Fashion Collaboration with Isy B. Design / Cayman Islands

As you might have guessed from my artwork, there is nothing I like designing more then tropical prints. Let me tell you a little story from my designer’s life. One day in mid-November 2016 (like Nothern Germany grey rainy cold November, actually we had had the first snow that week) I came across an e-mail that had landed in my spam folder (that I nearly deleted) titled ‘Interested in a tropical print collaboration?’ That was not a spam mail. It came from Isy Obi from Isy B. Design, a fashion designer from the Cayman Islands – could it get more tropical? Isy B. designs luxury Caribbean fashion and resortwear and Isy Obi won the title of Lifestyle Designer of the Year at Phoenix Fashion Week 2016. Can I say that I was more then interested!

Thanks to our modern world of e-mail, Skype and WeTransfer (and some good old post service to send a spool of thread in just the right colour we needed for the designs from the Cayman Islands over the pond to Germany) we communicated about the print collection, style, customer, revisions, testprints, production and, and and … (hello, steep learning curve!).

Isy B. asked me to design a ‘Mermaid Collection’ for summer 2018, consisting of 4 placement prints for kaftans and T-shirt dresses and one more abstract allover print for dresses and other garments. We agreed on seahorse, coral, seaweed and mermaid tail prints.

These are the kaftans:

And the T-shirt dresses:

The allover print is an abstracted mermaid tail with more underwater elements in a tropical colour palette:

The graphic turquoise/white seaweed print also made it unto a couple of garments for a relaxed and luxurious look:

You can see more of Isy B. Design’s fashion on their website and here is the link to her 2018 Lookbook. And I am more then happy to announce that we have officially started working on Isy B. Design’s new fashion collection for 2019.

And wow! Tennis champion Caroline Wozniacki is wearing one of our creations!

Dec42017Jun 14 2018

Print Collaboration with Happycloth

Happycloth is a recently launched Greek company producing top-quality handmade silk scarves. I coudn’t be more proud when I found out that they chose 12 designs out of 45,000 textile patterns, and two of them were mine, ‘Leopink’ and ‘Ditsy’.

What makes them furthermore special is that the company decided to sell each scarf with the story of the inspiration and process of the design and asked the artists to contribute their background stories.

The scarves are produced in the northern Greek town of Soufli and come in two sizes, 30cm square and 45cm square.

If you are looking for a Christmas present, Happycloth was so generous as to give my blog readers a 15% discount on their scarves, just use the coupon code CGBLOG upon checkout.

Here is an interesting article about the two cool Greek guys (both named Konstantinos) that started the company and sell their products on markets like London Portobello Road worldwide.

Nov12017Jun 14 2018

Licensed Design for Shakti Shanti Yoga Wear

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.

Oct192017Dec 4 2017

#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.

Aug202017Jun 14 2018

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.

Cathrin Gressieker_FLEO shorts_Dark Floral — Dark Floral

Cathrin Gressieker_FLEO shorts_Blue Grey Blend — Blue Grey Blend

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!

Aug72017Aug 7 2017

Summer in Cuba

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.

Cathrin Gressieker_Cuba Moods 1 — Houses of Havana, Tropical Fruit, Cadillacs and Pollution and Playas del Este

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.

Cathrin Gressieker_Cuba Moods 2 — Tropical Morning Bliss in Cienfuegos, Mojito y Daiquiri, Tropical Thunderstorm in Trinidad and Playa Ancon

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.

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.

Jun242017Dec 4 2017

#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.

Jun52017

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!

May132017Nov 14 2017

#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.

Cathrin Gressieker_#the100dayproject 2017 10-18 — created with the apps Adobe Draw, Adobe Capture, Adobe Sketch, Adobe Photoshop Mix, Procreate, Paintstorm Studio and PolyGen

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.

Cathrin Gressieker_#the100dayproject 2017 19-27 — created with Adobe Draw, Adobe Photoshop Mix, Adobe Sketch, Procreate and Adobe Capture

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!

Cathrin Gressieker_#the100dayproject 2017 28-36 — created with Amaziograph, Adobe Capture, Adobe Photoshop Mix, Adobe Sketch, Adobe Draw and Procreate

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.

Apr152017Apr 15 2017

#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.

Merken