Wednesday WrapUp Bears, Lilies, Shooting Stars

Welcome!

On most Wednesdays, check this blog for a strategy, process, or reflection for illustration with the iPad app ProCreate or Affinity Designer. This week my art and photography included 100 day project, Spoonflower challenges, and a fun “Masters” class.

The 100 Day Project

The 100 Day Project from Lindsay Jean Thomson with a website, IG, and podcast. The hashtag is #the100dayproject.

The goal is to make a plan for drawing every day for 100 days– five to ten minutes. That seems doable, doesn’t it? What if you miss a day — listen here. My advice: enjoy it; don’t worry if you miss, just keep going as you can.

I’ve already completed 20 rabbits — find them all in the Bunnies and Bears post. And now I’m working on 20 bears, for which I completed a few more including these two sitting bears. Tomorrow will be Day 40 for which I’ll share all 20 of the bears. Friday, I start 20 birds.

Come and join the fun. Just use hashtag #the100dayproject

Lilies, Monet Style

In Lisa Bardot’s Art Makers Club, we learned how to choose brushes for different effects to create an illustration like Monet’s Red Water Lilies. The brushes we used were provided as part of the community. If you want to see Lisa’s style of teaching and many tutorials, see her YouTube Channel. I see I need to add some shimmers and sparkles to finish this one.

Spoonflower Challenges

I’ve shared my Spoonflower entry for the Bold Florals design challenge in last week’s WrapUp, but I was not finished with the collection. I’m still not finished.

Why am I not finished? I’ve bee taking Madda Mom’s Skillshare class, Bold Floral Pattern Toolkit for Spoonflower Designs. She walks through using her template to create a simple, effective pattern design, including blenders to create a collection. Madda also provides a toolkit with the template and with guidance for writing effective titles, descriptions, and key words on her website.

So, I’ve been thinking about the blenders — the additional patterns that add dimension and possibilities for home decor through a variety of related patterns in the same color way, as well as providing different color ways for each. So I have started that journey. I created a few blenders with stripes and stars to integrate into my Bold Floral Shooting Star Pinks Purples pattern.

The original pattern I submitted:

A view I did not include with this pattern is a top down overhead view in which the flowers look like stars, and that’s the name of the flower, Shooting Star.

So I created a brush with a likeness of the star flower’s design and used that to create a pattern– with stars only, and with stripes:

I also created just a stripe pattern, and added the stars in the background of the original shooting star pattern. Here’s the collection so far:

Finally, I created three more color versions of the original pattern:

So I will need to need to create the blenders in the other colors as well. That will make a good collection of several choices. I’m also thinking about a herringbone blender in these colors.

I’m so thankful for MaddaMom’s helpful toolkit and class. Here’s my project page for the Skillshare class. You can find her on Instagram and YouTube.

In the last WrapUp, I mentioned the Spoonflower Design Challenge  Floral Block Prints. I’m gathering my outlines for the block prints. Here’s the start of creating the designs from the pattern designs I’ve already created. I’m redoing them in smaller line work, as you can see in the vintage leaf motif below. The rest I still need to draw again. This isn’t the start of the pattern, just my start of the motifs. You can see I’m planning to do a wavy line, diamond pattern. I’m just getting started!

Thanks for stopping by!

It’s been a busy week for learning, improving, building collections, and trying new things in design strategies.

The more you draw and design, the better your art develops, along with your confidence. We were all beginners once! If you have any questions, just ask! I’d be glad to help with what I know. Find time to make art every day!

You can find many helpful artists teachers on my Artist Resources  page. Take a look at their IG and YouTube. Find one that fits your learning and art preferences and stick with them a while to develop your skills. Every day, another aha!

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.