Drawing & Illustration for Dummies

Continuing with my spate of recent online classes, I recently finished watching Heather Ross' Drawing & Illustration Basics on Creative Bug. In the next week or so I'm going to be posting a REALLY BIG round-up of all the online classes I've taken, but I wanted to share some of my attempts from Heather's class in particular.

Heather really focuses on drawing everyday objects so we started out with some little things little clothespins and push pins.

Next we moved on to some more complex sketches of things like flowers.

Up to this point in the class, I basically was just drawing whatever she drew, but then I diverted and started sketching some things from our backyard (I mean, it IS spring and EVERYTHING is blooming!)

In the second part of the class she focused on filling in the sketches with gouache, which is a type of opaque watercolor paint that is hard to spell. I was immediately very intimidated, because the bulk of my forays in to painting are decidedly abstract, but I soldiered on at her encouragement that "everyone can draw/paint."

SO I gave it my best effort and was mildly impressed/happy with the result! Lots of room or improvement though.

Finally, she talked a lot about making conversational artwork... again, not something I do naturally... but I loved the little painting she taught us to do of a ladybug hiding under a mushroom. Check out #cbugsketchbook on Instagram to see like 15 of my classmates versions of this... pretty freaking adorable in my opinion.

I think this class was really interesting and pushed me to attempt drawing more things that I usually immediately am like... "nope... can't draw flowers, sorry."

Unrelated to what was taught in the class, I also decided to try my hand at some brush lettering which I really loved and hope to do more of in the future. Sort of an easier (for me) way to get a calligraphic style without the frustration of bending metal nibs (curse my heavy hands!).

Stay tuned for another post coming up in which I will share my deep thoughts and general fangirl-ness from a bunch of the online classes I've taken. If you've been thinking about learning some new stuff... this post will be for you!

Block Print Blossoms now on Spoonflower!

Guess what! My Block Print Blossom patterns are now on my Spoonflower shop. And, oh yeah, I have a Spoonflower shop! You can order any of the patterns, in three color ways, on a variety of their fabrics, wallpapers and wrapping papers. I got the fabric swatches in the mail this week!

I mentioned a few weeks ago when I posted my block print patterns that I feel like I've come a really long way when it comes to designing patterns. I started this blog almost seven years ago and I started thinking about designing patterns almost five years ago. I fumbled through sort of figuring things out myself and toodled around with that for a long time.

I've always thought about posting my designs on Spoonflower or another print-to-order site like Society 6, Zazzle, etc., but I never really felt like my designs were good enough (whatever that means). In the past year I've taken a lot of design classes (and purchased a new laptop) and I finally feel really proud of what I'm making.

I don't necessarily have big expectations in terms of actually selling stuff, but it was an exciting milestone that I felt like I could. I greatly appreciated the support from many friends and classmates that were a huge confidence booster. Anyways there's always a long ways to go, but I'm excited to share these patterns and I hope you will visit my Spoonflower shop to take a look :)

**UPDATED 4/18** I just got a whole yard of the main fabric (in hydrangea) to make in to a running top! So excited! Check it out:

It's Almost Here! Spring Block Print Patterns

Despite getting about seven inches of snow this past week, today's 50+ degree temperatures are making me feel like I can finally be hopeful that winter is almost over! Woohoo! In light of this general elation, I'm excited to share these new patterns:

 I really enjoyed the tactile experience of block printing the past few weeks (and sewing some sweet projects)... but I was ready for some instant gratification. So I scanned my favorite flower block prints and created some new repeating patterns in my favorite Spring, flower-inspired colors!

This isn't the first time I've digitized block prints, but I think we all can agree... I've come a long way baby! I love progress :)

Anyways, fingers crossed I won't be back here next week posting more snow pics on Instagram... that is unless they are like this amazing beagle snow video... We'll see!

Design, Carve, Print: Block Printing Class Day 2

On Sunday, I finished up Jen Hewett's Design, Carve, Print class by taking some of my stamps and creating repeat patterns. I was surprised how similar it was to doing it digitally... just with a ruler. Maybe a little less precise if you're impatient like me.

Above were the circles. It's hard to tell but the ink was a dark navy. I'm hoping to using this pattern to print fabric for a throw pillow soon-ish.

On Saturday night (after day 1) I ended up staying up pretty late designing and carving another set of blocks. This wasn't a perfectly measured out pattern, but I liked the randomness and the BEES!

Speaking of the BEES! I tried a little half drop repeat. I think I liked the bees among the flowers better.

You can probably tell but I took these last couple photos at night... not as pretty but I think you get the point. I like the shape of these flowers that sort of interlock.

Last one! Another flower, half drop.

Glamour shot! Anyways, I absolutely loved the class. Jen was great and, as always, I appreciated the cheerleading and support of my Facebook groupies/classmates. I have so many ideas for this, its actually a little paralyzing. Would like to take the next step and actually use the fabric for something (or actually print on non-scrap cotton), but we'll see how it goes :)

Big upgrade and more from Pattern Camp

Since Pattern Camp in October, I have been practicing like crazy! You wouldn't know it though from the lack of updates and sharing. I have a pretty short attention span, so I have the habit of quickly whipping things up, then thinking, "oh, I'll go back and perfect this later before putting it on the interwebs." I'm sure you can guess what happens next...

BUT THEN my 6-year-old laptop died. I was pretty devastated that I had lost all of those "just practice" files. So after they were rescued and a new MacBook Pro was purchased, I decided to just go ahead and put 'em out there... perfect or not.

I made the above during Pattern Camp. It's originally this q-tip painting I did a few years ago, turned in to a repeating pattern.

Just a random recent doodle put in to repeat.

Another one from Pattern Camp. It was a little rushed but I was pretty happy with it.

So there you have it. I probably have a dozen more practice pieces so I'll share some more soon!

And can I just say how nice it is to have a computer that doesn't completely melt down when I'm running Photoshop and Illustrator at the same time?! It's a Thanksgiving miracle!!!

Vacation Inspiration

Woo! I'm back with some new patterns! Kevin and I recently travelled to Costa Rica for a nice vacation. It was so beautiful! The plants and animals were my favorite thing about it. 

I set a goal a whiiile back to make more patterns and attempt to create a collection of patterns that sort of fit together. So I finally get to check that off the list with the first one.  I think they would make some fun, summery fabrics. 

Maybe I'll get really motivated and post them to Spoonflower! We bought ourselves a new camera for the trip (so many sloth photos, awww). But here is a totally random selection of photos we took that I used for inspiration:

Change Up

Sometimes I really like a pattern I make. Sometimes I just need to think about it. I liked how this flower pattern turned out when I first did it but now that I've been thinking about it, I've been wanting to change up the colors and simplify it. Here's what I ended up with...

Kinda light and fun. Can we be real for a minute Internet? I just wanted to do a pattern because I've been pretty exhausted this week. This was kind of a side project from our other side projects.

I'm working on one thing that I am PSYCHED about but I can't tell you about it because it's a gift/surprise for someone and I don't want to ruin it. But soon! I'll give you a hint... it's another block print. Anyways, I have a client meeting tomorrow morning for my grad school capstone project so it's off to bed for me.

Orchid You Glad?

Here's the next in my series of botanic garden-inspired prints. The orchids at the U.S. Botanic Gardens are amazing. The different colors and patterns are almost shocking. This was my favorite one (mainly because I'm a little obsessed with pink... talk about shocking, I know).

This is the first stripe I've made so I was unsure about the process but really it was pretty much the same deal. Maybe I'll use this pattern from my DIY Keds that I've been craving? I'm getting ready to order some fat quarters of fabric from Spoonflower to mess with as well. 

I used Kuler again to pull the colors from my photo. You can download them here. Which do you like better the all-green or the green and pink? Should I try something else? As always, try click on them to see the big version and try it out on your desktop! It's a fun, end-of-summer color splash.

Botanic Garden Inspiration, Minus the Snark

When people talk about inspiration I have to admit I sort of tune it out. I feel like its one of those fake things that people brag about. "I'm sooo inspiiired by traaavel." That being said, I had a moment this weekend though where I was like, "Oh, I get it!"

I've talked in the past about where Snarky Beagle doodles come from (I'll give you a hint, the stork doesn't bring them), so on a trip to the U.S. Botanic Gardens I was a little surprised I found myself snapping tons of photos of different beautiful, natural patterns.

Obviously, no one here is shocked that flowers are an amazing inspiration. My favorite is the top right with the pink stripes.

But I also couldn't believe how amazing some of the succulents they had were. The colors and patterns had me staring at them (that is until I melted in the humid 95 degrees temps). So stay tuned for some Botanic Garden-inspired patterns I'll be working on (as soon as I'm done with two 10-page papers for grad school... much less inspiring).

What's your favorite photo? What do you get inspired by?

Hot Like the Weather

No shocker for anyone here in the D.C. area but it was ridiculously hot today. And that's saying something because I grew up in Florida where most summer days are pretty blazing. Needless to say, we spent a lot of time inside so I made some new patterns.

What do you think about the colors? I picked them with Adobe Kuler. Also, I drew the original flower shape with pen and paper before scanning. I think I'm learning that that's just easier for me than drawing straight onto the tablet.

Flowers have really been inspiring me lately so I've been doing a lot of flowers Snarky Beagle-style (since I honestly couldn't draw a flower that looked real to save my life). Have a great weekend everyone. Stay cool!

See a pattern?

I've been thinking about trying to create repeating patterns with some of my designs. I guess because if I ever really wanted to make paper or fabric then designs have to repeat somehow.

I was inspired this week from news from the largest surface design tradeshow that was going on in New York, Surtex, so I decided to go ahead and take a crack at it. Surface design is "the art of changing the appearance of natural and synthetic surfaces by the application of traditional, stylized, digitized, and illusionary techniques to embellish a product." But first, please squint your eyes a little...

I got the instructions from Design*Sponge. Clearly I had some issues when it came to the part where you had to cut it up and tape it all backwards hence the weird lines, etc. but it's not terrible for a first try I think. Nothing was quite even though. I guess my dream of being a surface designer will have to wait for more practice. Maybe once I finish PR grad school, I'll start design school...

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...