Reign Repeats

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If you’ve ever wanted to get some more in-depth insight to how to create perfect repeats for surface pattern design, here’s the perfect e-course for you. It’s accessible and affordable, and is being offered by fellow surface pattern designer Majo BV, starting on June 7th.

Here’s what she has to say about the course:

I’ve partnered with the awesome team of Skillshare to teach Reign Repeats: create perfect repeat patterns in Adobe Illustrator. The class is for surface pattern designers, graphic designers, illustrators, artists, crafters and anyone else who is interested in pattern design using Adobe Illustrator.

You’ll submerge in the wonderful world of patterns, and learn how to use the basic Illustrator tools to bring to life your ideas. You’ll learn how to create a repeat, both the old-school way and using Illustrator CS6 new Pattern Tool. At the end of the class you’ll be able to create your own designs for you to use however you want; for example, to sell your own fabric on Spoonflower. To help you get started with this, you’ll create a repeat for a Spoonflower contest as part of the final project.

I’ll explain you how to get your hand-drawn sketches vectorised (even if you don’t have a scanner), how to apply colour and then easily re-colour your design to create new colour ways, the different types of repeats and how to make them, and how to solve most of the common problems that arise when using Illustrator. I’ll also teach you how to prepare perfect files for you to get your best results on Spoonflower.

At the end of the class, I’ll choose the top 15 designs and will showcase them on my blog and Facebook page. For a week I’ll ask my readers to vote for their favourite designs and the top 3 voted will receive some fab prizes donated by Spoonflower.

This course will be packed with lots of useful info, helpful resources, and inspirational interviews from great designers that have come to reign repeats. If you can’t wait to get your ideas on to fabric or any other printed surface, don’t miss the class… enrol now!

The Art of Typography

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I’ve just signed up for the following course in June with Faye Brown on the art of typography. I’ve always been a bit of a typography geek so I thought it would be a great way to refresh my knowledge and get me back into creating some hand drawn type. I can’t wait to get started!

Time and Space Gallery

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I’m pleased and rather excited to announce that some of my jewellery pieces are now available for sale in the Bath Time and Space Gallery. A small gallery nestled in the village of Combe Down,  Bath it’s run by a talented co-operative of local designers selling their hand-crafted items, paintings, sculptures, ceramics and much more. It’s a beautiful gallery full of inspiring work and wonderful gift ideas at affordable prices, including a wide variety of greetings cards. So if you are local to Bath, feel free to pop in and take a look.

Cardmaking Magazine Updates

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Just a reminder that the second volume of The Complete Guide to Digital Crafting goes on Sale VERY SOON - Thursday 14th February. I won’t have any featured designs this time, but don’t despair as by popular request, I shall be featuring again in Complete Cardmaking Issue 44, on sale in June. I’ll post further details and a little sneak peek at what will be available nearer to the time of issue.

Module 3 Graduate Showcase – Part 1

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You can now view the final module showcase for Rachael Taylor’s course “The Art & Business of Surface Pattern Design” online at her blog. Part 1 features work and feedback from myself and many of my fellow graduates who joined me on this fabulous course last year. Be sure to check out the entire week of Showcase posts to fully appreciate the variety, styles and talent of all these wonderful students.

Thanks to Rachael Taylor and Beth Nicholls for all their work on creating and running the course, and to all my fellow designers for their support and encouragement throughout the course. This year I’m looking forward to continuing to work on developing my surface pattern portfolio and expanding my surface pattern design experience, alongside my other freelance graphic design work and creating designs for my website.

Image courtesy of Rachael Taylor’s blog

Thank You.

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I am extremely grateful to all the designers and all the supporters of the recent Let’s Fly bloghop, there was an amazing response, wonderful feedback and comments and I was very excited and honoured to be collaborating with such a talented and enthusiastic group of creative designers.

So I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who participated – to all the designers and also all those who followed the event. Thank you also to Rosie Martinez-Dekker of Believe Creative Studio for all her time and enthusiasm curating and promoting the hop, and to Majo for her work on designing the logo and also to all those who promoted it on their blogs and websites and helped to make it such a huge success.

Thank you everyone!

 

Let’s Fly!

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Hello! Today over 50 international surface pattern designers will be showcasing their styles in a truly global blog hop. Over the next 3 days we’ll be taking you on a trip around the world! You’ll probably have joined me from the blog of Miranda Mol Surface Pattern Design and Miranda’s no doubt already shared some of her gorgeous designs with you all the way from Den Bosch in the Netherlands. If you landed here from somewhere else, you can still follow the rest of the blog hop from here and continue on to the next blog on the journey which is listed towards the end of this post. Or you can start at the beginning HERE on the Pattern Addict blog.

All our designs today are on the theme of flying using Pantone’s Colour of the Year for 2013 which is emerald green as the main colour. I looked at a lot of colour palettes for my inspiration and eventually adapted some of  the colours of this palette from DESIGN SEEDS. I’ve been doodling butterflies in many different forms in my sketchbooks, so I used those as the main theme for my design to produce the mini “Flights of Fancy” range shown below. I was also inspired by the verdigris background to add some texture as I love the effect of layering and overlaying colours and textural effects in my designs. My design background is predominantly in stationery and publishing and I can envision this style working for a large  range of stationery and accessory products for stores like Paperchase, Waterstones or John Lewis. I love the idea of adding to this design using as many different butterfly and dragonfly variations as I can, arrayed on large wrapping paper sheets or on a range of greetings cards and I already have some other concepts incorporating inspirational typography on the flying theme. This is just a taster of the range to follow.

Now, be sure to visit the next blog on the hop, Jacqueline Auvigne Fine Art & Pattern. Jaqueline will have more beautiful designs to show you from Calgary, Canada.  Enjoy the rest of your global surface pattern blog hop today, have a wonderful time and thanks for visiting my blog!

Thanks to Rosie Martinez-Dekker of Believe Creative Studio for organising and curating the hop and also to Majo BV for all her work designing the logo for the hop buttons and flier.