365 Days of Pattern Postcard Project: First Look

Today I started creating the first postcards for my 365 Days of Pattern Postcard Project. I'm finally using my Copic markers, as well as some smelly markers I bought at the University art co-op years ago. I had fun making the feather pattern below. I started with smelly markers, then made everything fuzzy with a blender marker. The end result was a bit dark, so I came back over the top with a white pencil. I really like the effect.  I also made some persimmons. They make for such a great graphic and I love the red orange color. In printmaking class we had an ink with this color and its name was "fire red."

The green shapes are feijoas, a south american fruit I learned about while traveling in New Zealand. The cross-section of this fruit has such a cool shape and I thought it would make a great motif. 

If you would like a lovely pattern postcard sent to you, please sign up here. I'm going to do thirty of these and send them all over. I already have a few to send to Thailand!

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Skillshare Progress

Tonight I worked on the first part of the Skillshare class on Repeating Patterns in Adobe Illustrator. The goal of the class is to design a pattern to enter in Spoonflower's upcoming Picnic themed contest.

The first part of the project helped me come up with a concept. I've chosen "Gourmet Getaway" because if I have a picnic, I'm going to splurge on fine food.

Here are a few sketches:

Here's my class project, which I will update as I progress.

Letters and numbers

I tried dying Easter eggs with hand drawn patters today, but the wax came off when I boiled the eggs.

Now I'm thinking about handwriting.

Numberwang

That's a numberwang!