New Year New Things

It's a new year!  It's also way too late to say happy new year, so I won't, but I do hope that 2015 is a good one for all of you.  New year...new logo...new website...new blog header...new course...I love new, don't you!

First up, new logo.  I never really designed my old logo (see below).  I just used this black box with 'paintlove studio' typed in it, or just typed 'paintlove studio' on my work in a very boring standard typeface...not very interesting.

So here's the new logo...ta dah!  It's still very simple (I like simple) but it is hand lettered instead of typed, and as my business name consists of the words paint and love, it has a splodgy strip to suggest the paint, and hearts over the letter I's for love.  I love scallop edging as well so had to have a bit of that in there.

and below a simpler version without the painted background colour. 

Much better than my old logo I think.  Next up, my new website!!  I hadn't really planned on making a new website at this time.  My portfolio was happily displayed over on the lovely Moyo directory along with 516 other surface pattern designers. Bit of a surprise when a few months ago, we had notice that the Moyo directory was closing, but the definite push I needed to get my own website up and running.  So here it is www.paintlovestudio.co.uk. Click on the link if you would like to have a little look around.

Finally, a new course. Module 3 of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design starts tomorrow and I can't wait!  The first two modules were brilliant and I know this one will also be packed full of information.  I know quite a bit about freelancing and licensing having worked in the business for a few years now, but I know less about manufacturing and selling my own products.

Years ago, I used to make and hand paint clocks and individual greetings cards and sell them to the little 'new age' shop I used to work in (all wind chimes, incense sticks, tie dye, whale music...you know the type). They sold pretty well, but the clocks took hours to make, even the cards were individual collages, each one completely unique. With hindsight, I should have framed the collaged cards and sold them as artworks for a lot more, but I was very inexperienced and thrilled just to have my work in a shop with people buying them.   I did it for a couple of years, it was fun, but definitely more of a hobby than a business at that time. I do remember though, how exciting it was to make and sell my own work as a finished product.  I'm really looking forward to doing that again which is why I've signed up for this fabulous course.  I'll be posting about my progress as I go and can't wait till tomorrow to get started!

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!