VPH Design Part Three: My Surface Pattern Design Guide.
I love Christmas. I love the lights and shiny ornaments when they hang on the tree. I love it so much that I have had a little pink Christmas tree in my studio forever. I keep it up all year and it has my favorite ornaments from Old Fashioned Christmas, I buy one every year at my favorite store, Drees, in Olympia. I have candy and ice cream ornaments, shiny pine cones, a rooster, a purse. And more. Yes, I posted this pic yet again. I love my little tree so much:
As I worked with my coach, Jeanetta, (see my previous post here), she had me create Mood Boards. Before my first meeting with her, I again, invested in myself, and bought Photoshop. I know it fairly well, but it had been some years since I used it regularly. I highly recommend investing in yourself, too, and get the yearly subscription. Adobe Lightroom is fantastic. I did not buy Adobe Illustrator, but did use the trial version and I can see why people like it. Photoshop has mood boards, too, so I stayed with that.
Having never made a mood board before, I found it quite challenging. I learned a few things: I don’t need to be so literal with the inspiration. I actually added two of my paintings into the board, which I did not need to do, I can choose furniture, nature, or really anything that would give the “mood” of what I am going for, and next time, I will work on a story and pick descriptive words to go with the “mood”; like happy, playful, fun, cheery, etc. I was concentrating so hard on the actual making of the board, I got a bit lost. All in all, though, it was fun to make and I can’t wait to make another one. I’ll just keep learning!
Here are the four motifs/icons/paintings I made for my first design, all in watercolor, inspired by the ornaments on my little pink Christmas tree:
I took pictures with my smart phone because I am currently without a scanner or printer. I played around with the icons in Photoshop; copying, rotating, etc. I couldn’t think of anything to do besides these tiles, which I thought were pretty cool:
I added hearts and stars. And cherries and then I didn’t know what else to do with them. I was ready for more help in our second session.
Jeanetta used the “share screen” option and I was able to watch her as she played around with the file in Photoshop. It was so cool! She suggesting “brightening up” the colors, as my photos were dark and what a difference that made. She duplicated, recolored, and turned and mirrored the icons into options I never thought of. It was pure play! Below is one orientation she came up with that I really like:
After another tutorial and tip sharing, she sent me on my way to practice for another week. This got me thinking about cake toppers and fun things that could be added to desserts. Jeanetta suggested I start saving images for more moodboards in one of my online accounts that I won’t mention and I won’t use anymore. (that’s a whole other blog post). Here is one image I just love:
So I sketched and played with colored pencils. I drew and drew and I still felt stuck and frustrated. What was I doing wrong? Why was this so hard?
Next post: I’ll share some of the sketches, ideas, and struggles of the process as I rework the Sweets motif.
