101 Florals : Ouch. Prickly.

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I just got back from a trip to the Virgin Islands, where I saw my fair share of cacti growing off of the rocky cliffs.

My friend Atom made a point to try and gather as much plant life as he could while we were there (not a good idea) so he could take it home with him to good old Minnesota. (This was, of course, after repeated warnings that customs would get him on his way back in.)

I remember after a couple days of gathering seeds and little plant cuttings - we went on a guided tour where the guide told us there were poisonous plants all over the island of St. Thomas.

This didn't stop him from continuing to gather specimens til the end of our trip.



Which he promptly ditched at the airport after seeing how intense the customs guys were!

I chose to focus more on the cacti-element than the actual prickly pear.
Here's an endless field of pointy cacti.

101Florals : Cosmos, Inked!

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Tonight I was getting ready for my Tools of the Trade Class at MCAD and I got lost in messing around with ink. I figured since I was already covered in black ink, I might as well keep going, so I made my pattern tonight with the tools I had handy.
I love that school. Also - I can't believe that it 's starting already.
Where did the summer go? I'm not sure.

Either way, it's nice to break out the ink and do some florals by hand this time.
I did a page of icons, scanned them, cleaned them up and tossed them around. I like how random they are.



Here's what it looks like repeated!

And here's what it looks like before all the coloring and tossing!



I'm in my 9th year of teaching. I'm not sure how that happened either, but hey, at least I'm headed into a fun semester.
Keeping busy, that's for sure.

This week is going to be a doozy, I've got my first week of school to teach for one of the two schools I'm teaching at this semester (MCAD is school #1, and CVA is school #2!!, a doctors appointment (no one ever looks forward to those...), Work #1 (Paper Bicycle) and Work #2 (Light Grey Art Lab) ... and hopefully some personal art in there for the upcoming shows.

But! If all goes well, I'll be rewarded by smiling faces at school and some awesome long awaited packages in the mail. Wish me luck! Agh!

101 Florals : Greys! Hello, Fall!

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A Detail

It's a three-day weekend! We've got a whole day left to enjoy!
It's unseasonably warm these days in Minneapolis and though I should be celebrating the remaining days of summer, I'm actually looking forward to the cool days of fall.

My wardrobe is stuck somewhere between the weird tank tops and short shorts that I had been sporting, and the too-many-layers situation I like to bring on when I start to see the leaves falling. I woke up today and when I looked outside, I noticed the majority of the trees outside my window are already turning yellow and leaves have covered the windshield of my car.

So! With that, I headed to an autumn flavored color palette. I figure I might as well usher in the cool weather with some grey, mustard, teal and neutrals. Now that I think of it, I just went out and bought a couple outfits in those exact colors...hmmm.


The full repeat pattern

With fall comes all of the other things I love. Like school. I begin teaching a pattern and product design course at the College of Visual Arts in St Paul on Wednesday and soon I'll be teaching a hands-on patterns class at MCAD. That, and I've got a lot of other fun things to look forward to as I get further into fall. Back into the groove, right?

For now, I'm running through all of my favorite types of patterns and trying new things. I think this Calla Lily pattern worked out well for me. I'm thinking of trying something a little different next time! Happy Fall, everyone. And enjoy the holiday!

Cross posted with 101florals blog!

101 Florals : Good Morning

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After spending an hour making lots and lots of icons, and a couple different patterns, I finally scaled back and made something simple. I went with the star-shape and did a bunch of mini Morning Glories as a polkadot.

Today I was playing around with using a new medium called Art Graf Black Carbon. It's a block of black carbon that, when used with a wet brush, turns into ink! It's a nice, portable material to use and I ended up doing quite a few sketches with it before settling on these icons.



Here's how it looks repeated. I wish I had some sheets that look like this!





Here are some images of what I started with. I spent about an hour making all sorts of marks for this pattern so there are a lot of pieces I haven't used (hopefully I'll be able to use them later!)

This week has been a whirlwind of stuff. On Wednesday night we were broken into and a lot of our equipment was stolen. Luckily we have all of our files and things safe on a cloud server, and the things that were taken are all replaceable. It's a strange thing to know that people were in your space and going through your things.

Strangely enough - It doesn't make me fear our neighborhood and we're all feeling ok about it now. It sucks to think that there are crazy people in your neighborhood that are willing to go through that much trouble for a couple of computers. You've got wonder how hard up they are to chance getting caught. Thursday was crazy and we had the cops there (with the forensics team! Can you believe it?) for half the day as we ran through all that was missing.

Needless to say it set us back a little with work and it's awfully hard to get things done when you're trying to patch things up!

All is good now, but I thought I'd mention it here. We're doing just fine now and we're making the appropriate adjustments to the space to make sure it doesn't happen again. I'm hoping this week will be nothing but sunshine and roses! Wish us luck!

GirlCrush Minneapolis with Jennifer Davis & the Jealous Curator

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Today I woke up and headed over to the SooVac Gallery in Minneapolis to attend GirlCrush Minneapolis : a workshop by the Jealous Curator featuring my very favorite artist, Jennifer Davis.



I was really excited because there were to be 14 ladies there, all creative people - ready to chat about art and the creative life (all of my favorite topics!) Plus, I was super excited to hear what Jennifer had to say about her own practice.



We had some great talks revolving around being creative and everyone was eager to jump in and chat at length about their own practice and their own struggles as a creative person. It was enlightening and fascinating to see how many different types of artists were there from Minneapolis.



We had a morning filled with great discussion and then an afternoon packed with creating. Each one of us was given a Plywerk panel to create on and Jennifer donated supplies and tears from magazines she had collected over the years.



I must have gotten so deep into my drawing that I missed the "collage" part of the project. Whoops. I don't suppose that's really that big of a surprise, but I ended up "finishing" a piece anyway with ink and acrylic.



After helping run a workshop last weekend (more to come on this soon!), this was a welcome break from the craziness that we've been working through. It was a great opportunity to take a day for myself and really enjoy separating myself from the work for a second, to do something for myself.



Besides treating myself to some "me" time -- I was treated to a really cute array of sweets and even more amazing gifts from Jennifer and the Jealous Curator!I just wanted to say thanks to those guys for the wonderful day! I'm looking forward to keeping in touch and seeing what everyone makes of the days to come!

101florals : Chrysanthemum Wallpaper

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Good morning, internet!

As I write this, I'm groggy and still trying to make sense of how early it is for me to be at work. If you're looking at the time stamp, you must be thinking: "Yeahhhh...... right..." -- but, seriously, waking up is hard to do. (especially when you're a night owl)

I waited til the last minute to make this one, but went the extra mile to make it into something I loved. I spent my day yesterday waking up late, running over to St Paul and going to meetings -- then getting a moment of solace at a coffee shop with good friends.

So, as I stared this pattern around 10pm last night I cursed myself for procrastinating. Mondays are tough and today is no exception. I've finally transitioned to listening to the 50's station on pandora, which made working late so much easier. I spent a good 5 hours or so drawing, re-drawing, and singing at the top of my lungs into the wee hours of the morning while I finished this guy.



Chrysanthemums are fun to draw. They're weird and curly and yellow (one of my favorite colors). They remind me of outdoor, spring weddings and of vintage wallpaper.

My plan, today, is to walk over to the coffee shop next door and buy myself a giant latte in celebration of late nights, getting things done and waking up early the next day!

(cross posted with 101florals blog!)

101 Florals : The End-of-spring Tulips

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You know it's spring when the tulips come up, but you know it'll be summer soon when they start to fall apart. The petals droop strangely on the stem, and they slowly peel open.

I love tulips, but I really love them when they're in that weird state.

This one was inspired by a gouache study I did earlier in the week. I wanted to get back to doing some things that were very human-looking and really expressive. I absolutely love gouache and don't use it enough. These days it's hard to get out all of your paints, set up, and sit down for more than a couple hours -- so, when I do, I savor the time.

I am sure that some of the inspiration from this one came from the Fairytales and Florals art opening I was at on Friday. Everything there was pastel and dainty and there were more than a fair share of flowers.

Also featured on 101florals blog