Something Old - Something New

 I'll start off with the "Something New" part. I just discovered that Spoonflower is now offering wallpaper and wall decals in addition to fabric. I am intrigued by the new design possibilities, especially for collage. Thus far I have been limited by the size of the paper that I can run through my printer which is only 8.5 inches wide. Now I can get something printed 12x24 inches. I've had some untested designs there for quite some time. I think I will order some of them as wallpaper swatches and see what I can do with them!

The "Something Old" part started off as a mistake. I was looking through my tumblr archive a few days ago and thought I saw the same item displayed twice--this one.

So I deleted one copy and they both disappeared! I really liked the design so I re-posted it. The first time I put it up a couple of years ago I did not have many followers and it was ignored. This time it started getting "hearts" and re-blogs almost immediately so I decided to give it the full Photoshop treatment of repeats, color changes, and artistic distortions.

 I love the results! See the whole series here.

Life's A Beach

I'm liking these diamond mandalas. Amazing to think that to get the above I just tuned into the Beach Boy's and let it flow.

It started with this photo of my little Feng Shui Mishap study.

I just got it revolving around a central point, kept repeating and changing the colors.

More on the tumblr.

Fun in Flatland

I've been playing around with a collage called Flatland No. 1 and created a mandala. The colors make me feel good and I even got to use my favorite spiral brush. See more on the tumblr.

Decoder Dots Revisited

I'm revisiting my collage Decoder Dots No. 1. I keep telling myself I will do one on canvas. (I'm a moron for putting it off.) I love the diagonal orientation. It's just a little unsettling. It could suddenly tip.

You can see the whole development on my tumblr. I wrote earlier about my cool decoder dump find that made this piece possible.

Poster Dots

I was messing around with the Bead Club poster and made Grid No. 2 Sponge Orange (above). The whole thing started with a photograph of a little 12x12 inch collage on canvas called Flatland Spin (below). It is fun to see how one thing progresses into another and then another until something totally new and surprising comes to life.

It started out with a simple repeat.

 

And then a color change along with a distortion.

And then I cropped the dot and repeated and played some more.

This is so much fun it should be illegal.

Art at the Gafney

Win art donated by 58 local artists to help raise funds for the Gafney Library in Sanbornville, New Hampshire. The opening reception is Wednesday July 11th from 4-7 pm. The raffle drawing and chocolate reception is Wednesday August 1st from 4-7 pm. Hope you can join us.

From the Ridiculous to the Sublime?

I went from this hideous pattern painting (Below) to the design above in just a few easy steps!

 

Cone Flowers Photoshopped

It suddenly occurred to me that I have years of un-manipulated photos to mine for designs. I needed a quick poster for the Bead Club and started messing around. First I cleaned up the background and posterized.

Then I inverted and started changing colors.

I'm still so new to this that I probably overuse gradients but I do really like them. This would make pretty neat fabric.

There is a motion created by gazing on this and relaxing the vision. I can see lines appear where there are none.

Cell Phone Check

For all you cell phone finaglers and texting addicts here's a new fabric pattern. I love it in the peach and orange versions:

Heart Dots

John Nack pointed out a video on Recursive Drawing that showed how to make a heart by overlapping a square and two circles. So simple--why did I not think of it before? Well, I have been thinking about it now, messing around a little, and generally having fun. I used a template to draw the lines and then colored them in and scanned it. I could do something a little different directly in photoshop. This exercise will be continued I think!

See them all big on my Tumblr.

The Recovery Grid

I was playing around with my blue cross, repeating it on a grid and changing the colors. I discovered this captivating color combination and got so excited about it that I accidentally kicked the power strip on the floor (too near my feet) and turned the power off! So I had to go back to square one. But it was worth it, I think.

Here's the inverted version:

Then I went pink and purple:

And then stepped back and tweaked it just a little:

The Cross Dot

I was thinking the other night that with all the disruption caused by my shop renovations, I had gotten away from my habit of drawing. So I made this little Cross Dot. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I really came to like it the next morning when I started playing with it in photoshop!

There is something very satisfying about repeating on a grid.

Dorje No. 3 Howl Quilt

Did you feel that SuperMoon last night? I couldn't sleep so I worked on the computer for a while and came up with what I call my "Howl Quilt" from a third dorje array of quarter dots. I started with this:

And then turned shapes and replaced colors. My objective was to establish contrast. I knew that I would be manipulating the colors again once the basic design was set so I didn't stress about the unattractiveness of my first combination:

I repeated in a block of nine and inverted it:

Then I played around with various filters, replaced colors, and applied gradients to alter the colors some more:

I like the results from the blur filter, especially the motion blur example in the center of the array above. Here's one final array of "third generation" repeats.

I think I like this one second best: