I am having so much fun. As you know, I have not been posting art the last few months. Only one or two pieces since the September Gathering. I’ve missed painting!
Even so, I was really stressed about starting again. Not sure of what to paint. Afraid I might flub it. You can see in day 1, how tight and linear I was. I still like it. The others are much more loose.
I am noticing that the parchment (creamy white) looks somewhat dingy here. It is the low resolution of the image. The color is clean, soft and bright in the paintings.
Well, back to work for me. I have to work on my Spoonflower design, due Tuesday at noon. I have some admin. tasks before I can hit the sack. I better get to it!
It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure. Albert Einstein
I started with the original painting as inspiration. Problems with Photoshop used up several days of my design time. A revamp was quicker than creating from scratch. What you see here, is all that is left from the original. I noticed several mistakes in the yellow blooms, so I eliminated them. I added digital outlines using the pen tool, for nice crisp edges.
I cleaned up the white blooms. The blue background was visible and made them look a bit dirty. The grey is the template that Spoonflower provides. The darkest, inner rectangle is all that will be visible when the design is printed.
I added color blocks and considered using them for the final piece. But they were too flat, and I thought a pattern in the background would be too much. I placed the plaid to find the right scale.
I decided to paint paper with three colors. Yellow, blue, and green. I scanned them in to get the texture and uneven color tones. The variations are less obvious, than in the original painting. But I think it “warms” the design, by having a hand made, imperfect quality.
The design brief really called for wacky, or strange. They showed a tennis ball cut in half to reveal a lemon interior. This may not be wacky, but it will be unexpected to some.
I am really starting to feel comfortable using the pen tool in Photoshop. I never thought I would say that. There were only three connections I had to smooth out. Just slightly. I am so stoked about that. And so grateful. Whew! 🤓
Voting is now open, until October 18th. Voting is easier on a computer or larger screen like a tablet. If you are using your phone, you need to scroll slowly, it can only load so many images at a time and you may miss seeing images without knowing it. There are only 484 entries, roughly a third of the usual.
Your votes help give me the chance to win cash prizes. Money I can use towards printing samples of my designs, which is a requirement to making them available for sale in my shop.
1st place winner will receive a $200 Spoonflower credit.
2nd place winner will receive a $100 Spoonflower credit.
3rd place winner will receive a $50 Spoonflower credit.
Remaining top 10 designs will receive a $20 Spoonflower credit.
The top 50 popularly-voted designs from each theme will be automatically made available for sale in the Spoonflower Marketplace, no $5 swatch required.
