More Vintage Effects - Advertisements

With all the great inspiration I get from the nicely priced downloads at Creative Market, I just can't stop creating images using them!

This ad I created so encompasses all my true loves: old advertisements, vector, vintage effects in Photoshop and ... self-promotion!

Is it sad or commendable that I spend part of my weekends playing with this kinda thing?

My Interview with Make It In Design

In week that otherwise saw me designing like crazy - designs no one has seen yet - my interview with Make It In Design has been posted.

Eden's Garden Fabric Collection at Modern Yardage

I really like this little print, Precious in Turquoise, one of six patterns in my new collection Eden's Garden at Modern Yardage.  As you see, the colors are lovely aquas and pinks with a touch of white.

What a cute top Precious makes!

Gosh, She's Got Range!

I've worked on designs the last week or so to answer requests. Fingers crossed that something sells!

Retro Icon Art

It's very trendy now, or rather WAS trendy a bit ago, creating images of retro items. As with most things it doesn't take long for us designer/artists to see something and then want to try our hand at it.

This was my take on the style, done a year ago.

It's very cool, if I do say so myself.

Scandinavian Influences

My grandmother was Swedish, and I've got other Nordic blood in me, too. Maybe that explains my affinity for Scandinavian designs.

I seek them out and find comfort in their clean lines and familiar floral, leaf and flourish shapes.

I gathered 6 from my Scandinavian folder of designs, colored them in Spring 2015 color palette,  and made this collection.

New Quilts from Old Fabrics

I bought a cool old suitcase at a yard sale many years ago. Inside were scraps leftover from someone's quilt projects, sweet bits of calicos, little prints, and kitchey novelties patterns.

When I first learned to draw in Illustrator and then to create repeats, I was eager to reproduce these vintage designs. Since then, I have reinterpreted hundreds of these obscure, nameless patterns from the 30's through the 70's.

What joy.

Pheasants Design - For Life

It's too late for me to be married to someone for 50 years unless I get married tomorrow and live a really long time. But it's not too late to meet someone and be with them until the end of my life.

Either way, it's cool.

These birds will always be together, though. And now I've surrounded them with 5 coordinates and mapped it all in a 2D room.  

Paying Dues

Will I ever be an overnight success? How long does it take?

If it takes ten years as a graphic designer to really start making a living wage, then I've still got a couple of years to put in.

When I arrive, though, I'll have a great hardluck story. It will be filled tales with all the days and weeks I sat making beautiful repeats without any money coming in except for that which I made as a seamstress.

I'll tell about all the graphic design jobs I took that were just beyond my abilities, and then watched tutorials online to figure out how.

My bio will include how I paid my rent with the proceeds of the sale of my house, rather than put that money back into a new house. Determined, yet watching my savings diminish, I seldom gave up hope that one day, my designing skills would finally pay the bills.

Today is one of those days that will be included in my story, a day among so many that finds me creating, learning, striving ... dreaming.

And putting together designs that make my heart sing!

Working at What I Do

Designers of surface art and repeating patterns are kinda like writers; we sit in front of a computer for countless hours. We can't sell what we do until it's out of our heads and made manifest.

As a working graphic designer, I spent a large percentage of my time creating patterns for others. In the last month, I've designed patterns for Walmart, Dick's Sporting Goods, an African duvet manufacturer, an Australian bed linen manufacturer, a kitchen goods company, and a needlepoint company.

For all of this work I am uncredited, but consider myself lucky to be making a sort of living from what I LOVE doing. And I'm helping others get where they want to be.

My plan is to stay seated in front of this computer for countless more hours until I get where I want to be as a designer.

Designing and Work

I want to work as a graphic designer and make money at it! Really, I do! 

I look for work at Elance almost daily, and do find jobs there. I've worked with and for some great clients who are passionate about their companies. It thrills me to please them and see my designs show up on their products.

And my work is represented by a very proactive design studio ... my work along with a couple hundred other designers.

Alas. As much as I want there to be enough work to go around, it seems there are dozens of designer vying for the same job, and *thousands* of designers hoping to sell their designs to just a handful of clients.

We soldier on. 

Meanwhile, as I hustle for work and complete the jobs I do manage to get, time for my own design work falls short. So, it is on the days when I am completely free, I design, design, design!

Here's a group I put together during a recent "free" time. 

Dear Universe, May someone out there see it, love it and buy it.  Such is the prayer of every graphic designer.

Developing a Style

From the inside of my design world, I can't see what my style is.

It seems to change from week to week, depending on what I've fallen in love with.

Perhaps it's the approach I take to each design that defines my style. 

But, whatever it is, this week I'm loving subtle colors and quiet vintage.

Fabric Collection

After being waylaid with other design work, I have finished my next quilt fabric collection. It includes 6 patterns.  The focal fabric, that big flower with the fancy stripe is awesome! It was inspired by an antique French textile.

This is the the "working" color palette, but that yellow/green is not quite right, a little off-putting. I'll be going in now and exploring alternatives. 

The collection I have planned next will be much simpler, perhaps just three colors.

After I initially posted the image above, I revamped the colors. These are happier, friendlier.

New Colorway

I've completed the third and final colorway for this group.

Tomorrow, I'll begin work designing a new quilt fabric collection!

Another Digital Quilt Block

After recoloring my recent quilt fabric collection, I applied it to a different digital quilt block than yesterday's.

It makes me happy!

Product Sighing

I made another product sighting today at Target. This is a pattern I sold to Kleenex awhile back.

Always fun to see my designs in the market place!