Pantone's Color of the Year

I had to use Pantone's "Color of the Year",  Tangerine Tango, (LOVE it) in a recent project. I took one of my existing patterns that I had previously done in 7 or 8 colors and made it into a two color design.

The comments from Flickr postings on this one boiled down to "vintage" styling. I used Tangerine Tango with a deep, rich, brown color.

This one uses the same Pantone Tangerine color, with a beige. I think that I like the effect of these two colors together better than the brown. What a difference a color makes, eh?

Oh, and if you want to Pinterest any of my artwork or photography from here, please attach a link to this blog and give me credit. If you don't, I will find you and hurt you ;)

Progressive Sketching

I've been really busy, I've just started Module 2 from "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design", so not too many recent posts from me!

This is one of the first projects we had to do, kind of a warm-up exercise from our 3 week hiatus.
I took an object from my desk, and sketched, re-sketched, spastically sketched and sketched with my eyes closed to get it to an abstract stage. It was pretty fun. It almost looks like I did tequila shots in between sketches. Lol!

They were round glass pieces in a square vase. After I drew this, it reminded me of an overhead shot of roses in a vase, so I added some color, colors from "Design Seeds".

Sneak Peek Saturday

I'm not sure if I'll have the discipline to do this every week, but I'll try to post a little snippet as to what I'm working on. This week I'm kind of all over the place with projects, but I'm trying to finalize this one, I think I'll call it "Gypsy Soul". Turns out my glasses match it exactly! Lol.

The colors are a tad brighter here than actual because this is a photo from a page that I printed.

Happy Saturday!

Check it out!

Yay me! My design "Boho Carnival" is featured in Rachael Taylor's blog today, as a participant/student in "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design".

Here's the link!
http://rachaeltaylordesigns.blogspot.com/2012/06/module-1-june-showcase-part-5.html

Happy Friday :))

Thanks for voting for my design!

I just wanted to say a big "thank you" for voting for my Spoonflower contest design. This was my first time entering, and I placed 28th out of 375. Not too shabby, folks! Again, thanks very much for taking the time out of your busy lives to do this :)

Here was my original post about it... 
http://groovity.blogspot.com/2012/06/my-spoonflower-contest-entry.html

My Gigantor Doodle Project

I'm starting a new module (2) of "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design". A very unusual project was given out that we will be working on for the entire 5 weeks. We have to tack a giant piece of paper or board to the wall, and simply doodle on it for the next month. Kind of like a "walk by doodle-fest". At first I thought it would be a blast, then I sat there last night staring at this giant, blank, white board, with Sharpie in hand. I switched my internet music stream a few times to find SOMETHING to get me going, and I settled on Mozart. More specifically, "Mozart for your Mind".

I'll be posting progress pictures here as I go along.

CVS Caremark Charity Golf Tourney

I know, I know. You are probably saying to yourself..."this blog is supposed to be about design, right?"  Well, I do lots of other fun stuff in my life that I'd like to share as well.

Today I attended my first golf tournament. I was a bit leery, I'm kind of short, and I kept thinking, "what am I going to get to see?". But, it was a Monday, so I said okay, I'll give it a shot. And it was pretty fabulous!

It was at Rhode Island Country Club, in Barrington, co-hosted by Brad Faxon and Billy Andrade along with 18 elite golfers from the PGA, LPGA and Champions tours, sponsored by CVS/Caremark.

The weather was gorgeous!!

We chose to follow Annika Sorenstam, Lorena Ochoa, Mark Calcavecchia, and Peter Jacobsen....but we also watched Corey Pavin, Morgan Pressel, Juli Inkster, Jay Haas, Brittany Lincicome, and an outstanding 17 year old Lexie Thompson. She was unreal! 6 feet tall as well! And man, could she hit the ball!

 Annika signing autographs.

 Check out that blue sky!

 Lorena Ochoa.

Annika S.

Water hazard!

Felt like a Sunday, but I was playing hookey on a Monday!..Hehe...BACK TO WORK!!

Down on the Farm

I had some fun yesterday when I visited Four Town Farm in Seekonk, Massachusetts, only 15 minutes away from where I live by car. It's a family owned farm, with an outstanding farm stand, greenhouses full of annuals, perennials, vegetables and herbs, and a "pick your own" season that just kicked off with strawberries. Yums. This one was as big as my fist!

I always love walking around and taking photographs, especially of old stuff, aged wood, and of course, flowers!

Along the way, I found two goats, Spike and Oreo. Bet you can guess who is who. I fed them apples.

This is the little house where they live.

Such a gorgeous day as well! Not a cloud in the sky!

I love all of the peeling paint and worn out wood! Great design inspiration!

I also came across this plant in the greenhouse. It's called a "mulla mulla". Sounded Aussie to me, and yep, it's native to Australia and Tasmania. The little tree-like blossoms were only 3 inches or so. Love! Looks like some alien landscape to me!

Oh, and if you want to Pinterest any of my artwork or photography from here, please attach a link to this blog and give me credit. If you don't, I will find you and hurt you ;)

My Spoonflower contest entry

I just want to let you know that I've entered a fabric design contest on Spoonflower's website, and I need a bit of your help...to vote for my design!  Spoonflower makes it possible for individuals to design, print and sell their own fabric designs. They also have some really nifty and fun design contests and challenges.

The theme of this contest is a fabric design consisting of geometric shapes that use only two colors (with the option of using white as a 3rd color):

This is what my entry looks like. The title is "Flower_Power_Groove-01 by groovity"
 """

Please use this link to vote. You can vote for as many as you like.  I'm not sure what page it will be on, you'll have to scroll through to find it! They shuffle them. http://www.spoonflower.com/contest_voters/new?contest_id=142

I really appreciate you taking the time to vote for my design! THANKS!

Colorways

Another fun exercise from "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design" e-course was to come up with our own colorways. A colorway is basically a color palette, which I use to create my surface patterns. Coming up with a successful group of colors just by thinking of them is much harder than you think! I've tried that before. This way was much more fun as well.

I dug up some of my own travel photos and used the "color picker" in CorelDraw to copy a few of the colors that really "spoke to me" from each. I usually have a palette in mind as I draw my designs, so what I'll do is poke through a bunch of these and see which one is a good fit. Then I'll tweak the colors and play them off of each other. It's a process, folks! It ain't easy at times. But darn, it's a blast.

I also want to let you know about a fabulous blog called "Design Seeds", http://design-seeds.com/  It's one of my favorites, I usually choose my favorite color group of the day and post it on Pinterest and Facebook. It's so well done, and I get a lot of inspiration by what I see there. A lot of my friends enjoy seeing the colors as well.

Oh, and if you want to Pinterest any of my artwork or photography from here, please attach a link to this blog and give me credit. If you don't, I will find you and hurt you ;)

Up on the Roof.....

I moved to the lovely city of Providence, RI last year, and I am really enjoying the city lifestyle once again. I love the fact that I can walk to dinner, to the train, and also to the mall (a big "yay" for Nordstrom's). I am an avid gardener, and I was a bit lost after the move, due to the fact that I had to give away and sell my vast orchid collection. *sniff, sniff*  But I was pleasantly surprised when I found that 1. I have enough light in my northern exposure windows to grow a few orchids. 2. They have a garden club in my building, with a space on top of the parking garage for some raised bed garden plots. Yay!

This is just 5 WEEKS or so along, planted May 1. Still can't believe the growth!

That's my building. It's an old foundry converted to really cool loft style spaces. I love it!

Someone's allium. Not sure what it is? This one might be garlic.

Cornflower (Bachelor Button) and daisy from another plot.

My dahlias. So gorgeous! I didn't enhance the colors either!

How can you not love daisies?

I already have a few tomatoes that are over 2 inches in diameter. Psyched! I've planted lots of herbs for cooking, a clematis, which will bloom in a week or so, and of course, catnip for the kitties.

I love taking photos of many things, but flowers and plants always seem to fascinate me the most. Mother Nature never ceases to amaze me, it doesn't matter what season it is, and I'll always be her most passionate student.

I'm also constantly amazed at the quality of the photos that my little iPhone4 takes. The flower pics were all taken using Hipstamatic app.

Oh, and if you want to Pinterest any of my artwork or photography from here, please attach a link to this blog and give me credit. If you don't, I will find you and hurt you ;)

The Power of Doodling!!

One of my favorite projects from the e-course "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design" was simply getting back to basics and doodling.  Pen/pencil on paper, the good old-fashioned way!  I had gotten so used to working just on my computer using my Wacom Intuos tablet to do rough sketching and forming ideas, I forgot how much fun it was to get lost with my inks, colored pencils and sketchbooks. What a mental vacation this was for me!!!

I used photos that I took of scarves, objects around my house, flowers from recent trips to the garden center.  It's really limitless as to where you can find inspiration for patterns.  Flowers just might be my favorite.

Flower and leaf motifs.

Edge Details.

Mosaics and Patchwork
(I did a cool pattern based on some of these motifs, I'll post that a bit later)

Quilt Squares

I still have yet to fully develop some of these patterns. I actually drew all of this stuff in a few days. I was on fire!! Haha!

Over the years, I've had trouble thinking and coming up with new creative ideas. And looking back, I've found that I was sitting in front of my computer with my Wacom tablet trying to kick off the creative process digitally. I now know this doesn't work for ME, maybe for others, but not for me.  And I am very fortunate to have learned this lesson about myself, the sooner the better!

If you would like to follow me on Pinterest, just click on this link! http://pinterest.com/groovity/

Oh, and if you want to Pinterest any of my artwork or photography from here, please attach a link to this blog and give me credit. If you don't, I will find you and hurt you ;)

My Spoonflower Contest Entry for Geometric, Palette-Limited

I just entered one of Spoonflower's weekly contests. It's a really cool site, you can design your own patterns, upload them, and actually get them printed out on a number of different fabrics.  Great if you want to make a true custom quilt!

repeated pattern

Geometric shapes (palette-limited) Using two colors (RGB #a7bb7d and #724b64), with the optional addition of white, create a fabric design that consists only of geometric shapes (e.g., stripes, polka dots, etc). Entries will be previewed at the scale of a fat quarter (21" x 18").

I think that I like this better!

This contest was really tough, it was palette limited, so only 2 colors plus white.  Haha, I just made the deadline too. My sister calls me "last minute Mary". Ha!

I'll include the link to vote when it is posted.

Oh, and if you want to Pinterest any of my artwork or photography, please attach a link to this blog and give me credit. If you don't, I will find you and hurt you ;)

Deconstructing Patterns

One of the earlier lessons from "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design" e-course was all about deconstructing a pattern, from a favorite dress, a blanket, whatever!  It was meant to help us all understand that patterns are just a mixture of different motifs, elements, and textures, and are really quite simple when "unpieced".

This was really fun for me. I kind of went off on a tangent and created some neato sketches based on this wonderful batik piece. I actually was surprised at what I came up with.  I usually draw very, very rigid, and this course has really freed me from this bondage, so to speak. (laughs). I could have drawn a few more pages with the inspiration that I got from this one.

Batik design ( and clothing too!) on left is from Batikwalla, available on Etsy. Right are my sketches.

shirt on the left is from Athleta. Right are my sketches.

This one was fun as well! I called it "Graphic Tattoo".  It also reminds me a lot of henna designs, which I just LOVE to doodle.

I could have done more for this lesson, but the course moved on to more exciting stuff, and I was whisked off to another pattern journey.

Module 2 (I completed Module 1 a few weeks ago) starts on June 18th. CAN NOT WAIT.

Oh, and if you want to Pinterest any of my artwork or photography, please attach a link to this blog and give me credit. If you don't, I will find you and hurt you ;)

The Process of Designing...and Figuring Out How to Use Adobe Illustrator..

I still don't know how I actually come up with ideas for patterns, but I sure know that I love doing it.  Some days designing just "happens" a lot easier than other days, maybe someday I'll figure out the internal switch that controls it all!  I tend to work in creative spurts, and while taking the e-course "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design", that certainly was the case.  I literally cranked out so many ideas in the first 1 1/2 weeks to last me a few months of fiddling around and developing them.

I doodled these little florals below.  Music is a really important catalyst in my designing process, and I find that I concentrate best when listening to classical music.  Is it the "Mozart Effect"??  No idea!  But I know that it makes me sit still and really get lost in what I'm doing.

I was really intrigued that I came up with these little floral/Dr. Seuss-y funny shapes, around the center flower.  The idea for those came from a lampwork/Venetian style glass necklace that I had been playing with earlier.

(necklace designed by Jasmine Keane)

I redrew the motifs in Adobe Illustrator, which I have really become comfortable using over the past few months.  After arranging them on a page, I initially had issues figuring out how to add color to them.

Black and white? No problem!

I reversed out the page. White outline with dark background? No problem!

Multi-Colored outlines with background color? No problem!

Okay, cool...I've managed to get the motifs with an outline color and solid fill.......but??? I had trouble actually coloring the individual sections.  That's because I really didn't know what I was doing in Adobe Illustrator, you have to think completely different when using it.  You really have to have an idea of what you want your end result to look like, more or less.  I was already familiar with using layers, and after reading some of the tutorials, I finally did it, after a lot of talking to myself.  I do that lately ;)

Et voila!

After finalizing the main pattern, I designed the two matching border pieces....

And......meet Boho Carnival.

I arranged them all on a page with the colorway that I used.  Fun stuff, no?  A tremendous, wonderful learning process, no doubt about it.  I am really fortunate that I can figure out how to use software fairly easily.  It's almost like two different processes. 1.  Doodling, getting the ideas out on paper (yes, the BEST way is just to sketch the old fashioned way, paper and pen!!) 2. Reconstructing those sketches/idea digitally, so that they convey your original vision.  And....oh yeah, making them "repeat", so when tiled there is a seamless pattern is quite the task as well.

I learned tons about using Adobe Illustrator through tutorials on Lynda.com. They charge a monthly fee, but you have access to learning virtually ANY software lessons, they seem to have them all. Check them out!

Oh, and if you want to Pinterest any of my artwork or photography, please attach a link to this blog and give me credit. If you don't, I will find you and hurt you ;)