a few of my favorite things: socks!

what i did today was very different from what i had planned to. as i was getting ready to continue working on my website, i found out about the Sock It To Me 5th Annual Global Design A Sock Contest. now, there are people who love bags, others who collect shoes, and i love socks. and i really like the ones made by Sock It To Me. these are two of my favorites.

my favorite socks

the deadline was today at 5pm, and i had a lot to do, but being a sock junkie i had no other option but to participate. so i came up with these designs, using motifs i had already developed for other purposes.

Sock it To Me competition submissions

"in the dark" was one of the patterns i had entered in the Tigerprint black and white print competition ( and it was selected as one of the top 25 designs), "black bird" is part of my "a day in the life" collection that keeps growing, and the happy snail pattern is from my daughter's birthday invite i had designed back in december. i had shown her sketches of different animals, and i was so happy she chose the snail.

aiki's second birthday invitation

my big dream is to have my own line of socks one day. so wish me luck!

the view from my chair

still working on flowers. there are layers of doodles on my wall.

floral collection sketches (and drawings by my nephews)

some of yesterday's tiny drawings are finding their way into the floral collection. it looks like they will be coordinating patterns.

flower buds

i enjoy working like this. not that i don't have a plan, i do have a rough idea about what i want the collection to look like (after all, i did have a moodboard at the beginning), but i really like watching how things evolve and the patterns design themselves, almost. this is not how i used to work. when creating my illustrations, i would tune up a composition for hours or days, and then i was somehow stuck with it, and the work didn't always feel like mine. now i can finally say i have found my voice. hopefully someone, somewhere, someday, will hear it!

doodling in the waiting room on a tuesday afternoon

in the unlikely event that i got any of you worried (didn't blog on monday), all is well. i was just busy having fun and going a little crazy with my family. today was also a very busy day, i had too many appointments and errands to take care of for it to be a productive one, but while i was waiting for my midwife (at 37 weeks, any day is fair game now!) i made these doodles, trying to develop one more pattern for my floral collection which is slowly coming together.

floral collection doodles

and here's what it looks like at this point.

flower bed pattern in progress

i will share the whole collection on my website, which will be ready a little later than planned, but before the end of march. check this space for updates. and in case i don't blog on a day i am supposed to (monday, wednesday, friday) i am either going crazy, or having a baby, or both.

flower girl

today was crazy and the weekend is only going to get crazier and crazier. so i decided to take a break from sitting in front of my laptop for hours (i have been working on my website), and do some painting instead. this project has been waiting to be completed for...two years. yes, two! i had prepared a pregnancy album after the birth of our daughter, and have been planning to decorate its cover for, well, two years, but it was just not a priority. so it was the perfect project to work on a snowy and quiet day. not that quiet, really, with the hum of the dryer, the hiss of the radiators, and the constant beeping of the snow plow going back and forth our dead end street, there was no shortage of noise, but my mind was quiet, which was exactly what i needed.

one of the reasons i kept postponing this is that i had no idea what to paint. since i've been working on florals lately, and since aiki (my daughter's name) means vineyard or orchard in armenian, i decided to decorate it with a version of my recent "flower play" pattern.

i still have to decorate the inside pages, but that will have to wait another 2 years.

back when i didn't have a blog - part II: black cats are good news!

this is old news, but i never shared it on this blog, since, as i mentioned the other day, it didn't exist at the time. so back in october 2012, i woke up one morning and found out my kitten design was a runner up in the Tigerprint black and white print competition. it might not sound like big news, but it was the first small success i had as a surface pattern designer, and it did mean a lot to me.

a day in the life of a kitten, black and white

you can view the winning entry by Louise Harrison and other runners up (Rachel Amy, Emily Ann Studio and Dunia Nalu Designs )on the Tigerprint website here.

later i added color to the design, and it was featured in The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design graduate showcase a couple of months ago. 

a day in the life of a kitten,  color

i don't use many characters in my surface pattern designs, but i do like the simplicity of these cats. so i am trying to develop more characters in the same style. below is my attempt at a black bird. instead of using "live trace" in illustrator, i actually prefer to scan my sketches and then draw them all over with a brush, i think it gives the edges a kind of roughness that makes them look more handmade. 

bird motif development

a day in the life of a black bird pattern in repeat

i have been working on creating mock-ups for my website, so here's the bird pattern as gift wrap.

black bird gift wrap

i am not sure if black birds have any meaning in the world of superstitions, but i think they look just fine on gift wrap. now, what creature should i do next? how about snakes on a duvet cover?

back when i didn't have a blog - part I: lucky me!

in the event that you have been following this blog, you might still remember the very recent past when it didn't exist. but i was making things, even if i didn't write about them. so one of the good things that happened back in november 2012 was that my "circles from japan" collection won the first MOYO magazine design brief. i was reminded of that a couple of days ago, when the third issue of MOYO came out and my designs were presented once again (lucky me!).

images courtesy of MOYO magazine, november 2012 and february 2013 issues

MOYO is an online magazine about surface pattern design, packed with inspiring information and visuals. it is edited by rachael taylor and beth nicholls, and is published every three months. you can find out about it here and read the current issue here. my patterns for the circles design brief were inspired by the photos below, which are taken by beth nicholls in japan. circles, half-circles and ellipses are my favorite shapes to work with (i will have to leave the reasons for that to a future blog post as i seriously need to get some sleep), so i had a lot of fun working on this brief  (lucky me!).

 image courtesy of MOYO magazine, august 2012

circles from japan motif development doodles

if you love patterns, or if you simply love beautiful things, MOYO is a treat. if you're a designer, it's also a great way to get exposure, since each issue announces a new competition you can enter. the theme for the last design brief  was architecture, and i was very happy to find out that fellow designer esther cox was the winner. she loves kiosks, which she captures so uniquely, and she calls her design studio her kiosk. she is a designer who really knows how to use pink in bold, fun, unexpected ways.  below is her winning kiosk collection:

kiosk collection by esther cox | image courtesy of esther cox

i also knew one of the runners up (lucky me!). designer majo bv was selected with her striking cartagena soul collection. i especially loved the vibrant primary palette and sense of space in this design:

cartagena walls by majo bv | image courtesy of majo bv

speaking of architecture, i just came across this pattern in the marimekko kids spring 2013 collection. i love the rhythm created by the black shapes, and how it sometimes reads as a flat design, while at other times, you get a clear sense of depth. i am not sure what "kortteli" means, but to me it means dancing rooftops, and makes me think of spring.

kortteli by aino-maija mertsola for marimekko

and speaking of spring, the theme for the next MOYO magazine design brief is "floral twist". this is a happy coincidence, since i have been working on florals for weeks now (lucky me!).

a playful trio

today's keyword: play!

i played with what will be the playful pattern in the floral collection i am working on. i would love to believe it is influenced by this playful trio:

calder-miro-klee: a playful trio

i still need to play with the colors and figure out if and how it will be made into a repeating pattern, but here it is for now:

flower play

now i need to go and work on my website. two more weeks before the march 15 deadline i have set myself. why do i set these deadlines? because otherwise i would go on playing forever. wouldn't you?