Any advice for a 2D girl in a 3D world?

 

One of my hardest classes at SCAD was a foundation class called 3D Design. It was my first or second quarter there, and this class just drove me insane with worry. It seriously frightened me. Maybe I couldn't handle art school. Maybe I'd just been delusional in little old Merritt Island, thinking I could handle these conceptual classes once I got to college. My roommate and I took the class together, thank goodness. She was much better at making a pleasing three dimensional form out of planes of paper taped together. Hers actually looked pretty, as opposed to mine that just looked like... paper taped together. The final was on Tybee Island at the beach. In groups we had designed kites that had to fly for a certain amount of time and meet all these other qualifications. None of the kites flew. I remember going home at the end of that quarter exhausted from the anxiety of that paper kite. Thankfully, my classes were soon all two dimensional again, and so it all got a lot easier, kind of. Ha.

Now, like then, I design two dimensional things like fabric, wallpaper and greeting cards. Meanwhile my husband, an industrial designer, creates things like power tools, bed bug detectors and medical devices. Joseph would have loved that 3D class, and been awesome at making that [dumb] kite. He has wanted a 3D printer forever, and he finally bought one last week. It will be here soon, and for the life of me, I just can't think of anything I'd like to make. I think in 2D, in patterns and drawings. What can I make that could incorporate patterns? If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear! Maybe it will help me overcome the anxiety of designing in three dimensions :)

Hidden Wallpaper

Do you know what I love the most, pattern-wise, besides a good floral? Seriously, one of my favorite things ever is unexpected pattern, a fun lining in a bag or even a tiny stripe inside the lapel of a shirt. Love it. 

So, when I received some approval samples for my designs for removable wallpaper from Hygge & West, I thought for days about where I could stick the 12" wide  strips. I realized yesterday that they were the perfect size to stick inside my linen cabinet at the top of the stairs. 

I already loved this cabinet. My mom bought it for me as an early Christmas present the last time she was in town. It was a bright primary blue with plastic handles and lots of scuff marks. We snagged it for only $55, and I painted it this warm gray the same afternoon. I added some Hobby Lobby pulls, and finally we had another place to store textiles, ha! We did really need the storage though. Normal town home's are definitely not known for their closet space, and I was spending all my money on hoarding textiles before I even had any furniture as a single lady. People always said how sad my apartment was when they came inside. Not a good thing. Thankfully I soon found a roommate who came with a couch.  

When I was ready to apply the wallpaper, I was so excited at the perfectness of my plan, that I accidentally put BOTH wallpaper pieces on upside down. First of all, I drew this pattern. If anyone in the world should know that this was being installed upside down, it should have been me. Thankfully, the wallpaper really truly is very removable and re-stickable. I left the black side upside down so that the patterns on both sides would be a little different. The print of each colorway is the same section of the pattern. I used a credit card to smooth out the wallpaper tiles, and it was really easy. Too easy, because now I want to put them everywhere!

 

 

New Removable Wallpaper Tiles from Hygge & West!

(Garden wallpaper from Hygge & West)

Removable Wallpaper is here! It's very exciting. Hygge & West just launched the new tiles, and it is such a fantastic idea. I'm excited for H&W in general, but also for all of us wallpaper lovers! I'm (ridiculously) not always on board for new technological advancements. "What was so wrong with the old way," the lazy learner in me laments, and, "I just figured out this new perspective tool in Photoshop and here comes CS6." That said, peel and stick wallpaper is, duh, just awesome. The fuchsia colorway of my Garden design (above) was a sample we tried last year for the first run of screen printed traditional wallpaper sampling. It was ok, not my favorite of all the options because the beautiful very slight smudginess that comes from screenprinting on traditional paper works with some colors and not with others. The crispness of the design is perfect on this removable paper, and now the design can handle the bright fuchsia color. It's so cool to see that this colorway is included in the new product line. Here are all the colors available in the Garden design, and you can see all the new removable wallpaper options from Hygge & West right here.

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Trends come and go, but birds are sticking around

This week I was digging around in some old files from my job as a textile designer. I was looking for examples of past work to show a client, and let me tell you, there were many a suzani rug designs in those files. A few years ago, suzanis were all the rage in home decor. Some of the other ethnic prints that were also popular then are still going strong, like ikats. But what happened to the suzani? I for one, am aiming to bring it back. I made this folksy group, and threw in a folksy suzani design (under the polka dot). It's a modern, folk, songbird, floral filled collection, and it will be at Surtex with my agent in a few weeks.

On spilling the beans...

 

I am not always a good secret keeper. If you tell me a secret and say, "don't repeat this to anyone!" I certainly never will repeat it, BUT it will take concentration. I will think about it a lot, reminding myself that I can't say a word. By nature I am a bit of a worrier, obviously. I'm relieved when the news is out because then the burden is gone. I'm working on a few REALLY fun things right now, but I can't talk about them yet, and it is so difficult for me! All I want to do is post pictures and talk about it. The one thing that is up to me to talk about is my website. Soon, it will be fresh and new. I took some photos today for it, and Lula photo-bombed once again. I couldn't get her to move, and now I have tons of out-takes of her posing in front of my set-up. I probably should wait to unveil everything else that has been photographed until the website is finished. So, just know that new things are coming! 

Oh, and let me give credit where credit is do; I was totally inspired by Hygge & West's styling of wallpaper in baskets. That reminds me, one piece of news I can share (because they've already mentioned it on their blog) is that new removable peel and stick wallpaper is going to debut soon at H&W. I've seen samples and it is so cool, and the possibilities are endless. 

Anyway, Thanks for following along :)

 

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Furry Distractions

Corgi wrestling matches can be so distracting to the home office worker... In case you are wondering, there is never a clear winner in these games as far a I can see, but Lula ends every match by riding around on Okie's back like this for 30 seconds or so. I think she is proclaiming victory maybe? Ok, back to work!

Paris Fashion Week

Hello friends! It's been a while. I went on vacation. I read this page turner of a book on the beach, ate some great seafood with some fab friends, and I'm ready to work. In fact I've been working long and motivated hours since I got home, but there is always time to check out the beautiful, and for sure sometimes insane, going-ons at Paris fashion week. Are you ready? 

From what I read and noticed at Harper's Bazaars' round-ups, florescent colors are still going strong, jungle prints are popular, pastels + neutrals are everywhere, and thank goodness, polka dots are still happening. Seriously, I love me some polka dots.

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Photo Shoot wrap up

We finished up our photo shoot today! We were a bit delayed by my shoulder, but now I am editing photos and breathing a sigh of relief. They look great! Lucy and I both took photos, and I am really happy with how much we finished in just a few hours. I ordered a huge photo cube for close up shots, which worked great until both corgis took turns walking inside of it. Here's Lucy trying it out... 

beforehand, Lucy and I went to our favorite restaurant in Athens, Momma's Boy. It's Southern brunch at it's most amazingness. I love it, plus it gets extra points for having very cool wallpaper inside. Then, halfway through our shoot, my friend Bettina stopped by with chocolate chip cookies. So all in all, it was kind of a perfect day. Thanks Lucy and Bettina, you guys are THE BEST! 

Prepping

Today I am busily prepping for a photo shoot with my lovely intern Lucy. She has some photography experiance and a fun personality to boot, so I am excited. Thank God I have her to help because I woke up yesterday with a mostly bum arm. I can barely move it in any direction. Yesterday I was sewing the pillow in the photo above, and I kept forgetting that I can't use my left arm at all. I would cry out each time I reached with my hand to pull the turn the fabric to sew a new side on the machine. Ridiculous! 

I printed the fabric from Spoonflower and made a simple enevelope pillow cover out of it. Here's a photo of the fabric before I cut it.

I was thinking, "What would a pattern for a baby anthropologie look like?" I'm sure they will be launching that brand any day now. Actually now that I think about it, I'm kind of surprised they don't have baby stores yet. Well, here's my spin on that anyway. I'll update soon with photo shoot pics!

A byproduct

Sometimes I get a request for new artwork for a specific need from an existing client. Sometimes my agent mentions something a prospective client has requested to see. Both of those happened in the last two weeks, and now my desktop is full of lots of miscellaneous new work. It seems like a lot of surface designers create a new cohesive line each season, but my work process is a bit all over the place because of these requests. A year and some change after becoming a full time independent designer, this whole existence and process still makes me scratch my head pretty often. Am I doing this the most efficient way? What am I even going to do today? Should I be spending more time creating artwork that only fits a specific look aka "a brand" for myself, or should I just keep creating what people are asking to see and hope it all looks pretty together? I'm still figuring it all out. Today I decided I needed to put together some collections expanding on some of the work I did recently, the work all over my desktop. I just made a collection I liked, in a colorway I liked, not because it was the most sellable or I thought someone in particular would like it. It made me glad to make something I wanted to draw, not a self-imposed food drawing challenge (never again!) or a request. It was a break, and I needed it! Oh, and if you have any work-flow ideas, let me know. I think I need that too.

Dwell feature + more

Hey look, the Carved Ogee wallpaper is featured in Dwell this month! So very cool. Seeing things in print just does not get old. Speaking of magazines, Hygge & West has an ad in Anthology this month featuring the polka dot wallpaper in burgundy. I love the styled shot they used for the ad a lot. We drove in to the choas of amazing shopping that is Atlanta just this weekend, but I didn't get to hit up Anthropologie, where Anthology is sold. A travesty, I know. If I could live in a small college town and have an Anthro, I would be a very happy girl. Oh, and the beach, and all my friends and family, and my church in the same place too. Maybe too much to ask for :)

Oh, and Hygge & West's bog, Picnics under the Moon, explained a bit more about the issue if you'd like to see that too.

Done and Done

We installed some wallpaper this weekend, and it turned out so pretty! I ended up changing my mind and wallpapering the second smallest wall in our house. This space gets better light, and it's more prominent in the house. It took more paper, but you only live once right? (sidebar: Am I maybe the only person ever to YOLO about wallpaper? I'm ok with that) I also changed my mind about which paper to use once I decided on the living room instead of that hallway. I really wanted to use the floral, but it will just have to wait because none of the colorways I have right now would have worked in there, and I just couldn't wait any longer!

Want to see? Let me take you step by step...

First we had to measure and cut two lengths of the paper, which was best left to Joseph, for everyone's sanity...

Then you roll the glue on.

After that you "bookend" it, sticking the paper to itself for a few minutes. Joseph said this was to relax the paper. picture of this a few down Then you start gluing it to the wall, working the air bubbles down and out with a bondo spreader thingie (technical term-ish). This was the fun part. Somehow it is strangely life-fulfilling to spread out the air bubbles while realizing hey, this is going to look nice!

Then you gently clean any stray glue off with a damp sponge. By the way, have you noticed yet that Jos is 6'2 and I am 5'2? I forget I'm so short until I see photos like this or I see myself in the mirror at the gym next to people of normal heights. It's jarring. Anyway...

And then we were finished! TADA! Fun, right? 

Then of course... the obligatory and inevitable baby corgi photo bomb. That girl is all over it.

We followed Blueprint's (rest in peace, you lovely magazine you) instructions, but we really only needed what was printed on the the very succinct Hygge & West label. It wasn't hard to install at all, but I shouldn't even begin to explain if it was difficult or not because my mechanical engineer husband made it look really easy. Once, it took my friend Sarah and I three hours to set up one of those white tents for a craft fair, and it would have taken Joseph twenty minutes, tops. Engineer, I am not, my friends. Thanks for following along. I hope you like the end result! I love it, and I keep finding myself just staring at it's metallic wonderfulness. 

Tiny walls

 

This is Christiana's apartment. Cute right? She is one of the owners of Hygge & West. I leave out my favorite bags and coats too, just because I like the way they look. There are just not enough times in my life to use a sparkly vintage clutch.

Anyway, I took some photos of the wall in my house that I'm thinking I'll add wallpaper to this weekend, I hope. We hope to rent our house out in the next year or two and buy a new one. The thought of leaving behind wallpaper for a renter who may not appreciate gold florals hurts my heart a little, so i picked the tiniest wall, and I am hoarding the rest for a while longer. This tiny wall used to be a built in bookshelf when we moved in. When we turned our attic into a master suite, all the plumbing (or electrical? I can't remember) had to go down a cavity in that space to the basement. So now it is just a small wall you pass going from the kitchen to the rest of the house. I took photos of the different options of wallpaper to go there...

This wall is an inch wider than the wallpaper, an inch. Sad, but oh well. Also, I'm going to cover up that breaker box with a painting. Hopefully this weekend I'll have a new photo to share of a wallpapered wall!

Food Pattern Challenge: Apples

*I'm challenging myself to draw a food related pattern or illustration every weekday for the next two weeks!

Last Food Challenge post! I love clean texture like this in patterns. My polka dot wallpaper for Hygge & West has two different kinds of cross hatching. The kind of texture I made for this apple pattern is very 50s to me. It automatically gives you lots of color variations too. Did you notice this post was supposed to happen on Friday, my actual last day of the food pattern challenge? I got a few work requests, so everything else had to come to a stand still. Being busy is a very good thing as a freelancer, so I am not complaining. Companies are starting to find me instead of me approaching them, which is really nice. Contracts are being signed, and even though it will take a while for them to come to market, it always feels nice to see some fruit of your labor, no pun intended... I also finally ordered some of my wallpaper, and it came this weekend, so I'll be sharing images of some installed wallpaper soon! 

Food Pattern Challenge: Lemon Lime

*I'm challenging myself to draw a food related pattern or illustration every weekday for the next two weeks!


I'm not going to lie, this food pattern challenge has been kind of difficult. I haven't been thrilled with everything I've posted, actually... I haven't been thrilled with any of it. That being said, I think it is good for me because as a designer it is really good to be out of your comfort zone every once in a while.

I like this lemon and lime pattern though. It is my favorite out of all the food patterns so far.

One more day of this challenge!

"hot listed"ed

A few months ago Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles interviewed me about the new wallpaper. I was nervous and spoke very fast on the phone. Afterwards, I wondered what exactly I had said, if only I could remember... hmm... It was all kind of a blur. It all turned out just fine of course because the writer Kate is a lovely writer and was very nice to boot. I was so surprised when I got the magazine today and saw this beautiful whole page image of my favorite colorway of the collection! Fellow Athenian and owner/designer of Hable Construction, Susan Hable, has a beautiful large botanical painting featured on the cover too. Yay for Athens! Thanks Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles!