Hello March!

It is the first of March today and as I am writing this the sun is coming out after a morning of rain.

I am not quite sure what this chicken wants to tell me for the month of March to come, and Clara couldn’t tell me either (Easter is only next month). What I know, is that March will be a packed month workwise and great month to grow creatively. I will be taking the B Part of the e-course Make Art that Sells with Lilla Roger’s Studio.

Work for the following markets will be created – paper, baby/children’s apparel & décor, scrapbooking, editorial and party paper. Five full weeks of learning, advice, a very talented and supportive community and making, making, making. March will not be a month when I will be getting a lot of sleep. So our family city trip at the end of March will be very appreciated. Where will we go? Let me surprise you. All I can say now, that it is a charming, cool and trendy European city, that I visited last time nearly 20 years ago. And this time, I won’t be eating the “space cake” ;-).

Feb282015May 9 2015

Green

I used to knit a lot. I even used to have a knitting blog. I started this dress 3,5 years ago when I was pregnant with my second daughter Carolina (blogged here). Then I stopped knitting this dress. Because of the belly. Then because of breastfeeding. And then painting came my way again. 3,5 years sounds like a long time for knitting a dress, but I spent more not knitting this dress, then knitting it. So much interesting time in-between. And then this month, motivated by Clara’s February calendar page, the colour green and the anticipation of spring, I picked up the knitting needles and the dress again.

The pattern is by Danish knitting designer Annette Danielsen.

So dear spring, I did my work.

Now it’s your turn.

Feb272015May 9 2015

Pattern 9/52

Exciting news! This pattern of mine is shortlisted for the Tigerprint Floral Pattern Competition.

you can see the whole shortlist here

I created this pattern this month during the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design course Module 2. We were given a lot of trend reports for spring and summer 2016 and I used some of the colours that were forecasted by WGSN. The tulips were hand-drawn. Hubby has this new thing about having fresh flowers of the windowsill of his room. A vase full of tulips and a longing for spring to begin served as my model and inspiration. The pattern is then naturally named after its flower-lover – “Oliver’s Tulips”.

From over 1400 entries Tigerprint has chosen 87 pattern for the shortlist, so I am happy and amazed to be on that list. And as is this surface pattern design class is so talented, there are a couple of other classmates shortlisted. Congratulations to all of us! Everybody could submit up to five designs and I must say that this was my least favourite … but who knows, what the Tigerprint people are looking for. The shortlist is such a mix of so many different styles, it will be a real surprise to see the winner. As my pattern is very spring-seasonal and “edgy” I am not for a second considering being picked for the floral crown. But no matter what, I enjoyed making this pattern a lot and especially learning how to apply textures in Illustrator. Good luck to the other ABSPDers!

Feb262015May 9 2015

Magic Mountain Village

The February assigment of Lilla Roger’s MATS Bootcamp was quite a creative and emotional rollercoaster ride for me. The “mini” for the warm-up week was to look at vintage scenic plates, be inspired and draw your own scenes. I discovered, that I especially liked the Japanese plates with landscape scenes. And I must admit, that I don’t consider drawing scenes one of my strenghts, but rather a challenge. So I didn’t draw very much and spent more time noticing what I liked and see what the creative bunch was up to in the Facebook group. When the main assigment was revealed the following week, it was quite a surprise. No plates were to be designed, but painting a scene on a wood slice. Real painting with real paint on real wood! Even though I do consider painting something of a homezone, there was still that “scene” part. Abstracts, flowers and emotions anytime, but scenes? So I procrastinated and procrastinated and blamed it on the impossible mission to find wood slices in Northern Germany. And that didn’t feel good. I found a round canvas in my studio and played around with paint a bit and superimposed it on a wood slice photograph.

I think, this thing shows my confusion and the struggle with the assignment very well. Where is the scene? The creative bunch in the Facebook group showed cute scenes of animals, and girls and flowers. That was not my thing. But I didn’t give up (even though I was close to) and prayed and surrendered and looked at Pinterest. At one point near the assigment deadline I had my aha-moment and I remembered a scene.

The town of Gáldar on Gran Canaria, that we visited during our holiday there last autumn. When we drove by that mountain, I took photographs and thought that I would really like to use this for inspiration later on. Later on was now. As I still wasn’t able to find wood slices I stayed with the canvas board and had a lot of pleasure painting my submission:

That felt beautiful and I couldn’t resist putting this painting into a little mock-up scene.

A total fake, my painting process is usually so messy ;-).

You can view the whole February class gallery here.

Feb212015May 9 2015

Pattern 8/52

This week’s pattern I designed for a Spoonflower design challenge called “coral, mint, black and white”.

And these are exactly the colours you are supposed to work with, and only these colours. Not the usual palette I am drawn to, but a very refreshing inspiration, I found. For my pattern I used one basic hand-drawn shape of a bud.

Let’s call the pattern “sophisticated buds”.

This is how it looks like as a bedding mock-up:

It is the first time I enter a Spoonflower contest, so I decided to brush up my Spoonflower page and add some more designs. You can see it here, if you like. Voting for this design contest starts on Thursday, March 5th. You can still submit until March 3rd. Good luck everyone!

Feb172015May 10 2015

Winter or Spring?

February is such a hybrid of a month.

There are still those winter days,

when my feelings and paintings look like this:

And then,

there might be a day,

like Friday last week,

that feels like the first day of spring,

with sunshine and blue skies all day long,

a certain sweet and fresh smell in the air,

and a feeling of expansion.

Feb132015May 10 2015

Pattern 7/52

For this week’s pattern I just couldn’t help it –

it is Valentine’s Day tomorrow.

Hearts, hearts, hearts,

on a postcard in a half drop pattern repeat.

The hearts are simple doodles,

one is based on this thing I found in our living room.

Have a beautiful and lovely day!

Feb112015May 10 2015

My Shop is Open

I got so many encouraging responses to my art pillows last week, that I decided to open my shop with Society6. So now not only these pillows are for sale, but also a whole lot of other products with my paintings and pattern on them.

A few examples:

Society6 also produces art and canvas prints, laptop skins, shower curtains, duvet covers, T-shirts and more. If you don’t know Society6 yet, they are a Santa Monica based company that produce and ship the product in behalf of the artist. The artist gets 10% of the sales revenues.

I hope, you’ll like my shop and check it out. And there are thousands of other great artists and their products to discover! Hubby was infected right away and opened a shop in his own right with his photographs here. And even if I’ll never sell a piece, it’s so rewarding for your ego to see your stuff on products 😉