Happy Christmas!!

It's Christmas Eve, one of my favourite days of the year. The house is all sparkly and Christmassy (here's our teeny tiny tree in the front room...we do have a big tree in the kitchen diner but I haven't got a decent photo of it).  The presents are all bought and wrapped, cards are all sent, food shopping is done, house is cleaned (a bit), just time to relax, watch a Christmas movie and get ready for my favourite bedtime of the year.

 My three are a little bit worried this year because I've been reading them The Empty Stocking by Richard Curtis and Rebecca Cobb.  It's my absolute favourite Christmas book of recent years and the kids love it too.  Here's a couple of the lovely illustrations by Rebecca Cobb.  

It's a wonderful story that always has my little ones mouth drop wide open in shock when Santa actually does leave an empty stocking.  Hopefully that won't happen here tonight. I've got three very excited (and slightly worried) little people who cannot wait to find out.

So, Happy Christmas everybody. Hope you all have a good one.  Here's a few mince pies I made just for you (I'm rubbish at baking so I've drawn them instead) xx

Well, it's been a LONG time since my last post. Was it really May?!! Can't even blame the school summer holidays for that one. I meant to post in September after the madness of the summer holidays had gone, but that month just disappeared into nowhere.  Now autumn is in full swing (freezing today), the kids are back at school, and routine has (sort of) returned to our lives.

It's been a busy summer here.  Work has had to take a bit of a back seat over the holidays but I did manage to get some new designs done for the lovely Paper and Cloth to take to Printsource. Other things that have made me happy this summer are I got my first little mention over on the Paper and Cloth blog (I'm seriously easily pleased) and I sold some work at Printsource which made me really happy.

I was a bit disappointed I couldn't finish Lilla's Assignment Bootcamp as I was loving it, but there just aren't enough designing hours in the day for me.  I did use the June theme of ships in bottles for some new nautical work for Paper and Cloth but missed out completely on the final July assignment.

The rest of my summer was filled with taking the kids out and about, a little holiday at the seaside, a huge clear out of the entire house, and a big clear out of my diet. I've finally gone vegan after over 20 years of being vegetarian.  Loving it as well, haven't even missed chocolate which was a nice surprise, thought I'd be desperate.

I've just signed up for another design course (think I'm addicted). I was gonna give online courses a bit of a miss from now on because I've struggled to fit them around proper design work.  However, there's one last course I just couldn't miss out on and that's The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design Module 3.  Probably the most important of all the courses I've done so far as this one is all about monetising your designs.  I really want to go into manufacturing my own cards, giftwrap, and products (while keeping up the freelancing and licensing) but it's an area I know nothing about, so I decided it's time to do it.  It starts January 2015 and I'll be posting my progress along the way. (I promise...been a bad blogger lately, but as its in January and I'll be trying to stick to my New Years Resolutions (one of which will be do more blog posts) I should be okay)  In the meantime here's a bit of what I got up to on the previous ABSPD course.

Papercutting, markmaking, painting, and photoshopping, plus much more.  I loved Modules 1 and 2 and can't wait for Module 3 to start!

For now though, it may only be early October, but I'm in Christmas mode as I'm working on designs for Christmas 2015  for the lovely people over at Abacus cards.  The white paint's out and it's snowflake painting time for me!

Moyo Magazine

The new edition of the lovely MOYO magazine is out now, and I am thrilled to be in it!!  It also features one of my favourite artists, Susy Pilgrim Waters, whose work I absolutely love.  You can check it out by clicking here.

Meditating Dolls!

Well, after a month off from bootcamp, it was great to be back with Lilla's lovely May Assignment.  The brief was to do an Editorial Illustration for a magazine article titled "How to Meditate: A Primer for People Who Don't Like to Meditate".  The mini was to draw faces and people.  To make it easy for us, instead of drawing real people, Lilla had us drawing dolls from her weird and wonderful collection.  Here's a page of my rough drawings of some of Lilla's dolls and others found on Pinterest.

We were also encouraged to go the art shop and buy some new materials or papers that we haven't used before. (LOVE shopping for art materials, any excuse!)  I found a lovely little book of coloured papers and painted some of my doll faces onto the coloured backgrounds, eyes closed to look like they were meditating.

The main point in the article I wanted to illustrate, is how when you're a beginner to meditation, your head is filled with random thoughts and it's difficult to clear your mind.  I wanted to illustrate a beginner meditating with all the everyday thoughts and intrusions in her mind, and a more experienced meditator, her mind clear and feeling nothing but peace and tranquility. 

I hope I achieved this in my illustration.  After many different compositions and colour palettes, this is my final design, helped along by Lilla's blue colour inspiration. I have discovered this month that editorial is pretty hard.  Still not sure this is entirely suited to editorial,  I wanted to do something really simple and graphic, but it didn't turn out like that.  I really enjoyed the challenge though!

You can check out all the wonderful designs by my fellow bootcamp artists in this months gallery by clicking here.

MOYO Designer Of The Week

I'm happy to be the Make it in Design and Moyo Directory Designer of the Week!  

Check it out here.

PaperandCloth Exciting News!

So, the exciting news I mentioned in my previous post last month (didn't realise it had been that long...where did that go?!) is that I am now represented by the absolutely, amazingly wonderful, Paper and Cloth!!! Woohoo!!!

I am so excited!  It's amazing to be working with such a wonderful studio.  I LOVE Paper and Cloth.  Their designs are exactly the kind of style I like, really illustrative, whimsical and quirky. Here's a little selection of a few of their beautiful designs and show flyers.

How gorgeous are they?!  If you want to see some more of their lovely designs check out their website, blog, or my PaperandCloth board over on Pinterest, which also shows work by some of the amazing artists they work with such as Rosie Harbottle and Kate Hindley.

I find it hard to believe that this time last year I was just restarting my career by taking The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design.  Thanks to ABSPD I started designing again. I set up Paintlove Studio, my blog, learnt to work digitally, put my work on the MOYO directory, started pinning my designs on Pinterest, and 'putting myself out there'.  Scary at first but definitely worth it.  I then did Lilla Rogers' Make Art That Sells course which was such an inspiring and motivating experience.  I can't believe that within a year I'm working with one of my dream studios, who contacted me (I know!!!) after seeing my work online.  It's amazing! So now the hard (but fun) work begins, designing some lovely new work for Paper and Cloth. I won't be able to post the new stuff I'm working on (it has to be 'never been seen before' designs that they show to clients) but Lilla's Assignment Bootcamp starts again very soon after it's month long break, so I'll be posting the work I do for that during May.  Can't wait to see what Lilla's come up with.....I wonder what the theme will be.....we'll soon find out!

Jelly!!!

Month two in Bootcamp and the assignment Lilla gave us was to design bolt fabric with the theme of jelly!!!  I was a bit disappointed to be honest but sure that once I started my research I'd be fine and soon get inspired.  How wrong could I be! The more pictures of jelly I looked at the more I began to really dislike the stuff, the bright primary plain colours, the symmetrical shapes, and the savoury jellies of the sixties with the salad, cabbage, and meat...oh my god!

So, I had to focus on what I like about jelly, and to me it's all about childhood, birthdays, little glass dishes that we always used to eat our jelly or trifle out of, the lovely strawberry scent.  So I wanted to do a children's fabric design that captured all that.  I was also really determined with this brief to keep my colours pretty flat and graphic so I didn't allow myself any painting or collage (only a little bit of bubble wrap printed texture snuck it's way in).  

Well here's my finished bolt fabric design.  I'm quite happy with it.  Not sure about my coordinates though.  They were based on the shapes of the cut glass dishes but I think they're a bit big and blocky and obvious so I'll probably rework those when I have time.  

We have next month off from Bootcamp as Make Art That Sells Part B is running.  I'm not taking it this time unfortunately but I think I'm gonna be pretty busy next month anyway.  I'll post about my amazing news soon....but in the meantime here's a little clue.  Well actually its a massive clue....paperandcloth.....so excited!!!!

New Cuckoo Design

I mentioned in my last post that I was going to rework my second cuckoo clock design.  I wanted to include some of my original line drawings from week one, change the layout a bit and play around with the colour palette.  Well here's the new reworked pattern.  Much nicer I think!

Cuckoo Clocks

Week two in Lilla's bootcamp and the assignment was to design a mobile phone cover using our cuckoo clock artwork.  I wasn't that excited when I read we had to design for a phone case....bit small....but once I'd seen Lilla's gorgeous quirky inspiration, colour palette ideas, art tips, and beautiful examples of how to present our designs I couldn't wait.

I didn't use many of my original drawings from week one in the end...I tried...but failed...and ended up going back to my old favourites paint and collage. 

I also tried a second option which I'm going to rework a little when I get the chance. It's been half term and raining here this past week so not much chance of doing anything except breaking up fights.

There are over 400 designs from my fellow happy bootcampers in a gallery over at Lilla's blog, you can see them here.

Bootcamp Begins

So, week one of Assignment Bootcamp is over, and as I expected, I am loving it! 

Make Art That Sells (Part A) which I did in October was absolutely amazing, but it was pretty intense, (so much work and inspiration...so little time) but with bootcamp it's a much more relaxed pace. Instead of two days to do the mini drawing assignments which we got in MATS, we get one whole week in bootcamp.....bliss.  

The theme Lilla has given us for our first week is cuckoo clocks. Such a great subject as there are so many wonderful details....the folk art patterns, the cuckoo birds, the little house shapes. They are so whimsical and quirky and really lovely to draw. 

                                       

Tomorrow we will be given the main assignment....can't wait to get started!

I'm on Lilla's Blog!

I am so excited today.  My work is pictured on the amazing Lilla Rogers Studio blog!!  A lovely big picture of the design I did for the Make Art That Sells Children's Book assignment 'The Language of the Birds' and the plate design I did for the Home Decor assignment.....are there....on Lilla's blog....all by themselves!!! Check them out here at www.lillarogers.com/blog

They are part of a feature on the brand new Make Art That Sells Assignment Bootcamp which I'm signed up for and can't wait to start on Monday!!   I'll be posting all the (hopefully lovely) work I do throughout bootcamp over the next six months.  (For full details of what promises to be an amazing course...if MATS is anything to go by....click on the link above).

Collage Cat

I love cats.  I love collage.  I love cards.   So today I did a picture with all three of my favourite things.  A collaged cat (wearing a crown...I like those too)  holding a card.  Just needs some chocolate (one of my other favourite things) and it would be perfect!

One of my aims this year is to get some of my own greetings cards published.  I'm quite liking the idea of this little collaged cat as a card, just need to do some other animals to keep her company now.

Happy New Year

I'm a bit late with this......but.......Happy New Year!!!  

My New Years Resolution for 2014 is to make more art. (I always make resolutions and never keep them, but I've high hopes for this one!)  So, to start off the New Year, here's a little picture I did over the Christmas holidays of The Owl and the Pussycat. What a romantic pair!