Weekly WrapUp Holidays, Animals, and More

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 I’ve been working in Procreate creating patterns, practicing animal sketches, and making birthday cards. I’ve explained some techniques and processes for each section below.

Merry Max Vintage Ornaments with Ribbons and Holly:

Take a look at the illustrations at the top of this page. I started this by creating the palette, including colors recommended in the Spoonflower Challenge Merry Maximalist.

Next I decided on the motifs: vintage ornaments and holly with intertwining ribbon.

One of my favorite techniques for making a pattern is to design within a diamond shape, overlapping outside the edges in places. When overlapping, make sure the opposite edge on the diamond leaves room on the INSIDE for the repeat of the overlapping area.

That’s what I did for this pattern, as I illustrated the ornaments and holly, arranging them within the diamond, overlapping the holly and a bell a bit.

To add more to the pattern, a second diamond of a different design can be drawn, but I did not do that this time.

The difficult part of this pattern is the ribbon— overlapping the ornaments and holly in places. I drew the ribbon sketch above everything, then hid all the other layers while inking it, including the gold stripe. Then I unhid the motifs and with masking, hid the parts of the ribbon behind the motifs. I added shadows on the ribbon and motifs as needed.

I do not like a plain background; it just feels like something’s missing. So I found a good texture of circles and the confetti dots, which I flipped around on three different layers for three main colors of the design.

That’s where I ran into trouble when checking the pattern. As you can see in the circled areas below, the colored dots ended up in rows. All I had to do was a little more flipping horizontally and vertically on the two of the layers. I also copy/paste a few dots to add more than were originally part of the texture.

I ordered four sets of napkins from Spoonflower for Christmas gifts for friends.

Merry Max Vintage Ribbons

To accompany the hero pattern, I created a striped pattern of vintage looking ribbons in the same palette; you can see this pattern at the top of the page. The difficulty here is the decorative dots on two of the ribbons. In the test pattern I could see slight offsets of the dots. I found where they were at the edges of the design and deleted the offsets. They were so tiny they might not have been seen in fabric print, but I like my patterns to be a perfect as possible.

I ordered napkins and placemats for these.

Summer Creative Retreat

Butterfly

Remember Peggy Dean’s Summer Creative Retreat.  I really enjoyed the lovely butterfly lesson from Jessi Roulet.

If you remember my post with my hibiscus, you will see the inspiration for my butterfly. Jessi asked us to fill our butterflies with motifs reflective of ourselves today. So I chose to fill my butterfly mostly with hibiscus flowers and then with flairs of celebration for its blooming. Notice the hibiscus and the gold sparkles to honor them. This is a fun project, and it would make a great Daily Create. In fact it will be a Daily Create on August 18th.

The DS106 Daily Create is a creative challenge provided every day since Jan 8, 2012— open to everyone. I learned about from an international group of creators from CLmooc. If you ever get stuck for something creative to do, try one here. And you can add your own Daily Create for others to enjoy here: Make a Daily Create. That’s where I added the butterfly challenge. Check back on August 18th and join in!

Cats with Personality

Another Summer creative artist is Terry Runyan who paints cats. She did hers in watercolor; I created mine in digital watercolor in Procreate on the iPad.

We created the shapes of the heads, added eyes and nose and mouth, but not the pupils of the eyes. We added those to match the different mouths to have them looking at each other or with personality. Then we added the personal touches of our creative cats.

It’s very relaxing, if you love and know cats, thinking while painting, “I know that look.” LOL. My cat would be the grouchy green one, unfortunately.

Enjoy “Cat Personalities” inspired by Terry Runyan, and painted by me.

More Animals with Rodgon the Artist

In the 21Draw course I’ve previously written about — Beginners Guide to Drawing Pets— with teacher  Rogdon the Artist, who is excellent — I’ve learned lots of fundamental information to begin using immediately. I’ve practice dogs: I’m getting closer to our dog — see image above at left.

And started learning about birds. In the quick sketch shown above you can see how I learned the three main parts of the bird, adding in the hips, and extending the tail from the line of the spine. 

This will help me create extend this idea to other animals and create cute characters… for great grandkids. 🙂

Two cards for friends and family

Created from previously created surface pattern designs, I choose ones that fit the person. In Stacy’s, I changed the main hue to blue because that is her favorite color. It’s fun remixing my own art.

Thanks for stopping by!

August continues another fun month for drawing — Peggy Dean’s Summer Creative Retreat and the Spoonflower Design Challenge Merry Maximalist.

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. 

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. And, I’m so thankful you’ve been joining me with art this year! Take care!