As textile designer, yoga teacher and Pilodendron lover I am threefold delighted that South African yoga wear brand Shakti Shanti has licensed one of my designs.
My design ’50 Shades of Philodendron’ is now called Leafy Print and available here.
#the100dayproject 2017 100/100!!!
After taking a summer pause due to travelling and summer holidays I loved coming back to my #the100dayproject and creating the last patterns.
You can still see the tropical influence from my trip to Cuba and then the change of seasons from summer to early autumn (falling colourful leaves, spider webs, grey rainy days). I love how life influences art.
And here is the whole thing:
I really enjoyed this project and have achieved exactly what I wanted to learn when I started out – learn my way around on the iPad Pro which has now has become part of my design process. And I keep learning and designing and learning and evolving.
New Licensed Designs for FLEO
I am excited that two fresh activewear designs of mine were licenced and released on FLEO shorts in June and July.
That makes four this year and I think there is even more to come.
I like how diverse my designs are, they started out as textures painted with watercolour, photographs or even doodling on my iPad Pro. One of the most rewarding parts (except for the creative process itself) is seeing your designs come to live on real products and real people wearing them – I admit to sometimes searching #fleoshorts on Instagram to see them in action in real life. Very motivating!
Summer in Cuba
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It’s been already three weeks since we came back from our three weeks of travelling in Cuba. And now that everything is unpacked, the photos are downloaded, the stories have been told dozens of times and the whole travel experience has become categorized in my brain and body it is time to show some impressions on my blog too.
I wanted tropical and Caribbean and I got tropical and Caribbean 😉 and so much more, living history of communism and colonisation, extremely nice people, perfect beaches, as much delicous mango as my heart wanted, colour and fumes overload and I came back with a full sketchbook of my daily watercolour travel moods and sketches of tropical flora.
We travelled independently (my husband and our two daughters aged 5 and 10), our route was Havana-Cienfuegos-Trinidad-Santa Clara-Varadero-Matanzas-Havana. We stayed at private accomodation called ‘casas particulares’ with local families, artists, musicians and doctors.
I could write a whole book about our trip, but I will let the pictures and my husband’s photos speak.
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While my husband was taking these amazing photos of Cuban life, I was more busy with photographing tropical foliage for future designs and sketches, especially I was on a mission for the perfect banana leaf.
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Right after coming back home I had an outpouring of tropical designs, yes, you can take the girl out of the jungle, but you cannot take the jungle out of the girl 😉
These and more are now available for licensing via my Patternbank account.
#the100dayproject, days 37-81
That’s another 45 new patterns. all created on the iPad Pro:
The muse does show up, every single day! That’s what one the things I have learned during this time. I have to be dedicated also and make the time and effort to sit down and start creating. And usually one idea (sometimes just a little flicker of the mind) a day is enough to start the creative juices flowing. I have had floral explosions and quiet days. And more often then not I found myself opening one of the Adobe apps – Draw, Sketch, Capture and PhotoshopMix, which made it easy to transfer them into Photoshop and Illustrator. 26 patterns have already ben put into repeat and are now available for licensing via my Patternbank account.
These last nine designs show an increase in tropical activity I see now that I have put them together. Not intentional at all, but very forward-looking indeed, as I will be sitting on a plane tomorrow heading towards the Caribbean. Three weeks of travelling with my family and that also means digital detoxing and no iPad Pro, but a real paper sketchbook, pens and watercolours. My #the100dayproject will be pausing for a while, but I will be back with fresh energy, fuelled by new adventures, experiences, people, food, flowers, flora, colours, smells and inspiration – and a full sketchbook, camera roll and traveller’s heart.
CoLabs, Year Two
It’s been over a year since our first CoLab anniversary in March last year and as I was riding my back home from Doris Reske‘s and my 23rd Colab painting session this morning, I thought it was time for an update. So we have added another 11 painting sessions!
We had such a lovely May here in Northern Germany that we could start our outdoor Garden CoLabs again, working on smaller canvases.
Last week we put five of our CoLab paintings on display in Oldenburg’s brandnew YogaLoft located right in the city (where I also teach prenatal yoga classes).
The paintings are a perfect fit for the yoga studio and the awesome owner Ananda was as delighted as we were with ‘Vishuddha’, ‘Chakra Dance’ and ‘Shakti Mandala’.
And here are some impressions of today’s painting session, which felt very light and energetic at the same time.
The CoLabs are taking a little summer break now as each of us is going on vacation, but we will be back for sure, full of fresh colours, inspiration and summer mojo!
#the100dayproject, 27 Days later
Today I am 40 days into #the100dayproject so I thought it is time for a little recap. The iPad Pro has now become one of my daily working tools and it feels totally normal to use it every day.
For Patternmash’s weekend project Terrazzo I decided to do it entirely on the iPad Pro with Procreate. Adobe Capture’s pattern feature always feels a bit of cheating because it is so quick, but I like using my hand painted watercolour sketches to produce tile patterns. Paintstorm studio is a cool tool, because it has a so-called seamless mode that let’s you create repeating patterns straightaway.
Day 19-27 were April days full of rain and spring flowers (tulips, tulips, so many tulips this season) that inspired me which surely is reflected in these patterns.
And then my love for everything tropical came forward again!
My favourite Philodendron plant inspired me (I now have one in the home!) and also banana leaves, Caladium and Sansevieria (I learned a new botanical term here). What about a next project #100daysoftropicalmotifs?
Some patterns take minutes and some take hours (and not necessarily look better). I practiced some digital painting which I think is something that I will explore further (now that you can also use the fantastic Kyle brushes in Adobe Sketch). A couple of patterns I have already taken into Photoshop and put into repeat and are now available for licensing via my Patternbank account.
#the100dayproject is a wonderful and also a bit scary thing. Showing up every day and trusting that the muse will show up too, and such a learning curve for sure.
#the100dayproject 2017
This year I decided to take part in global #the100dayproject again. After last year’s hand-painted watercolour Daily Moods I am going all digital this time. I got myself an iPad Pro and pencil a couple of weeks ago and have already done my first baby steps on it and have even already sold a pattern based on it.
The project gives me daily time to learn, play and experiment with the apps and see what I like and what could become part of my textile design process. But the main part is fun & play of course. I also struggle with colour from time to time, so generating colour palettes will also be interesting to me.
Here are my first nine days:
I have used the following apps: Adobe Draw, Adobe Sketch, Procreate, Amaziograph and iOrnament. I can see my love for tropics and textures coming through and the beginning of spring. I have also been travelling during these days, so two patterns were created in Switzerland. That’s the very practical aspect of the portable iPad. On the downside it can take quite a huge amount of time longer to duplicate, move and transform objects in comparison to Photoshop and Illustrator, and the number of layers is limited, which can be unnerving. Textural and tiled patterns are a breeze to create though. Let’s see what the coming 91 days bring!
I also am very much enjoying seeing what my fellow designers and artists create during the project, if you would like you can follow my progress over on my Instagram.
Licensed Activewear Designs for FLEO
As some of you might know, besides being a textile designer I am also a yoga teacher. When I first heard the word ‘Athleisure’ at a WGSN trend seminar I was about to jump up and shout “That’s me!”. I wear leggings and some kind of dress/tunic all day long as I transition between yoga teacher, mother, designer, friend, yoga teacher, wife and designer again and again. So my interest in activewear is genuine, professional and personal. I have seen an increase in cool patterns on leggings in my classes and I create quite a lot of activewear designs myself.
That being said, drumroll please … FLEO shorts have licensed two of my activewear designs recently. Fleo is an American company that sells activewear for very strong girls and women – weight lifters! One of my designs was released in January called Lava.
And it is sold out as I have seen on their website. The other design called Extremely has just been released.
Fleo do a great job in describing the empowering effect of their activewear. Extremely: “From extremely dedicated to extremely passionate, you go all in. You love hard, train hard, live life to its fullest and never settle. It feels good to use your brain, muscles and emotions all at once. You need apparel that goes as hard as you do.” And for Lava: “Because H-O-T. Lava is flowy, wavy, and full of fire. Predominately black with magenta and teal waves, this print is subtle yet striking. When you lava something like your workout, your heart and soul soar. For the lava of lifting all the weights and growing your muscles these FLEOs are the key. Designed for your fiery and determined self, Lava is so hot it’s cool.”
The coolest thing is probably what a little Photoshop magic can do in creating these designs. I am brave, I am showing you the original artwork that was the basis for these patterns.
Lava (or Night Surf as I called it) originated from this experimental play of printing with leaves.
Extremely (Rainforest Walk) is basically brushstrokes. With the help of different filters like Solarize and Wave plus adjustments layers I transformed these designs into what they finally look like. I learned tons of helpful techniques and tips for these designs in the Textile Design Lab, especially in their Summer of Creativity course and in the Women’s Activewear e-course. The designs were licensed via my Patternbank account.
And happy news – they have just licensed another one of my designs, this time a floral. I am excited to see how this one will turn out.
Party Nights Collection
Unfortunately like a lot of designers I can’t show you the majority of design work I am doing at the moment as most of it is for my agency and clients’ work. So I am quite happy when there is something that I can actually show. Like for Patternmash’s latest project called Le Freak for Spring/Summer 2018.
I have participated in a couple of Patternmash projects last year and they always come with great moodboards, inspiration and art direction. This one was no exception:
Disco, neon lights, dancefloor lighting, stars, glitter and the vibe of studio 54 … it was hard not to sing “c’est chic” everytime I worked on the Le Freak designs.
I was born in the late 1970s, so I should qualify as a real 70s child, but was of course too young for anything of it to experience. And as I grew up in communist Eastern Germany I am not quite sure how much of the “decadent” Studio 54 spirit trickled through the Iron Curtain. But what I remember for sure is that I danced in school discotheques that had disco balls.
And another memory – the first time I heard the word Pucci in my life must have been my fashion-conscious Russian mother.
That was a fun project and I liked working more on geometric designs that are a welcome addition to my portfolio. You can see all the other participients’ ‘Le Freak’ submissions on the Patternmash website.