Twenty Fifteen

The Love, Luck and Happiness calendar for 2015 is now ready and available in the shop here!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Silver Pool

I had a birthday recently and I was very lucky and got what I asked for: a sterling silver pool necklace by Elizabeth Scott. I really love it! You can find her nature inspired handmade jewelry both on Etsy and on her own website and she also has a blog.

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Twenty Fourteen

I had a chance to finish the new calendar at the weekend and it's now available to order in the spoonflower shop. I added some new bits and changed around some bits and it's definitely my favourite so far. As before, I've used quite a few symbols which signify prosperity, longevity, happiness, harmony and good luck in many eastern cultures:

Love, Luck & Happiness 2014

LLH Details - click for a larger view.

I liked the idea on the spoonflower blog recently to use the gift wrap option as posters so I've made it available on that as well as fabric and wall decal this year. According to the help desk, the satin is heavier than the matte (131 and 98 gsm) but both are sturdy enough for it. 

I hope you like the calendar and that you have a great week whatever you're up to :)

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Update 2014: The new 2015 calendar is available to order here!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

The Moon

It feels like such a long time since I've written here but I've been busy all the same with future projects! I'll have to wait a while before I can post about those but here's something I've been working on last week:

Love, Luck & Happiness Decal Mural

I had a brilliant request from a lovely person through Spoonflower to adapt the Love, Luck & Happiness calendar for a mural. It was pretty tricky working out all the elements into this format but I love how it's turned out! The measurements left a space at the top of the three 30 inch decals which I filled with another design (of her choice) to cut off and use in another project:

Woodland Mural

This was also originally a calendar and I really enjoyed playing around with the elements to fit the space.

Patrice A. is hosting a drawing challenge over on her blog this week; subject: the moon, so I'm submitting the mural image above. I first came across her work on V's brilliant advent calendar and absolutely love her owl cushion - click through for the links to all contributed moon pictures!

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hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Walrus

I think this is probably the most gorgeous bit of nature footage I've seen:

 

From this film.

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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.

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

IF: Tree

Flowering Horse Chestnut

See many beautiful tree illustrations here!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Linen Journal Cover

I've also renewed the linen journal cover that goes with the Love, Luck & Happiness calendar for 2013:

New for 2013: dragonflies!

A calendar inside the front cover and a note leaf at the back.

It comes, complete with instructions, on a fat quarter of linen-cotton here!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Moon Gazer

Love, Luck & Happiness Calendar 2013

Hello! The Love, Luck & Happiness calendar has been updated for 2013 if any of you lovely people would like one. Added to the auspicious eastern symbols of last year are a pair of dragonflies (on the left over there) for extra good luck.

(Update Sep '14: you can find the new version for 2015 here!)

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Midyear Calendar: Love, Luck and Happiness

Midyear Calendar: Love, Luck & Happiness

I can't believe midsummer is almost here (we definitely haven't had the weather for it the last few days)! To celebrate anyway, I've made a midyear calendar which runs from July 2012 to June 2013. It's based on this one I did for the beginning of the year featuring symbols used in many eastern cultures to bring prosperity, longevity, happiness, harmony and good luck; so if you fancy a bit of zen in tea towel form, you can find it here on a linen cotton blend!

Calendar detail with different colours for 2012 and 13 :)

Details - click to view larger.

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Update 2014: The new 2015 calendar is available to order here!

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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!

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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!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Koi & Crane Journal Cover

I've been working on a 2012 journal cover based on the koi and red-crowned crane vector images I made for the calendar recently. It's designed to fit on a linen-cotton fat quarter, including instructions, here at spoonflower and fits an A5 journal or sketchbook.

Koi & Crane Journal - Cover

Koi & Crane Journal - Inner Panels

2012 Journal Cover Details - click to view larger.

I hope you all have a great weekend!


Update October 2012:
Read about the new 2013 journal cover here!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

2012: Love, Luck & Happiness!

Calendar 2012: Love, Luck & Happiness

Calendar Details - click to zoom.

I finished this calendar just in time for this! It turns out my helper, although brilliant in her field, isn't so good with vector graphics. Much of this design is made up of symbols used in some eastern cultures to signify prosperity, longevity, happiness, harmony and good luck - let's hope they work!

If you'd like to invite some auspicious symbolism into your life next year, why not pick up this calendar on a linen-cotton blend here for just $14 (£8.70/€10.20) You could hang it, make a cushion out of it or just use it to dry the dishes :)

Update October 2013:
Read about the new 2014 calendar here!

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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!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

One!

Forest & Sea is one year old today - hurray!

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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!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Equinox

Flowering Horse Chestnut

Springtime for the northern hemisphere: flowers, longer days, sunshine and a new year in many cultures. Love it.

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hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Illustration Friday: Dusty



Oasis

Oasis detail: camels and lizards. Click to view larger.

Cool water at the oasis after a hot, dusty journey! Visit the Illustration Friday website to see everyone's hard work this week.

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Waterlily

The wildlife garden of someone I know. The pond isn’t this big but artistic license is a good thing :)

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware