A New Way to Enjoy My Work: Society 6

I feel like I'm a little late to this game, but I've finally started a Society 6 account. They do custom art prints on a wide variety of products, everything from prints to wood blocks to laptop sleeves to leggings. I haven't put a wide variety up yet, all patterns I've done that work nicely for things like duvet covers and shower curtains, but I'm planning a few things to create in the next few weeks that will print nicely. Check it out at Society 6.


I'm pretty excited because it's really cool to see designs on large-scale products and know people are enjoying them in their homes. I've bought a shower curtain from a difference artist, which should be here soon and then I can enjoy the same feeling with someone else's work!


They do sales and promotions regularly, so check out the website frequently because there's always a code for discounts at the top.

Organic Chemisty - Fabric Design

It's crazy how long I've been away from blogging and, to be honest, even creating much. But I'm finally getting back into things and one of the things I am trying to do is fabric designs for Spoonflower's Design Challenges, as a good way to regularly create and practice.


This one is for the "Circles and the New Triangles" challenge, which is a strange name for a topic but opened a lot of possibilities for designs. I did some research and doodling and came up with this geometric design, meant to be made of hexagons and triangles but give the impression of circles (or at least roundness) because of the colouring and pattern. Plus there are little circles connecting all the lines. It took ages to make all the little lines since I was doing them at random, but I really love how the colour turned out on this and am very happy with it overall. I named it after the hexagon pattern and because the randomness of the lines feel more 'organic' than strictly computer-made geometric lines.


Head over to Spoonflower to vote in the contest or buy this pattern (it comes in wallpaper and giftwrap too!).

Paint the Village

Last summer I went to one of the small villages in the area because the local artists' group was hosting something called 'Paint the Village.' It was a really fun day, in which people from all over the area converged to either paint or draw, or watch the artists and bid on their work.

I arrived bright and early after a drive from a wedding in another province. There was a lot of coffee involved. I brought a whole trunk-full of supplies, since I wasn't sure what I was going to make.

I set up my drawing board right near the bay.

 

 Notice the totally inadequate pillow. I hurt so much the next day.

 

 Then it started to rain! I finished the pastel while it was under a protective garbage bag.

I don't have a nice photo of the finished product, because it sold that night. Here it is while set-up for the auction.

It was really nice to get outside and spend the day doing what I love. I don't have much time to draw lately, and this was a wonderful day. I hope they do it again this year.

Paramour Bungalow - Blue Cityscape Chaise

I have a confession to make. I randomly decided to search for Red Pumpkin Studio while I was researching non-intrusive bookbinding methods this morning (I was having very little success). I'm so glad I did, because look what I found:

It's a gorgeous chaise done in my City View fabric, which is available from Spoonflower. It's really cool to see something like this done in one of my designs!

It was inspired by a great day playing at Winnipeg's Children's Museum.


It's still available and on sale! Head over to http://paramourbungalow.com/do-you-feel-blue/ to check it out!

Cheesecake Toy T-shirt

This t-shirt design came from the Toy Story-ish design of the "Teamwork to the Rescue" t-shirt. It's a similar idea, with toys coming to life, only this one "set" in the Second World War. It's based on the very famous pin-up poster of Betty Grable. It was a fun little design, though getting the angle of the green army man who is knocked over by the beauty of the poster was pretty tricky. I tried to keep the poses of the toys are true to the real thing as possible.

The Lego-style Betty Grable was a lot more difficult to do, since Lego people don't have a whole lot of curves, and I didn't want to change it too much. I used the shadows to give in controuring more than changing the square shap of the toy. The shadow, however, comes straight from the real poster, so it's got plenty of human shape. The half-tone dots are, in my opinion, what really sets that off. The dark part is coloured around the dots, and the light half the dots are coloured. Gives a good contrast with just black.

This was a fun one! I think the design works well at capturing a Forties feel, with the halftone dots and vintage shapes. The design is named "Cheesecake Toy" because pin-ups were often called "cheesecake girls."

It's available in a few different forms at RedBubble. Enjoy!

Yesterday's Jam

I really enjoyed The IT Crowd. It was a really great, geeky, show, and had a few really terrific moments. One of the most memorable is the scene about 'Yesterday's Jam'. So I took it, and made it into a t-shirt design:

There are many references to the show packed into this little design: The 8-bit opening credit sequence is referenced in the lines, colours, and square 'half-tone dots'; the logo is 'The Internet', the 'Red door' of the jam (do you see the shape/colour of the jam and also the doorknob?), and the company name; and lastly the best before date is the emergency number.

I'm very happy with how this guy turned out! Head over to RedBubble to get a shirt or iPhone case.

And We Shall Call It This Land

I suddenly realized that I haven't posted about the t-shirt designs I've done over the past couple of... years. Years! So, I'm going to begin a series of posts covering all the designs, because some of them are really good, and I want to share them.

This is a reference to one of my favourite TV show, Firefly. It's from the very first scene, one of the funniest moments in the show. I decided to make it into a Soviet-style propoganda poster, which included having to make the font. Right now it's just in Photoshop, but I might look into getting a program to make it a real font. I'm happiest with how the dinosaurs and half-tone dots came out on this, it really worked well.

Head over to Redbubble to get a t-shirt (or hoodie, or iPhone case).