GTS 2016-Design a Teacup and Saucer...

I entered Lilla Rogers GTS again this year...last year I made it to the final 6, but this year was not meant to be and I didn't get through to the semi finals, although I did get an honourable mention, which meant I was one of the 33 who were very close.

I was initially very disappointed, but feeling fine about thing's now. Everything happen's for a reason and I am moving forward full steam ahead :)

Here's my design...hope you like it!

 

Teacup
 

Roll up roll up...

Heres a selection from a new children's fabric range I have designed... inspired by the circus theme :)

circus fabric range
 

Dancing Moggie...

Wow, I have been so busy lately illustrating a 95 page children's book... it's almost finished now, so time to start some new work! 

I bought a new iPad recently and have been experimenting with brushes in Procreate...heres a dancing moggie I worked on this afternoon.

dancing moggie
 

A floral print...

A floral pattern I designed a while ago... it was initially designed as part of a ladies wear collection, but I could definitely see it on kids as well. I love children clothes with a more sophisticated colour palette!

 
floral meadow

Children's Greeting Cards

I'm really busy with work at the moment...which is a GREAT! This is the first quieter day for a while,,,so I thought I would post some of my older work.

 Here's a range of children's greeting card's I designed last year.

circus characters
 

My 1st watercolour class for about 8 years...

I really enjoy painting, but I always feel the fear and procrastinate when I do it.

I used to go to a watercolour class with a really talented artist Fran McGarry when I lived in Bristol about 8 years ago, and then I moved up North for my job.

Now I am back home (between Bristol and Bath) I am going to try and go to Fran's classes every tuesday morning, to build up my confidence. The great thing about the class, is I end up painting something that is totally different to my normal style.

If you live in the Bristol area and fancy a spot of watercolour painting Fran's Facebook page is here

https://www.facebook.com/FranMcGarryWatercolourArtClasses/

I enjoyed this morning…Thanks Fran :)

Here is my painting... I will blog about it, so I can see how and if I improve.

 

art class 1


Watercolour Bird Pattern Repeat...

I had developed a pattern, from the birds I had designed for the Global Talent Search 2015 final.

At the time I didn't have an A3 printer and had not printed it out onto paper, before sending it to Spoonflower. When I received the fat quarter I realised that the scale was much smaller than I had thought. 

I now realise the importance of printing out a design on paper before sending it to be printed on fabric. It looks so very different on screen and I find the scale is quite hard to judge, especially in photoshop.

Here is the art file of the bird pattern...

watercolour birds

and here is the design printed on fabric.

It's too small in scale and the design is too busy for what I had in mind... I am going to make it bigger, take out some elements and mix it with a chevron stripe co-ord.

Hopefully 2nd time around I will prefer it :)

bird cushion


 

Oooops I have neglected my blog...

It is my new years resolution to update my blog regularly and even though it is now March and I have failed dismally, I am starting afresh from today.

I was so disappointed at not being picked as one of Lilla's artist's in the final of the global talent search 2015... but that's life. It took a week or so to get over the disappointment and then I had to pick myself up and start growing and promoting my design business again.

I do find it hard to promote myself, it is difficult putting my work out there and also finding the time to do personal work as well as paid work. I heard someone in the business say that you need to spend about 25% of your time marketing yourself and that is what I am going to try to do from today. Here goes ! 

Here are some of the home decor products I designed for the final of the global talent search 2015.

products-from-the-final-of-GTS-2015.jpg




 

GTS Semi Finalist…yippee!!!!

Yay, I am beyond thrilled to have made it to the semi finals of Lilla Rogers Global talent search competition! 

The brief was to design a pair of sneakers for a hip young woman called Antoinette living in New York City. Antoinette owns a popular boutique and likes to stock her shop with beautiful gift products.

 Some of her favourite things are peonies and she also adores all shades of robin's egg blue… this was the inspiration for my design.

sneakers