French Country

Inspiration

Three people inspired this Damask pattern— Jennifer Nichols of Leila and Po Studio for the lesson on Damask; Teela Cunningham for Flat Florals lessons; and Carrie Cantwell on Skillshare with her encouraging tips on being active in the Spoonflower community.

Jennifer’s community is full of artists sharing and helping one another as well as a growing library of classes on all things Procreate. She has a membership plan that will fit any novice or professional artists needs. Take a look:

• Website: Leila and Po Studio
• LinkTree: Jennifer Nichols
• Community: Creative Journey
• Instagram: Leila and Po
• Newsletters: Subscribe
• YouTube: Jennifer Nichols Art
• Skillshare: Jennifer Nichols Leila and Po Studio

Teela is Every-Tuesday on the web, and provides free lessons on YouTube and classes for purchase on her website. I enrolled in her Flat Florals course and thoroughly enjoyed the three types of flat florals. Take a look:

• Flat Bouquet course
• Website: Every-Tuesday
• Skillshare
• Instagram: Every-Tuesday

Carrie Cantwell on Skillshare with her Spoonflower class with teach you tips and tricks to enjoy and grow on the Spoonflower platform. In my project, you can see some of the tips shared. Take a look:

• My Project: French Country Design, Collection, Shop
• YouTube intro to the class
• Skillshare Spoonflower class
• Instagram: CarrieCantwellArt

French Country

Carrie Cantwell encourages artists to participate in the Spoonflower Design Challenges, so I decided to try the French Country Design Challenge since I’d just taken Teela’s course and had a start on a floral design, which would be part of the French Country style.

I changed the design a bit and the color scheme — more subdued colors of green, magenta, blue, yellow with white. I made a few color variations, mainly because my eyes don’t seem to plan colors well, but seeing the project finished shows me what works and what doesn’t. So I make many variations and then choose. In this case, it was difficult due to the subtle changes I made, so I created a webpage for the designs: French Country.

I also learned from this French Country website that damask was a popular part of this style of home decor. So that’s when I went back to Jennifer’s class to rewatch the lesson [I’m in her fabulous community] on Damask patterns and create the one I thought might be a bit different than others. Although it’s not true Damask because of all the colors, I think it fits with the modern version of French Country.

I tested out the pattern on Teela’s Pattern Playground tester:

And, I actually received 52 votes on my entry!

And I created a Spoonflower collection of just my French Country designs:

I created four different bouquet color designs and one different bouquet pattern. I added two different sizes of the Damask pattern and one plaid.

My shop [ Sheri 42] is now current with many more designs, thanks to Jennifer, Teela, and Carrie. It’s so important as a novice artist to learn from the best!.