2015 Farm Friends Tea Towel Calendar

'2015 farm friends calendar' ©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/3637960
It's time for the annual Tea Towel Calendar design at Spoonflower!

This year I decided to use some of my favorite animal illustrations, most of which haven't been used in other designs this year. A few have been used in my 'Farm Fresh' fabric but most of my farm friends are new to the market!

I drew all of these characters in black and white with Adobe Ideas on my iPad and then opened them up in Photoshop where I assembled and colored the parts of each icon. I also used my old Quark Express to layout the calendar dates. I have inDesign with my Adobe cc but still haven't learned how to use it yet (embarrassing but I am also just learning illustrator).

The Calendar is larger than the usual Spoonflower entries to fit on a fat quarter-yard of their Linen-Cotton Canvas fabric (27" x 18"), the preview had to be oriented horizontally to fit 4 calendars per yard.

Voting starts Thursday, October 30th, 2014. Please Vote!

'Farm Fresh' for Spoonflower!

 This week at Spoonflower... Farming. 'Please create a design that celebrates the tools, machines, animals, or plants that make farms and farming so special'. 

'Farm Fresh'  ©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs.

I love to draw birds. So, naturally whenever the opportunity comes up I take it. In my mind you can't have a farm without chickens, so I started drawing hens, roosters and chicks. Then came the ducks pigs, barns, fences, tractors, farmers and tools as well. They were all drawn on my iPad with my Adobe Ideas App, then imported into Photoshop where I colored the images and arranged them into a pattern. I added type, tractor marks and plants to complete the design!

Voting starts today, June 19th 2014, and continues until June 26th, 2014! Vote Here!

Pop Art Chicken? ...Free Range 'Marilyn', 2013

This week the theme is POP Art! Create a fabric using chickens in the style of the pop art movement. Submissions were to be shown as a fat quarter (21" x 18"), and the deadline was Tuesday April 16, 2013. Voting starts on Thursday, April 18th and will continue through Thursday, April 25th, 2013.

And here it is, ...My ode to Andy Warhol's Marilyn... if she was a chicken. Complete with her fabulous hair, signature blue eyeshadow and red lipstick! I tried to create this design as if I were using Warhol's silkscreen process, with solid flat areas of color as my underpainting, and an overlay of my chicken image as line art. I did many digital sketches on an app on my iPad from the Andy Warhol Museum called The Warhol:D.I.Y. POP, before completing my entry in photoshop. This app can give you a quick look at Andy Warhol and his 'Pop' Silkscreen Process, and it's really fun to play with!

I've always been a big fan of Andy Warhol and this weeks entry was so much fun to work on, a break from the usual illustration process that I would typically go through. If you have time check out the app and the Andy Warhol Museum website!

Free Range 'Marilyn', 2013
©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

Free Range 'Marilyn', 2013 (Fabric Pattern)
©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs
Free Range 'pop eggs', 2013

l'art des poulet! = Painted Eggs!

The assignment of the week... Painted Eggs

Spoonflower asked their faithful following of designers to create a fabric design built around the concept of painted eggs.  My take on this assignment centered around the theme of the season... Spring, Easter + new life. For whatever reason, French hens (and chicks) painting eggs on canvas while wearing beret's and French t's just seemed like the right way to go!!

Unlike most of their contests, the preview of this design is 8" x 8" rather than a fat quarter. The deadline for submission was March 19th, 2013. Vote on this at Spoonflower.com from Thursday, March 21 through Thursday morning, March 28th, 2013!

l'art des poulet!
(robin's egg blue)

 ©2013 Patty Rybolt Designs

Free Range Plaid
(new grass, robin's egg blue + pale lilac)

Free Range
(robin's egg blue + pale lilac)