Advice I Have Not Taken: My Thoughts on Picking a Style

A few weeks ago as I was ruminating over my place in the world, I mentioned that my latest, biggest fear was that everything I’m doing is NOT GOOD ENOUGH (crazy talk, right?... right?) and I’m progressively trying to improve and DO MORE BETTER. 

One area that’s pretty clear to me where I could be doing better is in having a defined style. I think if you read basically any design blog or book, the #1 piece of advice from artists/business owners/everyone is to have a clear, distinct, unique voice and style.

 And as a habitually distracted creative-type… this poses a pretty big challenge for me. Challenge #1: I love experimenting. Experimenting and learning new things is basically all I’ve been doing lately. 

Challenge #2: When you are learning new techniques, or when you are researching, or when you are just following other designers on social media… it’s tough not to be influenced. In my mind it works this way, “oh look, I love this style and it is super popular right now, I should do something like that.”

 Neither of these are necessarily BAD in my mind, and let me be clear, I’m not talking about COPYING someone else’s style (because, let’s be honest, I don’t have the attention span or talent to even go there). 

But when you are reading day-in-and-day-out that you need a refined style… that you need to pick one thing to be good at... it makes you think a lot (and possibly worry some more about being not good enough). 

And to me, there’s at least one style that I think is clearly “me.” And if you have known me for any period of time… this will not surprise you in any way whatsoever. And those are the doodles.

I started this blog to share my cover-the-page-with-weird-shapes doodles, like the ones throughout this post. It’s probably the only kind of drawing that comes naturally to me and that isn’t really influenced by other things I see. 

I just get obsessed with a shape, develop that shape, and then go nuts with that shape. I have done this since I could hold a pen in my hand. I just love, hand-drawn, tiny, repetitive patterns. Like this:

 Now the challenge is: how do I embrace that? How do I develop that in to something? How do I take what else I’ve learned to do and incorporate those things?

The answer: I don’t know. And as I’ve said before… I’m trying to share and embrace the process and worry less about not being there yet. So stay tuned and we’ll find out what happens together. Needless to say, there will definitely still be experimenting.

Design, Carve, Print: Block Printing Class Day 1

As I mentioned in my last post, I signed up for Jen Hewett's Design, Carve, Print class. I've been admiring Jen's handiwork for several years. I was psyched to sign up for another weekend, online design class after how much I loved Pattern Camp.

This class is decidedly more hands on vs. techy, which was refreshing. I love digital design but some times it's great to get your hands messy (in my case EXTREMELY messy). First let's admire my craft/laundry/sewing room when it was still clean-ish:

We started out with some sketching (Kevin also hopped in on some of the action; Bailey decided it was a good time/place to nap).

I took a bunch of old sketches that I thought would be good and was inspired by this pic I found on Pinterest of envelope security lines (I know, weird).

After sketching it was time to transfer and carve. Here's what my block looked like when I transferred the sketches over:

And here was my first round of printing after I had everything carved. The little trees and stars were blocks I carved a while back for other projects but it was good to put them to use.

I think there's a pretty clear distinction between Kevin and my designs. Whereas my designs are generally abstract, Kevin created some awesome peas and running shoe prints (in line with two of his most favorite hobbies). Looking forward to tomorrow's class!

Deep Dive

So a few days ago I posted some new patterns I worked on recently. I wanted to focus on one of them to share some of the sketches. I've talked before about how I get a little obsessed with various shapes so that's pretty much the case here.

So the pattern above is digitally done, but I kept playing with the shape and decided to do a hand-drawn version. The size is 14"x11" and I used my favorite Sharpie pens.

Here's a close up. Ooo, Sharpie pen.

And here's a sketch that I did as I was playing around with the idea.

You can tell that I'm learning calligraphy because I've been practicing all over the place. And here's the pencil sketches when I was first trying to figure out the right shape.

The end!

V-V-Vroooooom

Today I was promised 70 degrees... its was a lie. I mean, I can't complain too much because it was up in the 50s but I had really been hoping for some warmth. It felt like this.

Anyways, the rainy/misty morning did give me an opportunity to do some doodling. Instead of Sharpies I used my Staedler skinnies. They bleed a little less and give a nice sharp line. My name is Liz and I'm a fan and a marker/pen addict.

Tiny Emerald Trees... or Something

If you follow any kind of design news, you know that today Pantone decided the the Color of 2013 will be emerald green. I'm not sure why they get to pick but ok. I like green. I like it better than last year's color... tangerine. Bleh.

In honor, I decided to get back to some pattern designing since I've been taking things back to some basics... like spending hours coloring with crayons.

I'm working on a frighteningly long list of sewing projects including a dog coat, a bag and a quilt using up some of the leftover fabric from the wedding and some fabric of my own design that Kevin had printed for me as a surprise. Wish me luck!

Wok This Way

Okay, I know that's a really lame title for a post. True story... I was in my car singing to Beastie Boys and there's a line in one song, "I'll stir fry you in my wok." (Ten points if you can name the song).

I know this is weird but I thought, I can draw a wok! So I did, and some chopsticks. I also tried little rice pieces (kernels?) but they looked weird. Yeah... my creative process is also weird.

One thing I'm learning from my surface design text book is trying to practice other styles of patterns. I've got a pretty good handle on abstract patterns, but as per usual... not so good at the things-that-look-like-things category.

So here's a first step. Not super complicated but I kinda like how it also looks kind of abstract and not too different from my overall style.

Asparagus or Bow Ties?

One of the greatest things about designing abstract patterns is listening to what people think they look like.  I always have my own opinion which you can usually see from whatever I named the file on Flickr, but I've heard some pretty weird ones too.

Do you see bow ties or asparagus bundles? 

What about now? Fun fact. I came up with the shape when I was trying to draw a pleated skirt. Unrelated, I'm in the midst of reading this textbook about surface design I bought and learning lots about the business and what it actually takes to do it. I'm such a glutton for punishment... I spend my free time (when I'm not writing my grad school thesis or doing my real life work) reading textbooks :oP

It's All Part of a Plan

Here's something I made yesterday that's the start of the "big plan" I've been thinking about over the last few months.

So I'm thinking a lot about the "what to sell" question and if I want to sell prints I should probably make something that has a more central image. Here's what I came up with that builds on the above pattern:

Lastly, I tried to eek out another quick matching pattern. (I got sleepy though and had to set it aside for a while so I'm not in love with it.)

So all this is a demonstration of something I think I want to try and that's creating art prints and coordinating fabrics. I figure I can sell the prints on Etsy and link to the coordinating fabrics on Spoonflower. 

At very minimum, creating a few fabric collections on Spoonflower I think would be a good start. The commission is only 10 percent, but it's a start, right? So yeah, it's something thats going to take a few weeks, but I'm excited about it. 

Recycle Part Two

Ok, am I crazy that I'm spending my Labor Day weekend working on patterns, drawings and blog posts instead of relaxing? The bad news is that I'm really procrastinating (already) from working on my grad school capstone project. Uuugghhg.

So here's part two. This was a pretty easy update from the original. I can use this as a tile to make a larger pattern, but I kind just like the one block. What do you think?

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

One of my to-do items is to take some of my old designs and turn them into digital patterns. We'll call this "creativity recycling." But, easier said than done.

Let's just say most of my black and white originals took hours or days or weeks to finish, while most of the patterns I've done recently have taken about an hour.

This is probably because most of the originals were drawn pre-grad school when I actually had hours/days/weeks just to draw (while watching chick flicks of course). I chose this design to try out first because it was easiest to replicate on a tablet.

Here's the result. I need to work on the seams (the lines between the repeatable tiles) to make them less visible. I took the colors from this photo of a succulent at the U.S. Botanic Garden. Aren't the colors so nice and cool? Definitely more Spring than Autumn... but whatever :oP

Multitasking Is Hard

Oh hi, internet. Happy weekend! This weekend is going to be a little rough for me so I thought I'd just pop in here to let you know. I'm working on a project for the Pinterest Challenge. Here's a hint:

Also, since it's close to the end of the semester I'm basically swamped in papers. For my research class I decided to do a little multi-tasking. So if you have three minutes and want to help shape the future of The Snarky Beagle pop on over here and take my survey. It would be immensely helpful and I'll heart you forever! Here's my second hint about my Pinterest Challenge entry.

Hopefully I'll be back Sunday to give you all the details!

The Birth of a Doodle

This is a post about how a doodle is born. I promise it won't be gross or weird like most births are.  Right? I wouldn't actually know. Anyways... yeah sorry about the awkward detour.

I doodle A LOT during meetings, class, while waiting for the pizza guy and pretty much anytime I have a pen and paper in hand (actually paper isn't even required, I used to color the back of my hand pretty elaborately in high school). It's like I literally can't help it.

Most of the time I draw random things like flowers and stars and zigzags that are all pretty boring.

BUT soooometimes, I'll draw a shape or a pattern that I really like. I'm not sure where it comes from. It's pretty much like MAGIC. Then it becomes like "The Doodle of the Week" and I draw and re-draw it. It evolves and at some point I decide it's ready for the big time.

The next step used to be that I'd pull out my Big Black Book of Doodles and carefully draw until it covered a whole page (like this or this). But then I bought a smaller notebook when I started blogging so that maybe I'd have more motivation to draw new doodles (like this). But the thing is, unless the magic happens, I have nothing to draw but zig zags and flowers and stars. Now that I'm starting to use a tablet to draw digitally, it's even worse because the barrier is even lower.

I've sat down almost every day for the past 5-6 days to try and draw a new pattern... but Snarky Beagle designs just don't start on my computer. They have to start when I'm mind-numbingly bored and doodling in the margins of a notebook/meeting agenda. It's frustrating because I want to just spill a bunch of fabulous doodles out on command and I just can't. (I could bring this back to the birth metaphor now... but I'll spare you).

It's a creative process that dependent on boredom... or something. Anyone else have this problem or suggestions for sparking creativity on demand?

Smaaarch Flowers

I love when the grass starts turning green and the daffodils start popping out of the ground. It makes me want to be productive. I have big weekend plans for sewing some baby gifts, some minor gardening and of course lots of relaxing. Oh yeah, and not writing a blog post for class. I'll let you know how that all goes...

Come on everybody...

Let's do the twist! 

Diving deep

What did I say about those new pens? More to come!

DemonSquashRaptor

Is there really anything else to say about this creation?

Tracks

"So, don't forget to breathe. Don't forget to breathe.

Your whole life is here, no eleventh hour reprieve so don't forget to breathe.

Keep your head above water, but don't forget to breathe."

These detailed ones take forever to scan because my scanner can't handle the amount of data. Speaking of taking forever, I think I probably started this at least six months ago. That's one more down... three more partially finished drawings to go.

I swear it's not because I'm bored

I don't always draw because I'm bored. In this case, I was actually pretty interested in the speaker who was speaking at a conference I was attending (sorry, I'm being purposely vague here not to offend anyone who was with me this week hah).

Hopefully there should be a lot more stuff coming soon. I have several works in progress from my big notebook (these two are both in my small notebook that also holds my grocery lists, random quotes, and thoughts).

The Telephone Game

My life is frequently like a bad game of "The Telephone Game." Sometimes I just don't get the message. I made this with Sharpies and an old CD I don't listen to anymore.

The Flaming Chicken Redux

Um, this looks like flames or chicken feathers, hence "The Flaming Chicken..." I've actually finished three or four designs this weekend, which means it was an extremely productive or an extremely unproductive weekend depending on how you look at it. More to come soon.