Ski Retro!

The challenge this week… 

'Create a pattern that uses skiing imagery with a retro or vintage flair.' Submitted designs must use this restricted palette! 

 For this challenge I started out by researching on the internet, mostly vintage ski posters and ads on Pinterest and Google. I found that the palette was pretty good and workable except for the mustard and ketchup colors. 

I started to sketch figures in ski poses with detail but found it to look too busy. Many of the vintage posters that I had researched were simple silkscreen prints, so I changed direction and simplified the shapes once I got them scanned and opened in Photoshop. I had sketched the trees for an earlier project and auditioned them with my figures and liked the simplicity, so I kept them. I liked the monochromatic  design but forced myself to use the mustard and ketchup.

I noticed that many of the vintage posters and ads featured cars. I thought adding a car might bring in the vintage feel that I needed and give me a place to use the yellow and red. So I sketched many cars and exaggerated some of their features to give the design retro flair. The cars were added, then the road and finally I thought a lodge was the perfect final element.

'Ski Retro'
fabric, wallpaper, wall decals + gift wrap available soon at Spoonflower.com
©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

Previews will be shown at the fat quarter fabric size (21" x 18"). Voting starts on Thursday, December 12th, 2013, and continues through Thursday morning December 19th, 2013. Please Vote!!

Snowmen with mittens!

This week the design theme… Mittens for gift wrap! Create a design for gift wrap featuring images of mittens.
I approached this weeks challenge with the idea that I wanted to put mittens on a character, not just use mittens alone. I drew countless illustrations of santa, elves, deer, bears and other woodland animals but kept coming back to the happy snow people that you see below. I had also doodled a lot of snowflake frames and added them to my design. The last bit was the evergreen trees that were drawn in a loose fashion, their simplicity just felt right. I added all of the color and texture in photoshop, but every part of this layout was drawn by hand including the textures!
This pattern was designed for gift wrap but works well as a fabric too. I think I'll make gift tags and print them on the decal fabric!

'Snuggly Snowmen'
wrapping paper, fabric, wall decals + wallpaper
available soon at Spoonflower.com
©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

Previews will be shown on a gift box mock-up. Voting starts on Thursday, November 21st and continues through November 27th, Please Vote!!

Autumn Love!

Design of the week…  Fall leaves!!

This week's challenge was to create images celebrating the colors and shapes of fall leaves!! I approached this challenge with some black india ink and simple brush drawings of peacocks and leaves as well as paper cut-outs of pods and berries. I assembled the images in photoshop and colored them when I found a layout that I liked. I find the combination of drawing by hand (in black + white) and then coloring in photoshop allows me to present a painterly, organic feel to my images. The coloring in photoshop gives me more control over how the colors will look on the finished printed product. Choosing color for the images came directly from my interpretation of the assignment…fall leaves… golden yellows, organic oranges, rich reds and greying greens. The background started as white (which will also be available soon), but I felt that a stronger statement was needed. I auditioned colors from brown to blue and found that this combination of both worked well!

'Autumn Love' (peacock)
©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

'Autumn Love' (white)
©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

Designs presented as a fat quarter (21"x18"). Voting starts on Thursday November 14th and continues until the 21st! Please vote!! 'Autumn Love' (peacock) 

2014 Calendar Tea Towel Design!

It's that time of year again…
This week… a 2014 tea towel calendar design featuring pen and ink illustrations. I started with inspiration and research online, then rough sketches in my sketchbook. I wanted to try something different this year with my calendar so I decided to incorporate some of my own type and loose illustrations using a tea theme with a very bright color palette.
After deciding on the theme, 'Have Tea With Me', I designed the template for the calendar, picked fonts, and set up the calendar dates in Quark Express. Then the fun part… the artwork. I painted with india ink using a #8 round brush and drew teapots, teacups, textures and type. I tried to keep it loose and ended up scanning about 30 pages of images. Working this way is great because nothing is permanent, the illustrations and text were pulled from the scans and manipulated in photoshop. The text layout was brought into photoshop and layered onto the final illustration... the end result is what you see below.  I think these would be great in a gift basket for the holidays this year!

'Have Tea With Me'
©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

Designed to be printed on a Linen-Cotton Canvas fat quarter (27" x 18"). Deadline for entry was Tuesday, October 29th, 2013. Please vote…voting continues through Thursday morning November 7th 2013!!

'Hoot the Owl' in top 10!!

Thanks for voting!!
So exciting!!! Top 10 at Spoonflower.com this week for my 1-yard 'cut & sew' pattern… Hoot the Owl!

'Hoot the Owl' 1-yard Cut & Sew fabric design available at Spoonflower.com
©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

Ghosts!

'Ghosts A-Float' ©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

This week's design was all about ghosts!
I've got to be honest, I'm not into the scary ghost stuff…

ghost doodles

This week's design started with doodling with my trusty India ink pen and I found myself adding costumes to the little ghost kids. The candy and pumpkin treat pails were added to complete the trick-or-treating vibe! (Caramel apples too, just because they are awesome!) After scanning my drawings I completed the pattern, introduced type as a design element and added color in photoshop. The colors are traditional Halloween colors...
Happy Halloween!!

Designed as a fat quarter fabric size (21" x 18"). Voting starts today October 24th and continues until October 31st, 2013!

My 'Today's Chalkboard Special!' Won!!

Yay!! First time winner! Thanks for voting everyone!!

Picture from Spoonflower.com Blog!

'Today's Chalkboard Special!'
Available today in wallpaper, wall decals, wrapping paper and fabric!
©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs