Today’s combination is poppies and iPhoneography.
This photo collage was made last weekend, when I visited Oldenburg’s local museum and took a picture of a doll bed. I combined it with a my neighbour’s poppy field (my neighbour has a super-green thumb, I see her working around her garden nearly all the time in spring and summer). I used the Diana and Pixlr apps for the collage. Sweet poppy dreams!
It is poppies blooming season right now and I want to celebrate this beauty with a week dedicated to this flower. All my posts, paintings, patterns and photographs will be poppy-related. Starting off with a collage of the poppies all around me – basically in my own garden and in my neighbour’s frontyard.
(you know, the grass poppy is greener redder where you water it …).
More poppies to come!
This week on a rainy May afternoon I was knitting away on my leftover blanket (a project that’s been already going on years!), when I realized how much I liked the random colour combination of green, purple and light pink.
And the colours reminded me of something I have seen recently, what was it? Then I remembered all the blossoming lilac trees at the moment, one tree even right in our garden which I see from the kitchen window.
I went outside and snapped a picture and ran it through the chip-it-tool online to generate a colour palette.
How could I resist colours named “forward fuchsia” and “exuberant pink”? For the pattern, I didn’t feel very much like drawing blossoms by hand. After all the painting messiness of last month for my recent exhibition, I longed for some clean designing on the computer. I decided to try a scallop pattern, which is basically just moving circles around – a bit retro, a bit asian and it looks a bit like garter stitch in knitting. After one pattern I got into experimenting mood and tried a couple of different versions.
I like that it is an organic and natural colour palette and I tested the patterns on some pillow mock-ups:
These pattern would also look good on stationary, gift wrap and mugs.
I am recently taking a wonderful course with the amazing painter Alena Hennessy and photographer Susan Tuttle called Radiant HeART . I am a big fan of both and already took their Co-Lab painting & iPhoneography course last year (without having an iPhone, but working in Photoshop instead). Having updated my devices recently, I am now enjoying the possibilities of photo apps and editing and learning more about photography. One exercise of the course was to make a “gratitude collage” of the little things in our life. I went through my camera roll with the photos taken over the last weeks and came up with this – pink moments rolled into one collage.
What a beautiful way to be thankful.
Here are a few glimpses of our new exhibition:
Hanging, deciding, hanging.
The artists and some of their work.
What about a new haircut and looking at some colourful paintings?
Hair & Art.
Catching up with my pattern challenge …
here is a quick sketch mocked up on an iPhone.
“japanese stripes”
(also available in my society6 shop)
I am a bit behind with my pattern challenge these days. For the last two weeks most of my creative energy went into relaunching my website and painting some big paintings for my upcoming show. Also Module 3 of the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design is very business-based with loads of information about licensing, manufacturing and tradeshows and only very few design briefs.
But here comes one, a design for a surfboard:
I have only surfed once in my life up to now, but I love the surf style and a tropical feel. This pattern is a bit of a cheater, a recycled pattern that I gave some new hues in Photoshop. But it is definitely good practice to breathe some new life into older patterns and give them some fresh surf.
My pattern “summer nights” was shortlisted (again) for the recent Tigerprint giftwrap Make Your Mark competition – from over 960 entries 71 designs were chosen, here is the shortlist. If this pattern looks familiar to you, you’re right, it was already part of my Pattern 16/52 giftwrap collection. But with the Tigerprint news this pattern deserves a post in its own right.
I have resisted the siren song of the iPhone for a long time …
in fact, I didn’t even hear it.
This week I answered the call.
Find me instagramming @cathringressieker.
This week’s pattern was created to a brief in week 2 of the ABSPD course Module 3 (The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design). The assignment was to design a tea towel using traditional media and only black, white and two other colours of choice.
I really wanted to recycle the textures I made last week as they were already black and white. Also I have enjoyed paper cutouts recently and got myself some coloured paper at the art store. So here it is:
I glued everything to a 50 x 70 cm canvas and once it was dry I thought: This would actually also fit into my upcoming exhibition alongside with this painting and this collage. I really love it, when surface pattern design and “art” come together. And you know what, I also used the tea towel design for another e-course. Yes, e-course-addict (me) has started a new course this week: radiant heART. But how could I resist a painting/photography course with the amazing Alena Hennessy and Susan Tuttle? See, I just couldn’t. In this course the first exercise was to make an “I-am-collage” with a painterly background and write on them (digitally) all the wonderful qualities that make you who you are. That’s me:
