Rockets for Spoonflower!

This week's challenge at Spoonflower... a rocket-inspired design featuring friendly aliens!

'Space Race' ©2015 Patty Rybolt Designs. All Rights Reserved.

Voting will open on Thursday, January 29th. Please Vote!

Groundhog Day!

The Spoonflower Design Challenge of the week is a celebration of Punxsutawney Phil as he prepares for his moment in the sun (or not)!

Groundhog Day. ©2015 Patty Rybolt Designs. All Rights Reserved.

Groundhogs are such funny little animals, and they were fun to draw. I started with some research online, mostly photos, to understand the details and of these creatures. They have smallish ears, finger-like hands that are darker than their coarse fur and their tails are smaller than a beaver. (I took creative license with the top hats and bow ties.) I drew my groundhogs in the Adobe Ideas App on my iPad and then opened it in Photoshop where I chose my color palette and assembled my characters. When the icons were 'built' I copied and pasted them into a new file for my Spoonflower pattern. I added the flowers and veggies at this stage as well as the background texture, vines and hand drawn type!
Happy Groundhog Day on February 2nd!!

Voting will open on Thursday, January 22nd. Please Vote!

Penguin Portraits for Spoonflower!

Yay penguins!
The Spoonflower guru's asked their faithful artists to design a penguin-inspired fabric to 'celebrate our feathered friends from the Southern Hemisphere'!

Penguin Portraits! ©2015 Patty Rybolt Designs. All Rights Reserved. 

This was a fun one… I did a little research on penguins and then started drawing. I had limited time for this design so I wanted to keep it simple. Sometimes it's hard to come up with a concept for a prompt but this was easy for once, I had a clear vision for this design from the start. Clean shapes that were layered using a limited palette, and of course add texture.
I typically come up with a concept and then draw about about 20 versions of each item in black and white (this gives me design options when I'm assembling my icons). I chose my palette in the photoshop phase using only 4 colors (blue, green, orange, pink) with black and white. I have found that limiting the palette helps to give the pattern a balanced look.
I designed each penguin icon, the fish background pattern, the trees and the patterned fish and opened a new file where I assembled the final pattern! Simple!

Voting starts on Thursday, January 8th and continues until the morning of January 15th, 2015! Please vote!!

Under the Sea 1-2-3... Counting for Spoonflower!

Happy New Year!
The first design post of the new year is all about celebrating Mathematics!

Under the Sea 1-2-3! ©2015 Patty Rybolt Designs.
All Rights Reserved.

I toyed with trying to use my daughter's calculus homework as a base for a typographical solution to this week's challenge, but then I started drawing. Picture books for counting came to mind and I decided to change gears and go with an under the sea theme.

I drew tons of sea creatures and numbers in my sketchbook and took pictures of them with my iPad. I opened the pictures in the Adobe Ideas app on my iPad and drew better versions of my illustrations to import into photoshop (where I assembled my icons in color.)

My favorite part of this process is adding simple details to each and every icon. The textures, shapes and colors bring each character to life and give them a personality! The last step is the hardest part for me… the repeat. Putting my artwork into a technical repeat is my nemesis and I vow to master it in 2015!

Voting started on Wednesday, December 31st and continues until January 8th, 2015! Please Vote!

2015 Goals…
With one design now completed for 2015 I'm hoping to continue with at least 3 designs per month using the Spoonflower prompts as well as Lilla Rogers Assignment Bootcamp projects. I'm setting goals to finish my website and submit my art to some new companies to build my business. Let's just see what happens, the worst they can say is no. Wish me luck!
Happy New Year!