If you know me a bit through my blog, work or personally, you might have noticed how much I am drawn to the colour pink. Our vacation on Mallorca had its pink moments for sure, but one colour was predominant there – blue. I would like to share a couple of these blue moments, that I captured with my iPhone camera:
top: my morning dip – in our cove called “Cala Azul” (blue cove)
bottom: Porto Colom lighthouse, on our flight back
And now, I can feel it coming – back to pink!
Last month I was invited by the creative online agency jovoto to join their Textile Orbit – you are given monthly briefs from a textile supplier and trend reports by Promostyl and there is the chance of your patterns being licensed. For this week’s pattern I was inspired by an “underwater trend” and used an abstract sketch of a coral I drew while visiting the Palma Aquarium on vacation in Mallorca.
The left colourway is waterbased and the right one has an Indian/Asian palette. Same pattern – totally different feel.
I am continuing the 30-day-instagram-photo-challenge “gathering evidence” with prompts by photographer Catherine Just here on holiday in Mallorca. After capturing these special moments in my everyday life at home (you can see them here), it is quite a different and exciting thing doing this in new and beautiful surroundings.
the prompts:
top row: gratitude, watching, self portrait
middle row: cherish, a sign, fall
bottom row: reflection, peace offering, puzzle
Everything is photographed with an iPhone.
This week’s pattern was inspired by a tutorial in the Textile Design Lab, where I became a member in September – highly recommendable! It started out with some watercolour playtime in my studio painting all kinds of stripes:
I painted stripes on watercolour paper and also on this strange yupo paper again (which took about a day to dry). Then I took my yupo stripes into Photoshop, cleaned them up and put them into a repeat:
A happy pattern for different kinds of products, like bedding:
Girls’ dresses would also look cute with this pattern or even womenswear. It would also make a great journal cover – or watercolour paper block cover ;-).
Another week, another challenge ;-). Because one challenge (this here) is just not enough, I also joined the #gatheringevidence Instagram photo challenge by American photographer Catherine Just, whose soulful photography I discovered recently. For 30 days she gives photo prompts, that keep you thinking, feeling, observing and taking photos with your iPhone – I joined on Day 10.
the prompts:
top row: make a wish, true north, vulnerable offering
middle row: longing, you, reflection
bottom row: connection, go, sky
I am not so self-centered as to put my portrait right in the middle, it just happened this way by chronological order. Thinking about the prompts and finding ways to capture them with photography in my everyday life, gives my days a beautiful and deeper meaning. This is pure soul fun at the moment, but who knows – Doris Reske and me are planning a new exhibition for 2016, which will show paintings and … iPhoneography.
A simple before-bed doodle in my sketchbook became the basis for this week’s pattern. Circles of different sizes, some felt markers and then I put this sketch into Photoshop, put it into a repeat and added a darker background:
It is called “bacteria night party” and is my submission for the recent Spoonflower contest themed Microorganisms. As it is a night party, I mocked it up on some bedding:
You can see all the amazing entries on this Spoonflower page and vote for as many designs as you like, and maybe for mine ;-). Thank you!
You can never have too many inspirations prompts, I believe. And that combined with a worldwide Instagram community doubles the fun. A couple of days ago I “accidentally” stumbled upon the #365doodleswithjohannafritz and decided to join – hey, I can add a doodle a day on top of the other things I do daily anyway. I always get new ideas and it is so good to practice drawing skills and explore subject matter I wouldn’t normally choose myself. No matter what, how busy a day, take that pen and sketchbook and just doodle for a couple of minutes a day.
Johanna Fritz is a German illustrator based in Stuttgart and you can find all the daily prompts on her website. Join any time, doodle any way you want. I will keep doodling.
My pattern of the week was a submission for the Spoonflower design contest Pop Art Cookies. Pop Art rang a bell for me and I decided to update my Soft Pop pattern that I designed during this year’s Make it in Design Summer School. To make it more fun for me, I used a lot of pink ;-).
Thank you everybody who voted for me!
I am a bit late to the October party, I just realized yesterday.
So here is Clara’s calendar page:
And it fits so perfectly, being right in the middle of the mushroom season and with the mushroom pattern I created recently. We have had a beautiful autumn so far, with lots of bright sunshine (but quite cold mornings). The leaves are just about to turn into all shades of yellow, orange and red. In October I will continue my September studies and churning out new patterns. And for the last two weeks of October our family will fly south to a mediterranean island to soak up some more sun before grey November starts. Sounds like a good one.
This week’s theme for sketching and my pattern-making totally naturally popped up – mushrooms! When I went for a little jog last Sunday I saw loads of them having appeared overnight. Mushrooms are so much associated with autumn/fall and are such a big part of my childhood memories that my mushroom gathering instinct was instantly activated. A good night’s rain, thats’s always a good indicator and then I kept my eyes during this week all around town. And I was successful in a couple of unexpected places, like in the backyard for Carolina’s kindergarten.
We had fresh mushroom meals three times this week and having them so fresh right in front of you, makes them also great objects for sketching:
I wanted to use these sketches to make a pattern. After last week’s meticulous Photoshop pattern I felt like some clean Illustrator designing. And I chose an unsual colour palette for it, which was predetermined by the recent stoff’n competition:
You can see all the submissions here.