Studio Sunday

Happy Holidays!  Well, between on-line shopping and one full day at the stores, I think I am done!  Now I can get back to business LOL.  More than once I have mentioned that I am not a "doodler" by nature and that is my biggest challenge as a surface pattern designer.  I don't consider the lack of the skill a detriment to my designing, however, the more techniques you have that you can add to the toolbox, the more diversified your designs can be.

I definitely want to break out of this box but it is more challenging for me than people may see.  The other major challenge for me as a surface pattern designer is my complete lack of interest in designing for holidays.  Some artists love to design for Christmas, Easter, Halloween, etc., but not me.  No cute icons; bunnies in baskets, toys and stockings, monsters and costumes.  A part of that is that the color combinations don't inspire me.  Black and orange is not really my thing and every time I see purple and yellow, I think Easter.  

So where am I going with this?  Well, I'm kind of kicking myself in the rear here to get my pencils going, to stretch a little and explore the mark making.  My strength is working with shapes as you can see from the designs above.  When I was challenged to make holiday designs, this is what I came up with.  I was thinking recycled kraft paper backgrounds with simple shapes to create a feeling of the season through color.  (Yes, I did doodle the tree at the top and thought it definitely worked well for this purpose.)

  

Somewhere I need to find a balance in the creation of shape with just enough detail to change the designs up a little.  I'm still finding where that place is for me and how it might change or modify my current design style.

Of course I will continue exploring shape to build patterns and create design elements and ornamentation as it is truly my nature.  I would buy the wrapping paper below, would you?  

I think some of the time I compare my style to others who do have the more illustrative background and who do it really well which is unrealistic because our styles are so different.  It just makes me think I need to incorporate more of that look and feel into my own work.  I did stretch a little below to create my partridge in a pear tree.  But again, its a simple, low detail look which can work in a lot of areas as well.

So off the holiday designs and back to the fun stuff!  Since shopping took over the day yesterday, I haven't done anything in the studio so thought I would just share some more designs I've created.  The design below has a gradient background and there has been some digital manipulation of the texture inside of the image shapes but when you look at this up close, it is such a dreamy design.  It doesn't currently have a home in a collection but is ripe for a jumping off point.

The same with this design below.  I really want to print this up but want to work some more on the repeat as it seems quite boring.  When you see this one up close, it has a very batik look to it and I love the way the blending modes are working for me here.  The icon itself has 3 pieces to it which are all working together to create the look.  Yummy!

This set below is part of a collection I created that I will be possibly re-working for May.  I've been looking at trends for 2016 and it seems that the boho look will morph into a more gypsy-like look so I have been thinking of ways already to build new imagery and patterns into an existing collection to really expand it and create a more interesting collection.  I'll share more on that as I work on it.

So there we are!  I'll be digging into gypsy today and forcing some pen to paper activities so stay tuned for some reveal next week!  Have a fabulous weekend and I hope you can get all of your holiday shopping completed so you can get back to your studios for more creative fun!!!

Margaret