@forest_and_sea

From Instagram (clockwise):
~ a greeting card in watercolour
~ one of the pencil sketches for the Arabica Cherry pattern
~ block printed cotton
~ autumn leaves in the park
~ Benny's paw (and some Nilofar on denim)
~ working out the repeat for Palace Garden

I've been posting regularly over at Instagram and I've met some amazing people over there! If you're interested, come and say hi - my user name is @forest_and_sea

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

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Pines & Cranes Night - Large Scale

I've had a request through Spoonflower for this design on a larger scale so if you'd also like to make a throw or a bedspread with this pattern then Pines & Cranes - Night (large scale) is available here!

Update 30th March: This design made the Spoonflower Hot Sellers list this week - many, many thanks to those of you who've ordered some!

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

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Buy one get one freeee!

New in the shop:

Surf in Indigo, Pines & Cranes, Palace Garden Repeat, Butterflies, Lagoon and last but not least Honey Bees!

If you'd like to order one of these prints or any others at Spoonflower, they're having a fat quarter sale from today until Wednesday the 31st - buy one get one free!

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

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Forest Garden

I ordered some proof swatches from spoonflower a while ago - for some reason it takes weeks and weeks for the post to get to Europe from North Carolina but they're finally here. First up in the shop, as requested, Forest Garden!

Forest Garden

This one's based loosely on the deciduous forests of Asia and I've decided to donate 10% of all commission earned on this design to BirdLife International. They work with local charities all over the world preserving bird habitats and thereby improving global biodiversity. Forest Garden is available on 10 different fabrics here!

I hope everyone's enjoying their last little bit of summer in the northern hemisphere. Wouldn't it be great to have a house in both hemispheres so you could have summer all year round?

Forest Garden sample on cotton.

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

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Kitchenalia, Retro Stylee

Spoonflower are keeping with the trends for this week's contest by combining a kitchen theme with a retro one.

Everything but the Sink

The palette was limited to these four colours plus white; I really needed to see some blue or green after staring at this for hours but for the retro-vintage theme, they were perfect.

Details - click for larger view!

See what everyone else came up with (and vote for your favourites) here! Have a great weekend :)

May 17th:
This design won 6th place! Thanks so much if you had a chance to vote, you can see all top ten fabrics here :)

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

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Semifinals!

You may have already heard that the lovely peeps over at Spoonflower have teamed up with Robert Kaufman Fabrics on their latest contest with a pen & ink / watercolour theme. The judges have been working hard this week on narrowing down over 750 entries to just 100 semifinalists and I was so happy to find out that my design got through!

I would really, really appreciate your vote if you have a minute or two :) Click here!

Forest Garden

11th May:
Thanks to everyone who voted and congratulations to the finalists, whose beautiful winning designs you can see here!

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

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Evergreens

Thanks so much to all of you who bought a 2012 calendar and journal cover! I really hope you, or whoever you give them to, will enjoy using them next year. This design follows a similar theme, with just the red crowned cranes and pines making up the pattern for this week's Spoonflower contest (evergreens, limited to just four colours). Apparently the clouds are for good fortune and the cranes and pines both symbolise longevity in eastern tradition.

Pine & Crane

Pine & Crane details - click to view larger.

Click here if you'd like to see all the other evergreen designs (and vote!) and if you drop by tomorrow, there'll be a small Christmas freebie from me to you for you to pick up :)

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

Update: See the new night and day versions of this design here!

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

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Barn Swallows

Birds of a Feather..

This repeat design of Barn Swallows was adapted digitally from the original Illustration Friday watercolour for the feather contest at Spoonflower. These birds and this colour remind me of the time of year when the night sky doesn't get darker than indigo until after midnight - one of the few pros of northern life!

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

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Ditsy

At Spoonflower this week everyone's designing ditsy prints. I was definitely getting into the spirit of it and being really ditsy.. and indecisive but that's normal :) I did a lot of drawing and painting, toing and froing, and found ditsy prints are quite hard to keep fresh and will happily evolve into your gran's old wallpaper if you don't keep your eye on them.


See?

I decided to simplify the colours and here's what I came up with:

Summer Meadow

Click the details for a bigger image.

Have a look at the other designs and vote for some good ones here!

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

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Into the Blue

Into the blue.

Click to view larger image.

These birds are soaring into the Spoonflower blue! This colour is so reminiscent of the 50's and 60's, I used a pattern of white dots to shade the clouds that many pop artists used in that era. This contest was palette limited to black and white, spoonflower blue and one other colour.

See the other entries and choose your favourites here!

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

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Love your weeds!

Butterflies is the subject for the new Spoonflower contest with a palette limited to just these six colours (I missed yellow!):



It did show me though how habitual my colour use has become and that's the whole idea right? I quite like that it's a pattern that would never have come about if left entirely to me! If you have a spare second, please click through and vote for it :)

Tree-hugger's Lawn

Tree-hugger's Lawn Details - click for larger view.

This weedy design was inspired by the idea of leaving a bit of your garden for wild, native plants to grow.If you're not a lover of weeds but would like to attract more butterflies to your outside space, there are loads of websites about which flowers butterflies will be attracted to - either for nectar or as a food source for their caterpillars. These small, natural areas add up fast to increase the available habitat for local wildlife!

_________________________________________________

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware