NEW online magazine MOYO!!!

Today one of my designs was included in the very first issue of MOYO. MOYO is the world's first magazine dedicated to surface pattern design, brought to you by the founders of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (*MOYO is Japanese for 'pattern' and is pronounced mo-yor).

VERY excited to be a part of this and to kick off something so fresh and new!!!  Take a look!! I really love the colors, style and fun layout of this publication.

MOYO is the world's first magazine dedicated to surface pattern design, brought to you by the founders of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design (*MOYO is Japanese for...



ABSPD takes on Printsource

Had a fabulous day with a lovely group of ladies from "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design" e-course!!  We met in New York City and attended Printsource's summer show. Printsource New York holds three shows a year, and is the premier show for surface and textile designs in the USA.  I had a wonderful time walking around the show (my first surface design show!), talking to a few companies, and basically getting a feeling for the industry and what's in store for me going forward. We had a bite to eat midday, and discussed our career history, current projects, showed pics of the kiddos, our work, and traded business cards and info. It was so refreshing to meet everyone in person! I started this e-course in April, and I've had the pleasure to network and meet some extremely talented people, share tips (thanks Schatzi!!), and get instant feedback on new work and designs via Flickr, Facebook, and email. Thank you to Rachael and Beth for starting this outstanding e-course!

Please check out what each of these designers are up to:
Rachel Gresham | www.rachelgreshamdesign.com
Helen Billett | www.meringueinc.ca
Deborah Velasquez | www.deborahvelasquez.blogspot.com
Emine Ortega | www.emineortega.blogspot.com
Femi Ford | www.femiford.com
Tanya Brown | www.schatzibrown.com
Mary Tanana | www.groovity.blogspot.com (me!)

Thank you all, LET'S DO IT AGAIN!!!

...and just an FYI to any of you newbies finding my blog, The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design, Module 1: Designing your way, is beginning August 27 2012!!! Here's the link for more info!!  http://dowhatyouloveforlife.com/course/the-art-and-business-of-surface-pattern-design-module-1-designing-your-way/

Kudos to MOO.COM and Thank you Staples!

I am attending PrintSource tomorrow, and I'm pretty excited! Printsource New York, The Premier Market for Surface and Textile Design in the USA, holds three shows a year in New York City. The Show covers such industries as men's, children's and women's apparel, bed and bath, kitchen and tabletop, paper goods and stationery, wallcoverings, window fashions as well as other surface and textile design applications.

Soooo, of course today I was scrambling and running errands to pick up some new business cards and large color reproductions of my surface designs. And needless to say, I'm thrilled with the results!!

These are my new business cards from MOO.COM, right here in Providence, Rhode Island (although main branch is in the UK). They did a FABULOUS job, great price and quality. They are super for artists, craftspeople, designers, as they allow you to upload up to 50 different images for the back of the card. Those are actually some of my biz cards flipped over arranged around the front side of my card.

And here are some of the larger color prints of my designs, which I had done at Staples. It really is wonderful to see them in print and off of my computer screen!

These are "Nero" approved (my kitty's name)

After some cropping, into the book they go, and off to sleep I go! 4 AM wake up call tomorrow morn to catch the train! I'll report back after the show :)

Stationery Project-Zenyatta Mandala

This project took a lot of thought! We had to design a stationery set according to a brief from Rachael Taylor for The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design. I've gotten a lot better at not procrastinating, but I think that I tend to overthink things, maybe it's because this is all so new for me (but I truly love it!!!) This one took me a while to finish.

I called this group "Zenyatta Mandala". I was listening to the Police (love Sting!!) while drawing a part of this, hence the "Zenyatta" part of the name. Haha, maybe I'm showing my age here, "Zenyatta Mondatta" debuted in 1980!  "Mandala" is a Sanskrit word meaning "circle", which is one of the motifs throughout.

I LOVE how this came out, I even used it as my Twitter background!

People responded really well in my Flickr group to this mix of patterns.

I would actually love this for a cosmetics bag!!

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 ;)

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".

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.

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 ;)

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 ;)

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 ;)

"Do What You Love".

  It all started while Googling late one night.  I needed a change, and a new challenge, SOMETHING to get my create juices flowing again. While looking for potential online courses to take, I found all of these blog links to a website called, "Do What You Love", by Beth Nicholls. Intrigued, I clicked on further, and found Rachael Taylor's e-course "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design".  That was it!  BINGO! I signed up for Module 1: Designing your way. I was so incredibly pleased at how professional it was set up, and even more impressed with the wonderful, diverse, and talented group of people that are participating!

  Various projects, tutorials, interviews, and industry links are given out daily, and you work at your own pace. Finished pieces or inspirational photos and moodboards are shared via a Flickr group. It is such a positive and uplifting experience to share your own work and see other's, receive and give feedback. It's an international group which makes it even more fun!

  Below is my very first project, done about 6 weeks ago.

© Groovity

 We had to take some sketches, or shapes, or buttons or whatever, and play around with them on a background, like a collage. I used some colorful drinking straws as a background, and overlayed some little sketches that I did. Some people used ribbons, ric-rac, it was amazing what the end results were! Fun stuff!

  The fun continued, each and every day, every week for the length of the module course. And oh yeah, I started this blog because of it...

  I just emailed my final project to Rachael Taylor's blog, showcasing all of my coursemate's designs.

© Groovity

 I called this one "Boho Carnival".

This has been such an incredibly neato and creative journey, all crammed into 6 weeks. At times I thought my brain was going to implode from all of the ideas bouncing around. Glad it didn't.   I feel refreshed and renewed, energized and ready!  Ready for??? Stay tuned :))

  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 ;)