Elena Boils: Yellow Glory

This week we have Elena Boils joining us, she has great, unique, work that reminds me of older lithograph prints. Here's a small bit of info about her and you should all check out her portfolio online!

Elena grew up in Mexico City, but has since moved to London where she is now a freelance illustrator, after graduating from the University College Falmouth.

Llew Mejia:Larva,Pupa,Imago

Morning Glorys are pretty nostalgic for me, my parents had an overgrown fence being crushed by the weight of them, when I was younger. It's funny that people think they are these nice flowers because they look appealing and have strange blooming habits, but in reality they are an invasive flowering weed. Another interesting thing about this plant is that it is a natural producer of the compound LSA, similar to LSD, the psychedelic hallucinogen, but you have to consume hundreds of seeds to even get there in the first place. Apparently kids were going to stores and buying up morning glory seed packets, and then getting poisoned because the seeds are processed and coated in mercury. 

Either way, coupled with the nostalgia of my old backyard, are the memories of having Cecropia Moth caterpillars living there, so in this pattern I decided to throw in the three stages the moths would undergo. 

I did a couple color ways as well one night time inspired one and the other a day time or morning one.

Hope ya like it!

101 Florals : Good Morning

After spending an hour making lots and lots of icons, and a couple different patterns, I finally scaled back and made something simple. I went with the star-shape and did a bunch of mini Morning Glories as a polkadot.

Today I was playing around with using a new medium called Art Graf Black Carbon. It's a block of black carbon that, when used with a wet brush, turns into ink! It's a nice, portable material to use and I ended up doing quite a few sketches with it before settling on these icons.



Here's how it looks repeated. I wish I had some sheets that look like this!

Tania Talbot: Dreamy Calla

Tania Talbot is a Philadelphia based illustrator and designer. She was inspired by the classic beauty of the cali a lily and the way its traditionally used in formal arrangements and bouquets. Its interesting silhouette created interesting shapes for me to play with. 

Check out Tania's portfolio site for more work!

Llew Mejia: Classy Calla Lily

 I wanted to do a more sophisticated type of pattern, something with a more "adult" feel, like it could go in someones nicely furnished bedroom as a wallpaper. This pattern took me a long time to figure out because the tile just kept getting bigger and bigger and wouldn't fit into itself, which eventually was solved.

 Calla's have a home decor feel to them, people always buy rubber ones for their houses so they can put them in cylinder vases and show off that, yes I can't grow plants, but at least I can buy fake ones and pretend that I really care about taking care of a living thing. Either way this pattern was a good change of pace for me and after my rant I hope you all still enjoy it!

101Florals : Greys

A Detail

It's a three-day weekend! We've got a whole day left to enjoy!
It's unseasonably warm these days in Minneapolis and though I should be celebrating the remaining days of summer, I'm actually looking forward to the cool days of fall.

My wardrobe is stuck somewhere between the weird tank tops and short shorts that I had been sporting, and the too-many-layers situation I like to bring on when I start to see the leaves falling. I woke up today and when I looked outside, I noticed the majority of the trees outside my window are already turning yellow and leaves have covered the windshield of my car.

So! With that, I headed to an autumn flavored color palette. I figure I might as well usher in the cool weather with some grey, mustard, teal and neutrals. Now that I think of it, I just went out and bought a couple outfits in those exact colors...hmmm.


The full repeat pattern

With fall comes all of the other things I love. Like school. I begin teaching a pattern and product design course at the College of Visual Arts in St Paul on Wednesday and soon I'll be teaching a hands-on patterns class at MCAD. That, and I've got a lot of other fun things to look forward to as I get further into fall. Back into the groove, right?

For now, I'm running through all of my favorite types of patterns and trying new things. I think this Calla Lily pattern worked out well for me. I'm thinking of trying something a little different next time! Happy Fall, everyone. And Enjoy the holiday!

Anika Starmer: Cosmos All-Over

> This week Anika Starmer is joining us, I believe she has the most accurate portrayal of what this flower looks like in real life, here is a lil bit about her! Anika lives and works in Maryland as web designer by day and an artist/illustrator by night. She studied Graphic Design at UMBC, but has always enjoyed creating art by hand: drawing, painting, collaging, etc.. Anika likes to learn new things, whether a new painting style, or Photoshop technique, and is always trying something new. You can read more about her art experiments on her blog (http://www.aisforanika.com/b/).

Llew Mejia: Cosmic Cosmos Flowers

Cosmos flowers are awesome, although to me they kind of resemble other flowers we have done, they are unique in the way their petals get pointy at the end, its a nice lil shape. For this pattern I really wanted to focus on doing an entire pattern with just the pen tool, and I don't think it turned out too bad, although it took me forever...it was like watching any Lord of the Rings movie on repeat...

 I thought maybe there was a mystical reason for naming this plant Cosmos, but apparently it was just because all the petals were equally proportionate to each other and the center of the flower. The name of the flower stems from the Greek word Cosmos meaning harmony, pretty interesting I guess, but because I am ignorant I made it into an occult thing instead and just threw some eyes on there!

Similar to the Googly Eyes Gardener from SNL, if you like Christopher Walkin, (which if you don't, I can't talk to you any longer), then it's worth a watch!

101 Florals : Cosmos, Inked.

Tonight I was getting ready for my Tools of the Trade Class at MCAD and I got lost in messing around with ink. I figured since I was already covered in black ink, I might as well keep going, so I made my pattern tonight with the tools I had handy.
I love that school. Also - I can't believe that it 's starting already.
Where did the summer go? I'm not sure.

Either way, it's nice to break out the ink and do some florals by hand this time.
I did a page of icons, scanned them, cleaned them up and tossed them around. I like how random they are.



Here's what it looks like repeated!

And here's what it looks like before all the coloring and tossing!



Wish me luck for the first day of school! I'm in my 9th year of teaching. I'm not sure how that happened either, but hey, at least I'm headed into a fun semester.
Keeping busy, that's for sure.

Meg Hunt: Quilty Cacti

The guest this week is the fabulous Meg Hunt, a very talented illustrator as well as someone I think stylistically has proven herself again and again. Her work is awesome and check out her site for more. Here's a lil tidbit about her:

Meg is a jack of all trades, but currently works as an illustrator. Her goal is to fill the world with her creations, and make people happy in the process. She wants to explore and try new things; it's her goal to branch out beyond editorial and into the living breathing world we inhabit. One day she would like to illustrate gift cards and childrens' books and stationery and textiles and packaging and oh, all sorts of things.