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/

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 ;)