Palace Garden in New Colours!

Hi! I think this might be the longest I've left between posts here; we've been so busy this summer! Good news is that our old falling-down house isn't so falling-down anymore. We've worked on almost all the things we needed to, including the living room which was one of the biggest jobs, and at the weekend we ordered new sofas! This was so exciting for me because we've been using an upstairs bedroom with an ancient sofa as a living room for years. Click here to look at before and after pictures of some other work we've done on the house and read about being plastered here!

More good news: I've updated and proofed the Palace Garden repeating design with the new colours I came up with for the original tiled version of the pattern a while back. Here they are on the cotton twill fabric (which is lovely and my new favourite) from spoonflower:

Palace Garden | Aubergine

Palace Garden | Lapis Lazuli and Jaipur Pink

Palace Garden | Cinnamon and Indigo

If you'd like to order this pattern on fabric, wallpaper or giftwrap, these colours are available in my spoonflower shop here.

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Nilofar

I'm getting better with the sewing machine and it feels really good to learn something new. I thought the panels I printed recently went great with this old denim and so used them to make a toiletries bag:

I was also testing out an idea for some snap wallets this week; the second turned out better than the first but it was very satisfying figuring out a good pattern:

I've made a digital version of this print if you'd like to try it. It's called Nilofar, which means lotus or waterlily and it's available HERE on all sorts of fabric, decal and wallpaper!

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Block Printing

I've been finding time to expand on my first attempt at block printing. I like the simple repeat I got with the asian-esque sort of flower but I also wanted to try it out with an extra element:

This block is even smaller than the first - less than 2cm - teeny weeny!

Now to make something good with these panels :)

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Colouring Book Wallpaper

When I was a kid, colouring in was one of my favourite things to do. At one time, I even had it in my head that I would be a professional cartoon colourer-inner (!) and so I had to enter the contest over at Spoonflower this week. Their idea is to print black and white wallpaper designs to use as a colouring book once in place and I've made a black and white version of the Palace Garden repeat pattern for it. Have a look at everyone else's designs and vote over here!

Palace Garden | Black & White

I had to print off a version to try out!

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Linocuts

I've been wanting to try block carving and printing for a long time. Here is my first attempt, and a couple of images of that attempt printed onto cotton:

In the process of cutting my first small block - it's a bit less than 3 cm (about an inch)

A lot more lino than I thought needs to be taken away for a clear print on fabric.

A close up of the first repeat print in red..

.. and a repeat in blue.

I'm looking forward to trying my hand at a lot more of this :) I hope everyone had a good bank holiday weekend!

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Cinnamon

Palace Garden in Cinnamon

ÝA new pouch made from Palace Garden in Cinnamon (on linen-cotton).
ÞI'm getting a bit of a collection of these; after a bit more practice I think I'll open a shop.

'Evening Snow in Kamubara' by Andō Hiroshige - Palace Garden in Aubergine - Palace Garden in Indigo - Pines & Cranes

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Hiroshige

'Nihonbashi Bridge on Snow Morning' and 'Mt. Fuji Scene from Satta' both by Andō Hiroshige

'Evening Snow in Kamubara' by Andō Hiroshige and 'Mt. Fuji on Fine Day' by Hokusai Katsushika

Hiroshige Pouch from the 'Evening Snow in Kamubara' postcard.

When I was about 12, a family friend returned from a Tokyo business trip with a huge pile of beautifully printed, thick, mat postcards with old Japanese woodblock art on them. Everyone was allowed to keep a few and above are the ones I chose. They were blu-tacked to my bedroom wall for all of my teenage years and are a bit worse for wear, but as you can see the colours haven't faded. A while ago, I digitally cleaned one of them up and had it printed on some linen-cotton from Spoonflower. For textiles, digital printing is perfect for this kind of thing - it couldn't have turned out better. I've finally made something of it (the last image here) and it's great to have something to use, made by hand, from an image that's always been there.

I hope you have a great weekend. Spoil yourself at least once :)

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Here are some of the March pictures from over at Instagram: rearranging vector elements from this journal design - windmill sails at sunset - a print for spring and last but not least.. Pines & Cranes has made the Spoonflower Hot Sellers list :)

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Nighttime

Pines & Cranes Desktop

A nighttime version of the Pines & Cranes design. Hopefully I can sort this out for the shop next week but for now I've set it as my wallpaper for the holiday season. As you can see, I'm not the tidiest desktop keeper (and this is the sorted out version)!

I hope you had a great thanksgiving if you celebrate it and have a great rest-of-weekend :)

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Palace Garden: New Colours

Some lovely new colours for Palace Garden! From the top: indigo, aubergine, cinnamon, lapis lazuli and Jaipur pink; available here.

22nd September: Thanks Spoonflower for featuring the little pouch here!

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Antidote for wintery symptoms.

Icy drizzle, low clouds and grey skies - all the symptoms of an oncoming winter! Here's an antidote I've been working on this week for this contest:

Lagoon details: threadfin butterflyfish, flame angelfish and sergeant major fish.

Lagoon details: anthias, clownfish and flame angelfish.

See other t-shirt designs and vote here or read about how I made the water texture here!

Lagoon on a Riviera Tee

Lagoon on a Riviera Tee - the pattern is from One-Yard Wonders.

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Palace Garden Repeat

Hi all, hope you had a good weekend! We had a relaxed one with a bit of shopping, a bit of wine and plenty of reading and sleeping!

I've been meaning to make a repeat pattern partner to this design for quite a while now and last week I had the perfect opportunity to concentrate my efforts with the hand drawn design contest. There were over 500 entries this week, the competition over at spoonflower is growing fast!

Palace Garden Repeat

Details of Palace Garden Repeat - click to view larger!

I'm planning on reworking the original too, as soon as I have enough time; so if any of you have had your eye on the colours currently available, now's the time to grab some!

............................................................................................................................................

Update 2014: You can read about the new colours for this pattern here; they're available to order here!

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Lagoon

Lagoon



Lagoon details - click to view larger.

I love the versatility of vector graphics. For anyone who's looking to upgrade their software, I'm currently using Xara Pro 7 (update Nov 12: I've upgraded this to Xara Pro X which you can read about here!) which is a fraction of the price of the Adobe stuff and has a really usable interface. Apart from the layering and flexible editing of shapes that vectors offer, using the texture fills is addictive and they can be absolutely anything. The water in my design above for example, is made up of layers using a photo I took of sunlight reflecting off a bowl and I'm really pleased with how that's turned out!

You can see all the other 'fluid' illustrations here! 15% of proceeds from Lagoon go to the Coral Triangle Initiative!

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Jhali..

.. is a set of four designs for this week's spoonflower contest: coordinates. I originally meant to call it Jhari (which, according to my Google search, means river in Sanskrit) because of the Indian feel to it and also because it is based on water gardens and fountains. Uploading the design last minute I mistyped and I think I prefer the typo - so Jhali it is! Does anyone know what that means (in any language)? I'd love to know; hope it's not rude :)


Jhali

Jhali details - click for larger view.

You can have a look at all the other coordinating patterns that the talented members of Spoonflower have uploaded here.. and vote of course!

I really hope you had a fantastic new year's eve and that 2012 will be good to you!

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Around the World in Fruit & Veg

A new and improved version of this! I really like the way the polar regions worked out in the different shade of wood.

Around the world in Fruit & Veg Details - click to view larger.

They're available as linen place mats here!

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Koi & Crane

Another couple of vector images from my latest project:

Koi & Crane

I've based the crane on the Red-Crowned Crane which, although endangered through loss of habitat, has been increasing in numbers over the second half of last century. These beautiful birds have an elaborate courtship dance (involving throwing grass in the air!) and pair for life.

Red Crowned Crane by Roy Toft

While looking for inspiration I came across this photo of calling cranes on Hokkaido Island by the fantastic wildlife photographer Roy Toft. Have a look at more of his incredible work here and here!

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

A new background.

Back in March, I submitted a design for the Joseph Joseph brief. You can see the winning designs here and, although mine isn't among them, I was happy with it. It was the first time I'd used vector graphics and really enjoyed learning on this design but was never satisfied with the blue background (put in at the last minute as a bit of a rush job) so I've updated it to something more me: 

A la Carte on Wood.

I think it makes the fruit and veg colours stand out much better and looks more in context laid out on the chopping board, although it's a weird old mix of photo and vector; still, I like it! Especially the new shadows, which you can see better in the details below. It's a happy coincidence that the crack in the board ended up pretty much on the date line :)

Click for detailed view.

I'm sure I can use it for something kitchen related. I was thinking a calendar or placemats; anyone got any other ideas?

................................................................................

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Taoyuan, Taiwan!

Google Street View is such a great tool but it never occurred to me to paint from it before I found this ingenious contest.

Taoyuan County, Taiwan. Click for larger image.

I came across some amazing views and finally chose this one; it's the Dahan River Valley in Taoyuan County, Taiwan. What cinched it for me was the cloud fall over the mountains (top left) and terraced fields (left bank). The Chinese characters say Taiwan.

Have a look at some amazing entries and leave a comment for your favourites right here!

_________________________________________________

Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware