Assignements for 'writers block'

One of my friends asked me recently where I get all my artistic ideas from. This is really a difficult question to answer because there are so many places and things that inspire me. I scan the internet daily researching current projects and whenever I see something I like I make notes about it in Photoshop, or Microsoft Word. The documents get saved in an inspirations folder. I also use a sketch book to draw, or the notepad and camera on my cell phone to take notes as well.When I need an idea I review my inspirations and then use my favorite ones to create something. I also look for materials and inspirations at thrift stores, antique shops, and my day to day life. Being an artist is a constant hunt for ideas, and when you have been doing it for a while it becomes a habit.

Unfortunatly, every artist is prone to 'writer's block'. Today I have a very bad case of it. When this happens I either give myself a break or an assignment. A full day of staying away from art projects and materials can refresh your mind. Sometimes I need up to a week to refresh my creativity, but most of the time giving myself a simple art assignment works. Assignments are meant to shake things up a bit  and make me think. Past assignments have consisted of the following.
1) Learn to use different materials or tools.
2) Choose an inspiration at random and make a spin off of it, or choose 2 difrent inspirations and combine them somehow.
My sister, Sharon, has a good one for this that she showed me recently.  Modernize William Morris Wallpaper. Here is her solution.

Isn't it Fab! The drops on the paper to the left are metallic. You can't see it well in my scan.

3) Spend the day researching an artist, genra, or favorite art related website(s).
4)  Revisit an completed project and find another way to use it or renovate it.
5) Unearth an old abandoned or on going project and try to make progress on it (I have lots of these lying around :P).
6) Pick up a craft kit from the store and put your own twist on it by using the materials in a different way or adding your own material or ideas to it. (This one can be fantastic or horribly disastrous. Either way you learn something valuable from it.)

Today I visited number 4.  The project I choose to 're-do' was actually my most recent one for my Spoonflower shop;  Peeling Pyrenees Planes.

I re-used the paper planes to create these (Physics of Flight). That's my own horrible handwriting in the background:

and the repeating paint peel texture I created for these (Paint Peel Chevrons)

 The colors are from the Pantone Spring 2012 palette. Hmmmm I actually like these tiled this way too......Have to make another with all 3 colors now XD.
Back to work!

New Spoonflower contest...Feathers!

A new weekly contest has begun over on Spoonflower. The theme is 'Feathers.' Because I went geometric and anti-cute on the 'Kite' contest last week, I'm going humorous on this next one. The logic behind this decision is based upon looking at all the current feather related fabrics on Spoonflower. Most of the fabrics I saw are great, but are simply decorative feather motifs. I have a theory that cute and humors motifs score higher in Spoonflower contests. Not that that's a bad thing, but I like to be diffrent. I'm willing to test this theory with my contest entry.
I chose 'Horse Feathers' as my subject matter. It's a fantastical plant related to Snap Dragons and Cat-tails.
It also brought me back to my forestry days at SFA, drawing twig anatomy for class. I chose a nice zig-zag black locust twig as a model and replaced the buds with horse bodies.  I chose simplified feather drawings because I knew the repeating layout would be chaotic and didn't want feather texture to add to it.

Go vote! I'm pleased to say there are some really beautiful entries to look at. My favorite is Paisley Feathers by Irrimari.
As for the last contest I only ranked in the low 70's as my geometric take did not fare as well as my last few entries. Oh well, It's still one of my favorite patterns so far. See the last contest rankings here.

Christmas Countdown, and A Holiday Gift

Ive got several little things to cover today.
First of all I placed 22nd in the Spoonflower Advent calendar contest. You can see the final rankings at the Spoonflower Blog. I'm actually quite thrilled with my ranking considering I felt like this project was seriously rushed and I had difficulty making my theme (Sew Your Way To Christmas) consistent. The competition was feirce too. Some really fabulous calendars won the coveted top 10 slots.
Ive also uploaded a revision of my layout to Spoonflower and ordered a full yard to proof the images on the fabric and sew my own calendar. My mother really wants to see it put together. The revision is pictured below.

 As a side I also entered the kite contest. I fear I won't do so well in it because I chose to go anti-cute for this one. I knew there would be plenty of competing cute images so I went geometric instead. It won't win but it's different and I think it's unique enough to stand out.

Aside from my advent calendar, which I hope will be proofed and posted for sale before everyone starts counting down to Christmas, I have a new t-shirt for sale on Society 6.
Having many geeks in my family I had to come up with something they would actually wear for the holidays.
I came up with a Circuit Board Snowflake. I used Make-A-Flake again to get a good snowflake to manipulate. Its not a new concept. I did a little searching after making and posting my own and found several older images with the same concept, some of them quite good. You can do your own search and be the judge on which ones are the best. Mine is pictured below. The text on it reads 'JOY CAPACITOR', 'HOLIDAY RESET', and '9V BATT'.

 

Lastly in my Etsy and Melyah clipart shops I have Reindeer, Vintage style Christmas frames, and Snowflake frames. Use the frames for Christmas photos, ornaments, or gift tags. All are on sale for under 2.00 to celebrate the holidays. They use the Spoonflower color palette too. So long as you change them up some for your creative uses I have no problem with you using them on Spoonflower. Just read the attached Permissions and Content file that comes with the files for the copyright details.

 

Lastly, in the spirit of the Holidays I have some great floral images I'm going to share with you till Christmas.

My mother found a wonderful book copyrighted in 1890 called the Golden Flower Chrysanthemum. As you may, or may not know, anything published before 1923 in the US is public domain. I will share 16 of the fabulous floral book plates with you (roughly 2-3 a week) until December 24th. Once the new year begins they will disappear. So keep your eyes open and your computer ready to copy and save. The first bookplate is below along with a bonus page giving the details of the book and illustrations. Larger images are available from my Flicker set 'Golden Flower'.

Spoonflower Advent Calendar Contest

I've entered the Spoonflower Advent Calendar Contest!
I worked on it up until the entry deadline. I wish I could have done more for the presentation layout but I did not have time. Last weekend was entirely consumed with Lily's school project, Her school's Family fun Day at Great Wolf Lodge, Her Birthday Party at Speed Zone, and then another child's birthday party we had to attend. With all the events I lost 4 whole days of work on my entry.

I wish the Spoonflower  website showed better images of my advent pockets. You can't zoom in on any of it or provide thumbnail details. So I'm providing some detail images here and leaving a link on my Spoonflower description for people to follow from there.

I had a hard time coming up with a consistent idea to begin with. I wanted a Quilter's Advent that featured fat quarters or cheater quilt squares but the size constraint (42"x36") was very limiting. So I decided to make pockets shaped like sewing tools. Except sewing tools are not easy to hem unless you put an uninteresting square border around them. I went ahead and made 12 thread spools with Christmas themed colors and decorations and decided to come up with something to accompany them as I worked on them.

 

 Then I decided to use Illustrations from 'Easy Steps In Sewing For Big And Little Girls'. My original idea was to make 12 trade cards ore needle books featuring the cute little characters from the book. The book was published in 1902 and is written by Jane Eayre Fryerand illustrated by Jane Allen Boyer. The book is loaded with sweet little illustrations on every page. Unfortunately, the scans I took from my copy are very dirty and neede lots of cleaning in order to be usable. Cleaning and coloring one image takes me roughly 2 to 3 hours (with occasional interruption of children and husband). Despite this I managed to get 6 images cleaned and embellished for my needle books. Here they are in detail:

The borders also took a lot of time to create. I couldn't find any copyright free borders so I ended up making my own based upon the borders of Christmas themed vintage and antique linens. The holly border is my favorit. I's actually a bracelet design from the early 1900's.

To fill in the extra spots in my advent calendar I made 6 snowflakes at Make-A-Flake. With practice you can get some really fantastic results from Make-A-Flake! 

I'm sure the competition for the contest is just as good as the last contest! The contest starts later this week. So go have a look at the wonderful work done by the other Spoonflower designers and vote for your favorite!

Jo's Ceareal Box Premium and Spoon Flower Tea Towel Contest

Ive been helping my friend Jo off load some of her departed father's items on Ebay and Etsy. While sorting through one dusty wooden crate we came across a Post Toasties Cereal Box Premium picturing Captain on the front (see above image). We were delighted to find that finding them in the original wrapper is rare. You can see more of it and possibly place a bid for it on her Ebay listing (click the link above). She's also listed a Lily Pinkham mechanical pencil,

 and a Carson Gloves advertisement/compact mirror;

All are really cool! she has more too. I will be helping her list things all this month on Ebay and Etsy.

I also entered the Spoonflower tea Towel Contest !  I mentioned Spoonflower in an earlier post. They sale custom designs on fabric. Im in the process of creating a shop on Spoonflower to sale my own fabric designs.  My entry features a dandelion for each month. The seed puffs spiral out from the center and each is labeled with the day/ day of the week. The dandelion colors are representative of the birthstone for each month. Leaping frogs and flying/jumping insects serve as a daily reminder that 2012 is a leap year. Go sign up on Spoonflower and vote for your favorite!