Sewing Illustrations

This winter my mom taught me how to crochet!  I've never been much of a knitter and always used it as an excuse that my fingers were meant to be drawing and painting, not knitting or sewing.  But what do you know, last fall I suddenly got the craving to crochet and I just finished my first project the other day, what a good feeling!  I'll share it with you on my blog soon (I have to admit, I'm darn proud of it). So right after I finished my winter crochet project, I got the urge to make these illustrations.  

Happy Easter!

Playing with patterns, step by step

Once again I find myself spending more time on pattern making than I should.  But being my own boss, no one is yelling at me (but me!), so I'll pretend and assume it's time well spent.  

I posted a little peacock on my blog the other day, and with that peacock as an inspiration, I started making a new pattern.  This time I decided to do it the old fashioned way; pen, pencil, scissors and tape (with a dash of computer to help out at the very end).  I documented the process, so here you can see, step by step my peacock pattern in the making.  

First I started doodling, with nothing really in mind but what just came out of my head...

...then I doodled some more (making sure the drawing didn't touch the edges of the paper)...

...then I cut my piece of paper in half!  ("oh my she's crazy" you must be screaming)...

...I reversed the two halves and taped them together (I suggest being a little more precise with the cutting and taping than I was)...

...so then it looked like this...

...then I cut it again (it's seriously nerve wracking cutting your drawing like that)...

...and then I reversed the halves again and taped so it looked like that.  So now I had a nice clean area in the middle to fill in (well, my standards of clean).

Then I finished the illustration in the middle of the paper while talking to my friend in Sweden for about an hour or so...

...then I scanned in that piece of paper and assembled it in Photoshop...

...and voila!  This is how my pattern could look like...

...or this, cause seriously, everything looks better in this shade of blue!  

I'll spend some more time painting this pattern and will share it with you as soon as it's done (if my boss lets me spend the time ;)

Bird and Flower Patterns

I find it interesting to see what I actually do with my time when I have a little break in between projects.  Usually it's something I've been craving to do for months, but haven't had the time for.  Most often cityscape paintings are on the top of my list,  I just love painting something I wan't to paint, not pleasing anyone but myself.  Sometimes I spend that time on something really time wasting like cleaning my studio (I don't know why I bother).   But I'm pretty good with time management I think/hope, and am always incredible grateful when the time comes when I can give some pet project of mine the attention it deserves.  

This weeks craving was patterns! 

Birds - Pattern

Orange Flowers - Pattern