Pattern Showcase

Just a little showcase of some pretty pattern/illustrated designs I have found recently, hope you like it =)

Sam Neville

Gerry Murray

Caitlin Miller

These next patterned products were found in Strickland and Holt

Perfectly simple inspiration

After the screen printing workshop I was in last week I have gotten the screen printing bug! It is killing me that I don't have enough space to set up a messy area in which to go all out and produce bigger screens.  I am pretty confined to a very small scale screen printing technique, but should have more space come summertime =)

Talking about Summertime, I want to showcase some wonderful screen printed inspiration.  I love the screen printed style and it would be perfect to inspire surface pattern design on computer software!

Summersville by Lu Summers have some absolutely wonderful designs.  Mostly one coloured, but they have intricate little motifs and details.  She covers the page with lots of dainty images and I love that the repetition isn't too fussy, there is no need for multiple colours, her patterns are simply beautiful!  The link for Lu's Etsy shop is above, you can buy her lovely screen printed fabric from there =) You can also find her blog here

Designer Feature: Pattern Addict

This week we have the very talented and super amazing Gill Eggleston of Pattern Addict.  Gill's work is truely wonderful and her website is a must to check out!

First a little bit about Gill, She has always been a keen artist since she was very young (which seems to be the case with most creatives, it's in our genes!) Her journey through school was typically acedemic but she chose to study Art at O level (which are now called GCSE's) and A level.  This set her up to do an Art foundation course after A levels.  She says she had no grand plan to study textiles but with a mixture of Chemistry and Art at A level, Textile studies were suggested to her.  She was fairly close to chosing an ATI course but decided it would bore the living daylights out of her so went for a Textile Design and Design Management degree instead, which she loved every moment of it.

After graduating she started working in the textile industry straight away as a printed textiles designer, this involved lots of hard work and travel.  After this she took a slightly different path and ended up in sourcing and product development for a few years, before going back to the previous company as a product development and brand manager.  So she has plenty of experience in a variety of roles in the textile industry! Which I am sure come in handy when she is designing her own brand and freelancing.

Gill started designing for herself when she moved to France in 2008, I can imagine France is a beautiful place with tons of inspiration!

Gill's inspiration: I am massively drawn to the colouration of vintage textiles and the works of the likes of Eugene Alain Seguy, Zina de Plagny and other designers of similar genres. I also am a big fan of mid-century modern prints and furniture, ethnic /tribal art and mark-making, so I suppose subconsciously I try and fuse all this together in my surface pattern work.

Gill, like me, hand draws all of her work then digitally manipulates it, she finds digital perfection a little off putting and too samey for her own tastes, which I can understand, I love to see the little imperfections in a persons work.  

 Now for something a bit unusual and cool about Gill, she can order two large beers in a variety of languages, including Chinese! Which she says is most essential for international business travel!

I urge you to all go and have a look at Gill's website which you can find here.  Her Illustrations are wonderful and I love the little bugs!

A little bit of creative time after a hectic week!

It has been a little while since I last posted, I have had a very busy, exciting week though, but now I'm back and have post on screen printing today.  I hadn't done any screen printing in my degree, which was a big surprise as almost every other Textile Design degree includes this on the course.  I had to rectify this, so enrolled on a lovely workshop with the fantastic Blueberry Park.

Karen runs workshops in her Leeds home about once a month, I was greeted at the door by a beaming and friendly face.  It was such a wonderful day and after having a busy and slightly stressful week it was wonderful to drink tea, eat cake, chat with some like minded women and let my creativity flow.  Karen was a fantastic teacher, and if anyone lives in or around Leeds I would definitely recommend taking one of her courses, you won't be disappointed!

I've managed to get some photos of the day which you can see below =)

We began by looking through some of Karen's printing books, many of which are now on my wish list!

I had already come prepared with some of my own designs that I wanted to see printed.  It would be an ideal process to print greetings cards, wrapping papers and other products at home.  I based my print on the design Falling Florals, which you can see is the background on my blog =)

It was quite intricate to cut out, but a little patience and a steady hand made it possible!

And here's the final outcome!

An interesting find of some old Art work!

I've always loved to draw and paint but haven't sat down and dragged my paints out from the back of my art closet for quite some time.  I recently went home and whilst rummaging through my parents garage I came across some of my old art sketchbooks so thought I'd share some of my favourite pieces with you.  It's nice to see how my style has evolved and how I have improved, these also sparked off some new ideas for techniques to try out in surface pattern =)

First up is one of my favourite pieces, which sadly I didn't get the chance to keep but I have a few photos from when I painted it so I can show you!  I took a photo of my sister and zoomed in on her eyes.  I was very influenced by pop art at the time, which is why this piece is in that style.  I'm hoping to paint another copy some day so I can give it to Sophie as a gift =)

Next is a project I did whilst I was at University as part of an Art module.  We weren't given a theme, and I seem to remember having a huge amount of work to do for other modules at the time of this deadline and saw a pile of shoes in my halls which is where this theme came from.  My style had been very controlled up until this module and it was such a nice change to loosen up and be free with my brush strokes.

Here are a few pieces from A level Art

My home reflected in my eye

Self Portraits

Portrait

Quick painted Self Portrait

Pop Art, Fruit themed painting

If anyone else has any old art work, paintings, designs then I would love to showcase them alongside your newest work, it is a fantastic way to see how you have improved or find new themes/techniques you can use in your future work!

Designer Feature: Faye Brown

I have the fabulous Faye Brown today, she was kind enough to interview me and feature me on her blog last week so I will begin with a big thank you to Faye for this =)

On with a little about her, Faye worked in motion graphics for over 10 years before going into surface pattern design.  After the birth of her son she enrolled on 'The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design' alongside myself and other designers I have featured before.  She has always loved designing cards and patterns but didn't know that side of the industry.  Since finishing the three modules she has created a new website, launched her first card range (which are gorgeous!) and has been commissoned by Funky Giraffe Bibs as well.  Which is a fantastic start and I can definitely see her going from strength to strength in this industry.

Her son is a big inspiration for her and she loves to design for the childrens market, her designs below are all childrens patterns and would work perfectly on childrens apparel, bedding or wallpaper designs for childrens bedrooms.  I know my little brother would love the little robots and funny monsters!She has a lovely bright and bold style with quirky characters!

Faye is currently designing a full set of wedding stationary for a friend which is an area she plans to persue in the future.  I always like to ask for a quirky, unusual bit of information about my featuree's and Faye's is that she has a green Blue Peter badge! I always wanted a Blue Peter badge as a child, Faye recieved this for writing about the environment when she was 12, I'm sure she will treasure it for life =)

February end of month review

Hello and welcome to the end of February review, it's always good to look back and see what you have accomplished the past month aswell as lining out some plans for the next month.

Best thing to happen this month

To kick off this review I'll start with some great things that happened this month, I won not one, but two amazing giveaways.  These were for two fabulous books! The first giveaway was from Tammie Bennett for the absolutely amazing book 'A Field Guide to Fabric Design'.  From a quick flick through this book I found a fantastic tip to help with my designing and am looking forward to having a sit down with a cup of tea to have a good read through when I find the time!

The second was by Kate Marsden for the book 'A Material World' which is full of wonderful crafty knowledge and feeds my handmade side =)

Features this month

I was lucky enough to have two lovely features written about me this month, one as part of Dawn Clarkson of Nice and Fancy's Dream Designs.  This is where she shows a designers favourite design and our dream of where it would be for.  You can read that post here.

The second was an interview I took part in with Faye Brown (who will be featured on here later this month!) which you can find here.

A big thank you to these two ladies!

Artist of the month

I have come across a number of artists and designers this month but am keeping some for future blog posts, one thing that I came across was some Urban Geode Street Art.  I'm a fan of the unusual and this fits that catagory, you can see what I mean below.  Paige Smith creates these little 'Geodes' into urban areas, it was the geometric shapes that grabbed me and they would make some interesting drawings and possible future patterns!

Favourite posts from February

For my two favourite posts this month I've picked the new greetings card designs, although I haven't finished these I am planning to get some printed fairly soon and this is a step in the right direction to getting myself out there as a designer and earning some money!

The second is my first etsy finds (which there will be more of this month), it's good to do some market research and I loved finding other interesting designs that were selling well on etsy.  It helped me decide which of my designs may work well as wrapping paper.

Coming up in March

Coming up this month will be some more new designs, I like to keep you all in the loop and bring out new designs every now and then to show you all, it also helps to look back and rework a design if I'm not entirely happy with it.  I've also got a post about some of my old art work (which was meant to be in February but I didn't venture home until just this week!)  The efuto swap is going ahead this month too, so I'll be able to show you some beautifully designs envelopes and hopefully some more people will get in touch if you want to swap with me =) Who doesn't want to receive pretty mail?!

My main goal for this month is to get some designs together and have them printed as greetings cards so I can finally see how my designs sell!  Fingers crossed I reach this goal, I'll keep you posted!