astrantia

One of the exercises from the surface pattern course I’m doing was to design a set of stationery. I tried to design something feminine and luxurious, and used metallic gold, coral and smoke as my colour palette. One of the fun things has been naming colours to make them sound even more appealing… I do find naming patterns very difficult though. This one was easy to name though as my starting point was some astrantia flowers I picked from the garden. I sketched them first, scanned them into Photoshop, then used Illustrator to make them into a vector based pattern.

Here is the whole collection:

I am throwing myself into this course. It is the best thing I’ve done for myself in years.

first exercise… sketchbook to pattern

So this is my first creative exercise from the Surface Pattern course I’ve signed up for. I’ve already learnt so much from reviewing module 1 yesterday (I’ve dived straight into module 2 because I was too impatient for module 1 to start in August!) Can’t believe how intense this course is already… I’m finding myself completely absorbed by it. Already noticing patterns everywhere!! 

Anyway… for the first exercise I chose to draw the mug on my desk and ended up simplifying it to create a motif (although I was supposed to embellish it). Then after scanning it into the computer I worked it up into a complete pattern. I never thought about creating motifs in this way… it’s a bit of a revelation to me!

Thank you for all the kind comments on my last post. It’s great to be back blogging again!

perfect timing

Well, it has been a while but I have just signed up to an exciting e-course!!! The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design!!! So I think it is the perfect time to settle back into blogging which I've wanted to do for a while. Hopefully interesting times ahead!

creating a mood

I’ve been having fun with my camera, taking photos of my new pyrography necklaces for my etsy shop. The forest has been great for finding different textures and backgrounds. I completely lost track of time and it became like when I am drawing, completely focused on just one thing, all the stress of life melted away.

Trying to think up ways of putting across my feelings for these necklaces through the photos is hard but I think I’m getting there! I’m hoping to come up with a sort of formula to make the following necklaces quicker to put into the shop.

I’m not sure I can count the photography part as work because I enjoy it so much, and there’s the added bonus that Floss gets a walk at the same time.

I have noticed the leaves changing colour already and Autumn is definitely in the air. The smell of Autumn in the forest is so evocative for me. When I was four, my first night away from home was with school to a place called Fox Howl in the forest. I can still remember the ranger taking us on a walk to show us all the different types of fungi. It was all such a big adventure.

finished!

I took a deep breath and polished the oxidisation off. I hope they’re pleased with it.

silver patina

I’ve been making a keepsake for my god-daughter-to-be with silver metal clay. I took some photos after I oxidised the pendant with liver of sulphur because the colours that appeared were really beautiful. I can hardly bare to polish this back but the original idea was just to give it an antique finish and make the letter stand out more. I know it’s possible to keep patinas like this with some special wax but I think they eventually darken. Mmmm… what to do???!

sketchbook honey bee to thank you card

I recently bought myself some new Triplus pens and they have completely changed the way I use my sketchbook. I just love them! I use them for drawing, sketching out ideas, trying designs for pyrography, list making and lots more.

I drew this bee in my sketchbook, the amazing thing about drawing is that you notice and learn so much more about the subject you’re studying. For instance, I never knew that bees had little claw-like feet and such hairy legs!

I scanned my drawing into Photoshop and after a bit of tweaking came up with this which I liked better for what I had in mind.

It was one day last week, we were walking Floss and got talking to a man outside his house who owns a chocolate factory (can you imagine how lovely that would be?!). He told us he keeps bees so he can use the honey in his confectionery. I’ve always been interested in beekeeping so asked him lots of questions and then as I was getting round to asking him if he sold the wax (thinking that it would be great to use on my pyrography being so local) he fetched us a jar of honey and wouldn’t take anything in return.

A thank you card! I hope he likes it.

And to think, that honey might have been made using the flowers from our garden! How ace is that? I’ve never tried local honey before. It doesn’t taste like any honey I’ve tasted before and it’s delicious.