May Recap

 

This month, I was able to finish up going through all the Immersion lessons and make the final tweaks to my first collection (which I will be revealing in it’s entirety later in June)! It’s so exciting for me to be able to check off these boxes and start taking steps towards the next thing and I’m already brainstorming for my next collection! But as Bonnie tells us in Immersion: focus on “one thing a day”. This is something I have to constantly remind myself of or else overwhelm can so easily settle in. It feels like there is so much to do (and not enough time), and I have days where my head is buzzing… where I’m not sure what to focus on first. I’m learning to be okay with setting some things aside until I have the head space to approach them with the care they require. I don’t want to rush through and risk leaving things unfinished… I want to tend to each thing on my to-do list with the care and attention I need to give it. All these things I have to do WILL get done (in their proper timing), I just have to keep working at them… one thing at a time. 😅

I honestly feel like I’m really starting to hone in on a style to use when drawing in Procreate. It gets me excited and makes me want to draw even more! Here’s a look at some of the challenges I participated in this past month:

The last illustration reminds me that gardening season is upon us!! I bought my flowers last Friday and I really need to plant them! It’s not supposed to rain this Friday, so that might be a good time to do that. I’m looking forward to the warmer months and spending time in my garden! How about you? ☺️

 

A Peek at My First Collection!

 

Immersion may be officially over, but I am still continuing to work through the lessons. I am on the last module this week and the course content continues to be so inspiring as well as motivating. I’m excited to be able to check off more boxes on my to-do list so that I can move onto what’s next!

I have been making some amazing progress on my first collection called “Down the Bunny Trail”. It consists of 10 prints in 2 different colour ways. I am hoping I will have it finalized soon and plan to share it later in June, but for today I will share one of the prints with you for a bit of a sneak preview. This print is called “Bunny Play”! 🐰

I am so thankful to the Immersion community and my study group who have given me such helpful feedback on my collection. They have challenged me (in a good way) and helped me see things from a different perspective. This being my first collection, the feedback has been invaluable; it has allowed me to take this collection in a direction I wouldn’t have been able to on my own. Never underestimate the value of a fresh set of eyes!

Below are a couple of mock ups of this print (called “Bunny Play”) on a fabric swatch and an adorable baby swaddle. I’m already imagining ALL THE THINGS it could be used for… that is definitely one of the most fun parts of surface pattern design and I’m so thankful to Aimee (@theindoorsyproject) for the beautiful mockups to play with! I can’t wait to share more with you soon! 🥰

On a fabric swatch.
(Mock Up by @indoorsyproject)

On a baby swaddle. How cute is this baby, though? 🥰
(Mock Up by @indoorsyproject)

 

April Recap

 

Well…

…we got COVID this month… and it sucked. 🤒🤧 My husband got sick a few days after my birthday, and I lasted a week before I started showing symptoms (I was starting to think I wouldn’t get it, however, I didn’t get so lucky). About 4 days in bed followed by a week and a half on the couch popping lots of vitamins/supplements, drinking lots of fluids and fighting off fatigue. I watched a LOT of movies, played my Nintendo Switch (which I hadn’t picked up in awhile… yay Animal Crossing and Super Mario Galaxy!) and had a few moments where I felt I had enough energy to pull out my iPad and draw. I definitely did not work on Immersion, so I fell behind… but it’s okay, because I’m on my own timeline. This just means I will have to go a couple weeks into May to finish going through all the course material. That’s perfectly acceptable… I can be okay with that… I have to be! 😅

And while I couldn’t keep up with the scheduled release of the modules, I still enjoyed listening to the Q&A’s with Bonnie every Monday/Wednesday/Friday and popping into the community here and there. Also, my beautiful student packet finally arrived!! Only 5 weeks late, but it was worth the wait! I had a lot of fun opening up the last two envelopes with everyone else in the course! ☺️

My Immersion Student Pack finally arrived! 🥳

Matcha got something special in the mail too! 😉

April 27th was the official graduation ceremony for Immersion, and while I didn’t quite feel the closure I should have (because I hadn’t finished everything yet) it was such a lovely experience. Bonnie had written each student’s name on a piece of seed paper at the beginning of the course, and she shared a video with us of her going out to her garden and planting each one. What a beautiful gesture! We have all come so far just by taking this step to learn and grow in our creative journeys, and now there will be flowers growing in Bonnie’s garden in honour of that. I may have gotten a little teary eyed… 😭

Bonnie’s wall with each student’s name written on a piece of seed paper. My name is there somewhere! ☺️

Here are a few illustrations from the challenges I managed to participate in this month. I wish I could’ve done more, but I’m just happy I was able to draw a little bit while I was sick!

Now that we are on the mend, I’m happy to leave April behind… looking forward to having more energy to get more things done in May! 😄

 

First Day of Spring! | A Little Immersion Update

 

Happy first day of spring! I hope the snow is gone wherever you are from. Here, winter likes to stick around a bit longer, so it doesn’t feel like spring yet, but the hope of spring has definitely arrived! ☺️

I am now a few weeks into Immersion! I have been enjoying it so much and I wanted to share with you how it’s been going! A little disclaimer… I went into this course with a background in Adobe Illustrator, but I went in with the preconceived idea that it was a frustrating program (for me). Illustrator was only used for very accurate lines and shapes and the odd design assignment… but not much else. It was never a place where I felt I could freely express myself. My instincts always took me to Photoshop for my more elaborate illustrative work.

After working through the first couple modules, however, my eyes have been opened to what Illustrator is capable of. I have barely been able to sleep because of how excited I have been, thinking about how my illustrations can be translated into this program (and all the possibilities that come with it)! I have been reminded of the power of vectors and how they allow you to work with your artwork in countless ways for any application you can think of.

I am a big fan of using colour in my work, so I enjoyed taking my time with the lessons on creating colour palettes. I even created one using pictures of my sweet little kitties as source images. I just love the different colours I pulled out (the amazing neutrals from Matcha, the sweet pink from Paska’s nose and the gorgeous greens from his eyes). I also feel more confident in putting together a strong colour palette, increasing my understanding of balance and contrast, and this is something I will be able to apply across my entire practice.

Also… the recolour artwork tool is SO much fun! I could spend hours playing with that one… 😅 My sweet little Matcha has been keeping me company while I work through each lesson, which I’m thankful for! 🥰

One of the book recommendations is “Show Your Work” by Austin Kleon. I was able to snag it from my local library and it has been such an encouraging read. I feel more prompted to try and document my days in the studio, paying special attention to my process work. Picking up pencil and paper again felt so refreshing, and sketches also make for very interesting process photos. It has also been fun to start thinking about my first collection and what kinds of motifs I will need. For now, I’m just sketching some leaves and berries! 🌿🍓

The final lesson in Module 2 prompted us to create an art print using all the knowledge we’ve gleaned and combining motifs we’ve created along the way. The first image in this post, as well as the one below, are the result of that exercise. I still cannot get over the fact that these were made in Illustrator. The idea that I can still get that painted, hand-drawn look in such a concise and unforgiving program still blows my mind a little bit! I am so excited to keep exploring further to see how my illustration style will adapt with these new tools I’m adding to my toolbox. ☺️

 

February Recap

 

Today is the first day of Immersion! I’ve already gotten through the first few lessons. Not only do we get right into learning all about Illustrator, but Bonnie also makes sure we are coming into the course with the right mindset. Mindset is so important for an artist because the creative journey is NOT an easy one (putting artwork out into the world can feel extremely vulnerable). I love that Bonnie sets this foundation before we hit the ground running. I’ve already learned so much! ☺️

In February, I was able to participate in a few more drawing challenges and I can definitely see something happening in my style (but I’m still having fun exploring)! March is going to look a little different for me (with most of my efforts being put towards Immersion), but I’m hoping I will still find some time to do more of these challenges… they are such a good opportunity to practice.

A Debonair, Well-Read, Tea Drinking Tiger
#drawmoor prompt hosted by @beckamoor

I’ve also been doing some sketching for a new batch of products for spring! They will be listed in the Etsy shop around mid-March, so stay tuned! Here’s a little sneak peek in the meantime! 😉

In other news… my orchid has bloomed (which always feels like such an event)! It’s so pretty! Do you have any plants in your home that you get excited about when they bloom? 🌺

 

So, I did a thing... | Immersion 2022

 

I am at a place in my career where I am trying to figure out what the next thing looks like… These past few months have been exciting (opening my Etsy shop, designing and producing new products for it, focusing on developing a consistent style, sharing more art with the world), but when it comes to more practical uses for my art, I get a little lost. The business side of things has always left me feeling overwhelmed. Hey, I’m only human, right?

I stumbled across Bonnie Christine one day, after going down a “bunny trail” on Instagram (sorry, I couldn’t resist 🐰). She was offering a free workshop about surface pattern design. Surface pattern design?! I remembered learning about that back in school for a few brief weeks, and I remembered LOVING it. How come I had forgotten about it? I decided to sign up for Bonnie’s workshop to learn a bit more and refresh my memory further.

Bonnie only got me excited… excited about possibilities! Here I had been feeling so lost… Now I had all these ideas for patterns floating around in my head, and I was imagining them on all sorts of things. Bonnie had left me feeling so inspired, and I knew after taking her workshop that this was something that I wanted to do.

So this leads me to today… Today I signed up for Immersion 2022 (Bonnie’s 8 week intensive all about getting started in the surface design industry). The course is laid out in a way that covers so much information in such a short period of time. It has three weeks of content focused on working in and designing patterns in Illustrator (I’m so looking forward to a refresher in Illustrator… I have gotten rusty!), one week focused on how to create artwork in collections (rather than one-off pieces which I seem to be stuck in doing), and two weeks focused more on the business side of things (which, let’s face it, I need some guidance in)! Bonnie even allows for a couple weeks between modules just for implementing what you are learning. This is so thoughtful and indicative of how much Bonnie understands the creative process. I know I will need that extra time to absorb all that information and create artwork for my first collection.

It’s official! I’m in! 😄

This course seems to have fallen in my lap at just the right time, and with the support of my amazing husband and family behind me, I can’t wait to get started! I’m looking forward to learning all that I can about surface pattern design and growing more as an artist as well as building confidence in my ability as a creative entrepreneur. I feel at peace knowing that this is the next step in my creative journey. I look forward to keeping you updated along the way! ☺️

Starting something new is also a great excuse to tidy up your studio! 😅