It’s cold in the air and damp on the ground and in the forests and the fields the mushrooms are beginning to appear. I’m looking forward to finding my first chanterelles and penny buns, but meantime I thought I’d celebrate the season of the mushroom with a few fungus-inspired patterns – these ones are anything but edible…
I am over the moon to find that my work has been featured on both Print and Pattern and the Make it in Design blog today! Earlier in the year I submitted work for the “student showcase” after graduating from Rachael Taylor’s e-course The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design and they chose to show my rainy sky pattern alongside the beautiful patterns created by some of my fellow students! I’m thrilled to bits and it just makes me want to make more patterns – in fact here are some below…
I’m rather enjoying playing with putting patterns and drawings together at the moment. Here are a couple of creatures who have come into being of late who definitely need to find homes…
I have been working on patterns lately and its all going quite well! Here are the (extremely happy) results to prove it:
I am absolutely thrilled to bits that my entry to the Make it in Design testimonials competition has won me a place on the next part of the course! My picture was created with water colour and I used a dip pen for the fine lettering. I loved doing the first module in the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design course and it really has changed the way I look at the world, so it felt right to use bright spring colours to express that. My testimonial was one of two to have been chosen by course leader and design guru Rachael Taylor and fellow winner was Kevin Brackley who is no doubt feeling every bit as chuffed as I am!
I have been away from my studio recently and travelling light with just my tiny water colour set to keep me company. I had forgotten how lovely water colour is and how different it is to acrylic ink, which is what I use most of the time for illustrations. I love both mediums in different ways; FW inks are incredibly vivid and very versatile, but water colour has a beautiful quality to it. The colours are subtle and each one seems to settle on the page in a slightly different way. I am by no means an expert but I do like to play – here are some patterns I’ve been working on, the first three were painted with water colour and the ones beneath that are FW ink.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been drawing from nature, creating painted textures and putting it all together in my computer to make patterns. Rachael Taylor’s e-course in surface pattern design has been very inspirational and started me off thinking along new lines and working in news ways. Here are some of the results:
I’ve come to the end of my e-course in surface pattern design and it’s been great fun. I have learnt a great deal and I still have lots of exercises to catch up on. My tutor, the wonderful designer Rachael Taylor really packed the course full of information so I shall be going back over it all with a fine tooth comb over the next few weeks. For now here are some of my first patterns made with indian ink straight from the pipette and manipulated in photoshop and illustrator.
New year is a good time to start new things so I have enrolled in an e-course to learn all about surface pattern design! I only started yesterday but they have already got us going out and about with sketchbooks and cameras in hand to collect inspiration from our surroundings. These are from my walk to the studio this morning:
I have been away from my computer for a little while so there is a lot to catch up on and where better to start than with Grubbies who have just brought out their new autumn/winter kerchiefs. I loved designing these scarves, they are definitely my kind of thing – autumn trees, fallen leaves, woodland creatures and their colours are bright red and yellow, good for cheering up dark winter days. Due to popular demand Grubbies have decided to sell the scarves in big sizes as well as little ones. An excellent idea if you ask me! And I’m not in the least biased…
marion lindsay 