Llama Llove!

Spoonflower's prompt this week… Llama's!

'Llama Llove' ©2015 Patty Rybolt Designs. All Rights Reserved.

'Llama Llove' repeat

"It's time to travel to the South American Andes mountains to show your llama love! Give a go at creating a lovable llama themed design."

This pattern started like all of my designs with research on the prompt. I loved the pictures on Pinterest of the Peruvian Llama Glama. The people there adorn their pets with pompom's and decorative blankets and thought it would be fun to use some of their bright colors in this design.
Next came the drawings… I drew lots of llama's, pompom's, flowers, birds and cacti on my iPad, then imported them into photoshop. I developed the icons using my color palette and put together a repeat. Ta Dah!!

 Voting will open Thursday, July 2nd, 2015. Vote Here!

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!

Terrariums... 'Tiny Gardens Too' for Spoonflower

   Even if you don't have a green thumb, bringing the outdoors in can be fun with a tiny garden. This week at Spoonflower… 'create a design that celebrates terrariums'.

Tiny Gardens Too! ©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs. All Rights Reserved.

    A couple of months ago I did a composition using terrariums for the 'Chinese Paper Cutting' design. The shapes were all cut paper and scanned into photoshop and presented in only red and white. For this week's assignment I did a bit of recycling and used many of those same elements combined with new ones to create this fresh pattern.
   The first decision I made was to once again try to keep it simple. The plants have intricate shapes so I felt that the terrarium containers should have clean lines. I removed the details of the terrariums by just using their outside contour and keeping their shapes a solid white. The idea of keeping the color palette simple made sense too, so I limited the design to 2 colors with black and white.
   I opened a new photoshop file (21x18") and a copy of my original layered file for my existing terrarium design. Then copied and pasted the white containers into my new file and created a pattern with my shapes to repeat seamlessly. I gathered a page of my plant drawings and colored them all the same green and copied + pasted them over my container pattern. Stones were added to the base of the container to 'hold' the plants and then the grasshoppers and caterpillars were placed with some stray lily of the valley buds. The last part was the irregular grid pattern that I added between the background layer and the other elements. This helps the green layer to pull forward and adds texture to the piece.
   Previews designed as a quarter yard (21" x 18"). Voting starts on Thursday, May 8th, 2014 and continues until May 15, 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!!

Just in time for Valentines Day... Love Notes...

'Love Notes for Love Birds' is my latest fabric design.

Spoonflower contest theme of the week is 'Love Letters'. 
Designers created a fabric design celebrating Valentine's Day. Previews sized at a quarter yard (21" x 18"). The deadline for entry was Tuesday, February 5, 2013. Voting starts on Thursday, February 7th and goes through Thursday, February 14th!