Over & Over: The Moon and the Stars

I'm hoping to get back to more regular posting in 2017, and creating lots of lovely new illustrations to share with you. I thought I'd kick things off with one of my favourite things to create, a new pattern.

This is inspired by the backdrop of the Stargazer illustration I created last year, which turned out to be one of my favourite pieces of work from the 12 months.

Hopefully this will be the first of many new pieces of work I'll be sharing this year!

As always I'm open to some suggestions for some lovely themes and quotes to illustrate.

Over & Over: From Russia part III

Today I've got the third and final instalment of patterns inspired by the Church of the Savior on Blood. These two are inspired by the impressive mosaics that cover the interior walls of the church. 

Over & Over: From Russia part II

Today I have the second set of patterns inspired mosaics and tiles in the Church of the Savior on Blood in St Petersburg. This pair are based on the floor tiles in the church, as well as some of the patterned borders around the wall mosaics.

Over & Over: From Russia

Continuing with the series of illustrations inspired by our trip to the Baltics, today I have the first set of patterns based on mosaics and tiles in the Church of the Savior on Blood. 

These ones are inspired by a beautiful pattern on the ceiling above the shrine.

Norwegian Folk

Today I have another set of illustrations inspired by my recent trip to the Baltics.

These ones are all inspired by our day at the Norwegian Folk Museum. I've illustrated a series of 5 of the buildings from the museum, and added decoration in the form of patterns we saw in embroidery, on clothing etc.

Over & over: Wedding Florals

Its been a while since I created a new repeat pattern design, so this week I've designed done inspired by upcoming wedding!

I've used the colour palette and floral motifs that have featured on my wedding stationery so far (Bridesmaid cards and Save the Dates, below). Although I made the colours a little lighter as the pattern is quite busy and it was looking a little dark.

I've got big plans for the rest of the wedding stationery too, including invitations, a map of the venue, order of the day, table plans and menus, and lots more! The venue also has some display cabinets in the room we're getting married in, and I'm going to be creating some illustrations to go in those too (and then I hope to put them up on our walls when we buy a house!) so expect a few posts about those in the next few months.

Pattern Play

I'm working on some new products at the moment, some of which have involved experimenting with new pattern ideas. Rather than leave them all in a sketchbook I thought I'd give a few of them a bit of colour!

These are some of my favourites so far...

Over & Over: Play your cards right

So today I finally found enough time to work on a new illustration. I had the idea for this one a few weeks ago, and the drawings have been sat waiting in my sketchbook ever since. I've been working on a really fun commission lately (which I should be able to share soon!) which involves some illustrations inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Those illustrations inspired some playing card themed doodles in my mini sketchbook, which in turn inspired this new pattern...

I have also been working on two new colouring book designs, and 3 new garland kits! The first of three December craft fairs is coming up in just two weeks, and I'm hoping to have them all ready for then (which explains why I haven't had much time for this sort of work!)

Look out for the new colouring books on Instagram as I'll be doing a special offer on them once they're ready!

Over & over: Giraffes

Seeing as Giraffes have been  my favourite animal for as long as I can remember, it surprised me the other day when I realised I had barely used them in any of my work. Obviously I had to fix this right away, so I've made a new pattern filled with them!

I'll be back tomorrow with this week's Illustration Friday post!

Over & over: Village

As I mentioned last week, today I have another landscape style of pattern to share with you.

This time with pretty little houses in the hills.

I've really been enjoying creating these patterns and I'll be continuing to design some more in the next few weeks. Any suggestions for themes would be appreciated! 

Over & over: Sweet tooth

I mentioned last week that I had a few more patterns to share with you, including one for anyone with a sweet tooth! (If you're a subscriber of my newsletter you'll have already seen this as part of your freebie for this month!)

This one was just for fun and to make something bright and colourful (and I also happen to be a big fan of sweets!)

I've added this one to my Art Rookie store on lots of products including phone cases and mugs!

I have quite a few new things to share this week, including another pattern, a Wise Words post, and this week's submission to Illustration Friday.

Over & over: Mountains

This week I suddenly had lots of ideas for new patterns (look out for two more over the next week).

I wanted to create something involving some kind of landscape, something that works as an image on its own as well as a pattern. I chose to use forests and mountain scenes in the design and stuck to a neutral colour palette to suit the theme.

I'm really pleased with how this one turned out, I think it might work well on some fabric.

For now its available over on Art Rookie on lots of products including bags, cushions and canvas prints.

There'll be another pattern similar to this next week, as well as one for anyone with a bit of a sweet tooth!

Over & over: Ice Cream Party

I've got another new pattern to share with you today, this time involving ice cream and confetti!

I wanted to create another fun, colourful, summery pattern this week, seeing as we're still enjoying some nice weather (although it has got a little bit cloudy again this week). As soon as the sun starts shining, I always immediately start wanting ice cream (and giving in to temptation a little too often!).

So this week's pattern is:

Ice cream party!

Whats your favourite ice cream treat?

I'm a fan of toffee or mint flavoured ice cream in a waffle cone.

Over & over: Turkish Rugs

For my latest Over & over post, I wanted to create an all-over pattern, as thats something I hadn't done for a while. I struggled to come up with a them for this one, until I came across a photo I took on holiday. On one of the excursions we went on we visited a traditional Turkish house in a small village up in the hills. All throughout the house was really colourful, with traditional Turkish rugs covering many of the walls and most of the floors:

I used the colours and patterns from this to inspire my latest pattern. The theme was great for an all-over pattern, and it also gave me the chance to experiment with some new patterns which I may use in future illustrations.

Over & over: I carried a Watermelon

Hello! I'm back with another pattern this week.

I've still got lots of other projects that I'm working on, but I'd had this pattern idea for a little while so I made some time to give it a go.

Watermelons seem pretty popular at the moment, and I keep seeing them on all sorts of products. The colours of them stand out to me and feel really summery so they were an obvious choice for a new pattern. I'm also a big fan of the film 'Dirty Dancing' and the "I carried a watermelon" quote always comes to mind when I see watermelons, so I've combined the two in this design:

Over & over: Pineapples

I'm working on a few bigger projects at the moment, and I'm full of ideas for more but it had been a while since I created a pattern for fun, so I thought it was time to change that!

I've wanted to do something with pineapples for a little while, and seeing as its looking like summer might finally be coming, they seemed like the perfect theme for this pattern to celebrate the arrival of some sun!

Over the next few weeks I should have lots to share, including more patterns, a castle themed illustration, some commission work, new stockists and hopefully a re-design of the website!

Over & over: Once upon a Time

As part of the new products I'm working on at the moment, I needed to make a fairytale themed pattern, which is also serving as an Over & over post for this week!

This pattern is being used in one of the new colouring books, and is made up of lots of things that I relate to fairytales:

Glass slippers, Apples, Crowns, Pumpkins, Stars, Toadstools, Mirrors and flowers!

I'll be back later in the week with a few more new illustrations!

Over & over: More Fabric patterns!

This week I'm sharing the other two patterns that I designed to have printed onto fabrics for some new products.

These ones are filled with fun animals, and banners with positive sayings.

The fabrics have now arrived, and I've made a start on a variety of new products, including card holders and hanging ornaments. Hopefully they'll be ready to share soon!

In my sketchbook: 25/02/15

As I said yesterday, today I'm sharing some of my recent sketchbook pages which went in to creating some new patterns for fabric. I've been drawing pages of bumble bees, branches, blossoms, banners and animals!

I've also been drawing some more animals (some of which are new versions of some old illustrations) to get printed onto small squares of fabrics for another new product.

Once the fabrics are delivered I'll be getting to work on lots of new products, which I'll be sharing here very soon!

Over & over: New Fabric patterns

I've spent the last week working on some new pattern designs, in order to get some fabrics printed to make some new products.

I've created four designs in total: Bumble, Floral, Be Happy & Animals.

I won't share them all now until the fabrics have arrived and I've made something with them, but here's Floral & Bumble:

Tomorrow I'll be back with an In my sketchbook post, sharing some of the sketchbook pages that went into these patterns.