tap, tap…is this thing on?

I’ve no problem talking to the void. I talk to myself all the time so it didn’t really put me off when the folk in the house suggested that blogs were perhaps a little ‘last season’. I just fancied having one again. I love Instagram but it’s not the place it was, I’m not really one for attempting to follow an algorithm, There’s enough going on trying to create decent design without having to hold myself into whatever species of consistency is demanded these days. I’m chronically inconsistent, I’m often sparked with disjointed ideas in strange order – I’m a little too untidy for instagram I think. Let me get us all up to speed though, I’m trying to re-invent myself as an illustrator. This will be interesting to me because I’ve always been a designer. What’s the difference? Lots of things, but style is a big part of it. Design commissioned by other folks often involves a lot of compromises. Art can be what you make when you have no restrictions, or at least no commercial restrictions. I’m not really comfortable calling myself an artist because what I produce aren’t really stand alone pieces of response to my situation. I just like to make nice things that I would be happy to surround myself with because they feel familiar and comforting somehow. The term illustrator feels like a better fit for now.

Where did I start?

I was a corporate graphic designer for a longish time and as such I was called on to create work to suit the client, whoever that client was. Sometimes it was local council, sometimes it was a chap with an engineering workshop, one time it was even a chap running safari trips in Kenya. I created work to suit the client in front of me, which was very interesting, but very specific to the client. I tailored my work to their tastes and style preferences.

When I ran the stamp company I drew black and white art, I loved that, I’m all about the line, I love a clean edge, so I think that’s a starting point for my style. I drew all but maybe two of my sets in vector art, I grew up on computer drawing programs and I haven’t made the leap yet to a tablet, I’m still happier with a Mac and a mouse. The stamps were drawn though with crafters in mind, black and white images for other folks to colour in, or interpret with foils or embossings. So I always felt that the stamps needed to have a slightly minimal style that folks could make their own.

What’s Next?

Now, I’m revisiting some of that art and redoing it, I’m beefing out the original ideas and adding colour, developing patterns and products. I’m being selective about the things I drew that I particularly liked and I’m drawing new things! I’m thinking about what I would like products to look like and what art appeals to me.

A while back I began to dabble in surface pattern design and opened a Spoonflower account – clicking on that link will take you to my collections page (screenshot below) for an overview of my groups of designs, you can click on them individually to see what’s in each collection – If you feel like leaving a few likes, so much the better, Spoonflower works in the same way as social media, interaction seems to help visibility, so feel free to spread the love. If you haven’t come across Spoonflower before, it’s a community where folks like myself upload patterns, which they can then purchase their own designs as fabrics and wallpapers. Other folks can purchase them too, which makes it interesting. I spend way more than I make there, but there is something really ego massaging about seeing your design in fabric.

I love linework, and I want to develop where it goes and see what I end up with. My digital art seems to make me happier when there are clean cut shapes and lines, so I’m just going with what’s flowing at the moment and the images in this post are the most recent things I have drawn.

I was drawing stickers for my Etsy store, (which is called Little Nest Emporium, because it’s usually an eclectic mix of odd things) featuring books and coffee/tea and the work just began to flow. I quite like these, even if I am tooting my own horn, but they are a bit of fun. I finished these before I finished the stickers – So I guess this is where my digital illustration style is currently. Clean lines, rich colour, slight retro flavour.

In contrast my watercolour illos of recent times are slightly different – these tend to be drawn with pencil, then pen, then paint. They are a bit more free but I guess you could say they still have tight lines. Anyhow, that’s my marker for now, I’m interested to see if this style changes and evolves now that I’m sort of free to do my own thing. Ta for reading! Comments are always welcome!