Welcome!
On most Wednesdays, check this blog for a strategy, process, or reflection for illustration with the iPad app ProCreate or Affinity Designer. This Wednesday Wrap Up shares two busy weeks for art — a quick review and introducing the Coulee Country Series.
Review
Bits and Pieces
I missed last week’s wrap up– I’ve been busy backing up — a second backup — of all my Procreate files since a massive update is coming soon. See Procreate’s Roadmap and Lisa Bardot’s summary.
I’ve also been fiddling around with more learning in Affinity Designer. I’m in an Affinity Designer FB group administered by Chris Hildenbrand— a huge thank you to him for helping me, a newbie, learn the simple geometric action: divide! Wow! I knew there had to be a simple way to break up a large motif into smaller pieces. I had a flower pattern and needed to break it into its component flowers in order to manipulate them into a new pattern. All I had to do to get the pattern back to initial curves is to select it, then choose “Divide” with the geometric tool. Easy.
Of course, I then had oodles of layers of just curves. But it’s simple in “node” mode to highlight the nodes of a single flower and group them. Hide that group and continue around the flowers to group each one. Inside the groups, each flower had two colors. I could select the similarly colored parts and with the geometric tool, choose “add” and the curves would be on the same layer ready for recoloring.
Whew! That was a process I needed to learn, especially since I often draw in Procreate, export the jpgs of the motif parts, and then import each into Adobe Capture, which then is exported as an .svg to import as a vector into Affinity Designer. That’s where I was with a huge flower pattern that I needed to separate. I know how now!
Art Review
And this weeks art work included two collections and several newly completed:
- Tie a Bow — a collection based on ribbons and bows inspired by a friend and a tutorial by Lisa Bardot
- Finished Cozy Evergreen Winter Holiday Collection — discusses the Cozy Holiday Collection, the new Spoonflower Editor, and Zines
- Started and Finished Snow Buckwheat Collection —
- Snow Buckwheat Sketch / Photo Resources
- Snow Buckwheat Collection series
- Wrote two posts about my Arrowleaf Balsamroot Collection and uploaded tea towels to Spoonflower
- Arrowleaf Balsamroot Collection — added to plan
- The Arrowleaf Balsamroot Collection — series collection, with update to include the new tea towels
- Collections on Spoonflower
The New Coulee Country Series of Collections
About the Collection
My Spoonflower Collections are growing! I’ve loved walking through the lovely meadows of inspiration in our area: The Meadow. So over the past two years, I’ve been illustrating various flowers from around our shrub-steppe area and in our neighborhood. I’ve decided to create a series called Coulee Country Series. It will include links to blog posts about each finished floral collection in the series, with a cohesive collection for each of the floral motif patterns. Each post will describe the pattern and the wildflower.
If you click Coulee Country Series, you will find the first two I’ve completed: The Arrowleaf Balsamroot Collection and the Snow Buckwheat Collection. All the floral patterns will be included in the Coulee Country Collection on Spoonflower.
Coulee Country Series Blog Posts
The blog post for each finished collection, with heroes and blenders, will follow this format:
- The Design— a description of the collection
- Inspiration — the photos, description, and botanical / cultural information of the wildflower which inspired the illustration
- The Collection — the process, medium, hero, blenders, and products for the collection
- Poetry — my own photo and poem about the wildflower
Wildflowers Motifs
Besides the two floral collections so far completed, the series collection includes the starts to other collections– the hero patterns I’ve already illustrated, but have yet to add to the individual cohesive sets. As you can see, I’ve been inspired by the little flowers of our area– here are blog posts of the patterns and flowers for which I still need to create collections:
- Globe Mallow
- Curlycup Gumweed
- Choke Cherry
- Choke Cherries [on former blog]
- See these in my Spoonflower shop
- Crab Apple [from my yard]
- Iris in Cole Park
- Dressed in Elegance
- On Red Bubble Pink Iris Purple Flourish in Textured Teal by Sheri42
- Iris Pattern [on former blog]
- Autumn Leaves
- WrapUp Spoonflower Autumn Leaves [my living room curtains!]
- Day 582 OctDoodle Square
- Hawthorn Tree — lining our street
- More Sunflowers
- Periwinkle — in my garden
- Wednesday WrapUp Thanks Ali and Bekki
- Periwinkle and Leaves [not yet on Spoonflower]
- Buttercups and Butterflies
- Featured Image at top: table setting on Spoonflower
- trailing pattern of buttercups with swallowtail butterflies
Other Plans
Other plans for this series are to create QR codes to the series blog posts that will be placed on an art display of Spoonflower napkins made from each hero motif. I’m also thinking of creating a book from the posts about our lovely Coulee Country Flora.
Where’s Your Art?
So that’s my week and plans for my art. What about you? Have you been creating collections, started a shop on a print on demand site, or created a website? How are you putting your art out there?
Thanks for stopping by!
So if you’ve been hesitant to share your art– go for it! Start a shop. If you have any questions, just ask! I’d be glad to help with what I know.
You’re welcome to follow this blog for art inspiration. We can share with #warmup4art to enjoy our work together! I look forward to your sharing and find me at @42Sheri, on Mastodon Sheri42, on Flickr teach.eagle Sheri 42.
So, That’s a wrap for this week’s art. Thank you for stopping by!
I wonder, if I draw a line... 