I knew straight away I wanted to focus on farming machines.  Having grown up on a farm and having a little brother who absolutely adores anything related to farming it seemed like the logical choice.

Patterns on the Farm

Harvest Time