Inspired by Mark Rothko
I have some close friends and relatives who have their birthday in May. I came with this idea of Mark Rothko inspired greeting cards when I thought: What would I give them if I had all the money in the world. And I immediately knew the answer: Mark Rothko paintings! Not as genious as the originals of course but still I think this is a fun idea.
Make your own Mark Rothko inspired card!
1) Paint the borders of the cardstock with acrylic paint.
2) Fill the center with watercolors. Paint rectangular areas using multiple shades.
3) Strengthen the watercolors and create layers with color pencils.
4) Attach your artwork to the card base. If you like you can sew zigzag around the edges to add detailing.
You can also use acrylic paints only. In the first row you can see my all-acrylic creations and in the second row are the cards that combine acrylics, watercolors and color pencils.
Mark Rothko & abstracts with colored pencils: Buy the e-book Coloring Freely!
The Second Quilt for Stella
In the post from May I wrote about modern quilting and showed a quilt that I had made for my new puppy Stella. Even if I have not written a lot about quilting, I have spent quite a lot of time browsing modern quilt blogs and even sewing a little. Now I have finally something to show, it’s a new quilt for Stella, a modern quilt that also has some ribbons and lace.
I am so pleased with this. First, I love the colors. Second, it was a good choice to use double wadding to make the quilting more visible. Third, I think I was able to incorporate laces and ribbons in a creative way. Fourth, I so enjoyed the process of making this! I did not use a lot of time for planning. I had a vision of expressing vintage childhood and vintage linens and it lead the way.
This is a little detail that I love the most: I hand embroidered Stella’s name to a small antique lace square!
And she loves the quilt, of course!
From Art Journaling To Fabric Design
This time I want to show how I use my art to make designs. Some may think that art journaling and art in general is very far way from design. But that’s not true. You can grab inspiration and ideas from art and it can be very straight forward.
Remember the art journal page I made about women loving historical dramas? It grabbed my attention while I was searching for ideas for a new fabric design. See the yellow-orange ornament on the right corner? I liked the way it was structured.
So I redraw it and tried how it would work as a repeat.
After that I opened Adobe Illustrator and created a digital version of it. I do not usually scan my doodles even if you can do so. I like to understand the structure of the ornament first and then fine-tune it while re-creating it.
Another thing that I like to do is to leave some asymmetry to the motif. I think it looks more interesting that way.
When choosing colors I decided to imitate the contrasts in the art journaling page. I created two colour combinations and three sizes for test prints.
This is how they came out! See my Etsy store for more photos!
When art journaling I am often filled with ideas and details. I have found out that it is not a good thing for me to try to control the creative flow then. To design is to simplify. Later one image can offer jumpstart to many designs. I still see many details on this page that I could use for designs.
An art journal can be your mini world, the best sourcebook for any pattern design!
Fire With Water(colors)
One Friday evening I was so fed up with seeing white and grey all week. In Finland all the public places, offices, most homes (excluding mine!) are white or pale grey. And now when the colour starts to fade from the nature too, it’s just too much, or should I say little, for me!
I needed this – to play with colors:
I was not interested in the composition or shapes this time, I yearned for color and spent hours mixing water colors. Then I added small details with pens and color pencils.
The end result reminds me of wood that is burning in the fireplace! Using water colors can be a really fun way to set the colors on fire!