Great Barrier Reef

The challenge of the week was designed to honor Australia Day on January 26th. Designers were asked to produce a pattern based on the hundreds of species of animals, plants, and coral that make the reef their home.

Our family was traveling this weekend, so I approached this assignment a little differently. While waiting at airports and during any downtime, I pulled out my iPad. Almost all of this project was done with my finger and sometimes a stylus on my iPad using the Adobe Ideas App, this app allowed me to draw and edit my drawings in a multi layer program and then send them to my home computer where I applied the color and arranged the images when I got home. 

I wanted to keep the color choices simple because the drawings had a reasonable amount of detail. (The turtle is my favorite!)

'The Reef'
©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs

Previews: fat quarter fabric size (21" x 18"). Voting starts later today and goes through early Thursday, January 30th 2014. Please Vote!!

The Magic Show with 'Amazing Larry the kid Magician!'

This week's challenge… Designers were to create designs that depict scenes from a magic show.
This simple design was just drawn with marker and scanned into photoshop where I arranged the elements and colored them! The concept was to make this feel like a hand drawn poster made by 'Larry' himself!

'Amazing Larry' the kid Magician!
©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs

Previews shown as a fat quarter (21" x 18"). Voting starts on Thursday, January 16th, 2014 and continues to Thursday, January 23rd, 2014. Please Vote!!

'Love Garden' Cheater Quilt

these colors + white

The challenge of the week... Design a cheater quilt with a spring floral theme using the restricted palette below and white. Cheater quilt blocks feature fabric designed and printed to look like patchwork or applique so that you can skip the piecework and go straight for quilting.

I started this challenge with developing a focal point design and then designed coordinate patterns using elements and icons from the original design.  I drew tons of flowers and birds with a paintbrush and india ink, then drew a ton more with a black marker. I scanned the images and arranged them into a pattern that worked for me in photoshop and played with the colors required for the challenge. (Also in Photoshop). 

'Love Garden' Peacock Floral…

'love garden' peacock floral

 Once I had the focal point design I moved on to design coordinating patterns to use in my cheater quilt design. I wanted to design a few small print designs… dots, small florals (ditsy prints), and a stripe to use with my peacock design as well as incorporating solids to keep the overall design feeling modern.

daisy dot (orange)

'love garden' stripe #3

'love garden' swoop

queen anne's lace

ditsy daisy dot (puce)

When the print and coordinates were finished I moved on to the quilt block design itself. I drew a square and marked the center and measured an inch above, below and side to side. Took a plate from my kitchen and drew a curve. Then I scanned the curve into photoshop. I copied and pasted the curves until I had a design that I liked.
When the square was done I opened a new file in Photoshop to be 1/4 of the fat quarter size (9"x 10.5"). I copied the block and stretched the square to the new block size which would make my finished design have a large oval when duplicated. (Four blocks appear in a fat quarter, 16 squares appear in a yard of fabric.)
I copied and pasted the fabric patterns into the block shapes and moved them around until I liked the look. I used some solids here and there as well.
The finished design…

'love garden' - cheater floral quilt block ©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

Design previews were presented as a fat quarter(21" x 18"). Deadline for entry was January 7th, 2014, voting is now through January 16th 2014! Please Vote!

Resolutions!

This last week's designer challenge... use hand-lettering to write a New Year's resolution. Design elements were allowed, but the design must have text that has a hand-lettered appearance, and describes a resolution.
This challenge started with some soul searching. I tried to draw resolutions that were positive and hopeful. I drew about 30 resolutions with my iPad and drew tons of organic design elements… birds, trees, leaves and branches with my trusty black markers and colored them in photoshop. Textures were added to some of the elements for interest. I uses burlap that I scanned and posterized into black and white then changed the colors to accommodate my palette.
I picked 9 resolutions and placed them on my page then added the design elements. I chose to limit the color palette to 5 colors to connect the messages and graphics. When the layout was almost complete I thought the pattern needed one more unifying element and a new color to pop so I added the hearts. And there you have it!

Happy New Year!!

'My Resolutions!' ©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

Previews were shown at the fat quarter fabric size (21" x 18"). Voting started on Thursday, January 2nd, 2014, and continues through Thursday morning January 9th, 2014. Please Vote!!

'Ski Retro' in the Spoonflower top 10!

I'm very excited, my latest design on Spoonflower is one of the top 10 designs this week!!  'Ski Retro' fabric, wall decals, wallpaper, and gift wrap are now available at Spoonflower.com.

Thanks for voting and Happy New Year!

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

Free Printable Gift Tags for the Holidays!

Merry Christmas! 

I'm so happy to be able to spread some Christmas Cheer this year with a gift...  my printable Christmas 'handmade' gift tags! They are yours to print and use, but are not for commercial use. Please do not redistribute or sell. 

how•to•use
Print on paper or cardstock and cut along the edges. You can punch a hole and add ribbon or twine to make your packaging even more special!

Happy healthy holidays to all!

©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

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!!