Llew Mejia: KANG KO BRAHS

 Had some fun with this one, haven't done a pattern in my personal style in awhile, kinda rhymes. Anyway, made some cobras, drew some mice, made a Dr. Seuss type world for them all to live in together along with weird pipette style flowers that shoot out of the ground, because if you have seen these flowers in nature they are real real weird.
They just pop out of the ground in clusters, and they actually get relatively tall, a lot of Mom's get them as gifts around now and winter because they do well as houseplants, they bloom and then they look like they die then a couple months later, BAM! YUP, new flower, bet you thought it was dead...WRONG.

Lindsay Nohl: Abstracted Amaryllis

I received an amaryllis bulb from a co-worker back in the day and it would bloom once every year and then sink back into it's pot and appear to be dead until the next year. I always thought it was funny. As I was researching this one I kept thinking of how weird it was that all of the blooms come out of one stalk. All of the sketches I was doing looked strange, and after thinking about it for a while I decided to create an abstracted 6-blossom version from the top down. (I realize this isn't entirely accurate, whoops). Still, I was happy to make something that looks like I had a bunch of little twigs and curly doo-dads falling from the sky.

I always make my patterns at night, so they also all seem to have some kind of dark quality to them. Maybe it's that combined with the darkness of winter. I'm looking forward to the sun staying out longer and longer in the next month. It's exciting to have a little bit of sunshine still going on when I leave work!

Jon Suguiyama: Lil' Eyeballs

Jon is a crazy talented artist, some of his illustration work is rendered in such a unique way I don't really know how he got there. Which I think is really awesome, when I can look at someones work and just be surprised about how they executed something. Either way, this pattern is on a less rendered note, but still really cool because it would work really well as a fashion print, just by the way it moves your eyes around...no pun intended! Check out more of his work so you can see what I am talking about.

Llew Mejia: G-G-G-G-G-unit

And when I say g-unit I mean Guarana unit, because that's what they are little units on a tree, anyway these are a really sick plant. In real life they look a lot like little eyeballs encapsulated by some red eyelids. I like that. And to make it even better they come in clusters of like twenty lil berries, all of them peepin' at you creepily, yes I am personifying this plant, what of it. Alright well enjoy my post, another experimental...

Lindsay Nohl: Clusters

Clusters of Guarana Berries

I was inspired by vintage wallpaper and a weekend trip to H&M. I think I've been seeing this tomato red color everywhere and I absolutely LOVE it. In fact, I tried to convince Chris to buy some pants this color. It's cheery and vibrant and I think it may be one of my new favorite colors.


And here's it repeated!

Alison Tauber: Pink Pineapple

Alison is a great surface designer, her patterns are really awesome and you should all go check out more of her work! I really like how the pattern is a mix between an ogee and a damask, it's pretty awesome, well this is a quickie!

Llew Mejia: Pina Coladas

So I have been experimenting a lot with many different styles lately, and this time I was trying to make something similar to a certain swedish textile designer, I will see if you guys get it on your own. But usually his fabrics are done on a press so there's a sort of offset effect he gets with his work that also contributes to the overall color scheme, which is really hard to replicate on a computer screen.

Anyhow it was a long and arduous process of coloring and separating each piece and then combining them to make a winding tree like forest effect, although this isn't what a pineapple tree looks like, this is my personal interpretation, maybe a little more whimsical than the real thing...

eat sum pineappy!

Lindsay Nohl: Making Progress on Pineapples

Progress on the color so far! - Second layer of blues layered in

Ok, so I decided to go for something super complex this time - not really in the way that the pattern is made, but the technique that I'm using to paint it. I'm trying watercolor out for the first real time since high school and it's been... interesting.
I wanted to show you a little bit of what I'm working on though it isn't a repeating pattern quite yet.

I have plans for a Damask pattern -- as you can see I'm working on the diamond shape right now. I've set it up so it'll be fairly easy to repeat once I have the whole painting complete. I'll just have to tile it up and let it go!

It's been exciting. I've been making this while watching Discovery Channel documentaries on mount Everest (thrilling and terrifying!) and plugging away at it after I teach night class. I don't think I have much left to do, but once I get it finished up, I'll make sure to post it!

Just for fun you can see a little bit of my coloring process here!


First Layer of Blues


Preliminary Underpainting

Sarah Andreacchio: Coyotes + Cactus

So recently I reached out to one of my all time favorite pattern makers, because of color palette as well as just general style. It's really unique in that it reminds me of a different era which makes sense considering her fascination with older illustrations from the 1950's, which I will say once again was the best era of illustration.

But either way she happily agreed to make a saguaro pattern, for more of her wonderful work check out her blog!

Alyssa Nassner: Cute Cactus

I was in a super time crunch this week, but I still wanted to make a pattern - quite the dilemma. Instead of fretting over an over planned pattern I decided to challenge myself with making a cute one from only a single icon. Overall this pattern probably took me less than an hour to ink, color, and repeat - not too shabby.

Here's the icon I made:



I hope everyone is having a fun week. I know I've been enjoying my work time at home, out of the Minnesota cold. I would love to be in a place where these cacti are growing right about now. You people in warmer climates are lucky!

Llew Mejia: Lil' Guaros

Black and white is coming back in style supposedly so here's a black and white pattern, maybe it's simple enough that it could go on a button up shirt or something like that as an all over pattern.

Who knows, but anyway Saguaros have a special place in mah heart, considering I was born in Arizona there are plenty in the area and are basically the deserts trees, because nothing is really able to grow taller than them with the small amounts of nutrients available in the desert. But they are an important part of the ecosystem and provide a home for owls and other birds, plus they just look like a cartoon so I like them even more. They don't even seem real when you stand next to one, if you are used to deciduous or coniferous trees all the time, you would probably be like wha wha whaaaaaa.

 Yeah well that's that, enjoy!

Lindsay Nohl : Cactus Blooms

Pointy!

This flower was a challenge for me - mostly because, as I was looking up the Saguaro cactus for reference, I saw that the blooms cluster in these bizarre families around the tops of the cacti. I liked the green blooms so much that I wanted them to be a major part of this pattern.

Here's a never ending field of Saguaro blossoms! (with a little pointy bit here and there!)