Finally another gocco print

Closeup... decided printing on fabric looked heaps nicer.


Using the transparent registration plate to position the fabric properly, in order to print a repeating pattern.


The gocco in action

Repeating myself

It's interesting how a pattern sometimes only looks good once you've got the colour combinations working just right. I tried this one in many other colour combos and it just wasn't working.

I'm thinking maybe it needs more going on in the background - some faded hills or something. Any suggestions?

Updated - added some gradiented blue hills in the background as Steve suggested!

Have you ever had one of those days where you wonder why you call yourself a designer? Where you're stuck with some sort of design problem and you can't find the solution, and then someone else comes along and can see the solution straight away? And it's not just that you're too close to it/have looked at it for too long & they have fresh eyes... it's that they can come up with solutions that you could never, ever have thought of because your brain just doesn't work that way. Doesn't think outside the square so easily. Gets stuck in little mental boxes. Bleh, that was my day today.

On a good note the hanging mobile i ordered arrive in the post today so I'm looking forward to putting it together and hanging it up tonight - yay!

I had this idea in my head of a french-wallpaper style pattern with lots of dots everywhere (and of course some little birds thrown in there). It turned out ok, but I think it needs "more". I might develop it further sometime.

Now, if only I could find some sort of studio job where I get to make patterns at times, now that would be great. I'm almost starting to lean away from the whole client oriented web/graphic design world and am getting more enjoyment making things. Crafty things to sell in shops maybe, like Douglas & Hope or Wilkins & Kent. Ahh, pipe dreams.

Managed to come up with another pattern last night, yay! The idea was to do one that half looks like branches with leaves, and half looks like hills with houses on them. It ended up looking more like branches with little mini houses on them, but that's ok.

I'm not sure if anyone's interested in how this pattern was made but i've uploaded the original sketch anyway just in case. In the sketch you can see a few things:

1) A rough grid drawn up in the background
2) A little marker on some of the grid squares indicating the various 'starting positions' of the repeat (in this case they're spaced apart by two-squares-up-and-1-square-across, like a chess horse has jumped around on the grid)
3) Identical branches drawn a few times in their correct positions, enough to show how the tiling works and how they'll fit together

After that it's just a matter of scanning, bringing it into illustrator and tiling it up properly. Heaps of fun :)

I've been inspired to try making some more patterns. It's interesting to see how the ideas I've had in my head can turn out in real life. We have this great book on our shelves called "Pattern Design", originally printed in 1903! It's written in great ye-olde english and says things like:

"To readers of a book upon the subject, no apologies for pattern is necessary. Modest as may be its pretensions to artistic consideration, it covers ground enough to command attention. It is here and there and everwhere around us."

Hehehe. It's written like that the whole way through - quite funny, but also quite insightful in parts. It talks about the role of pattern design in a world where things need to conform to the conditions of manufacture, and how pattern design can be extremely challenging and restrictive but also quite satisfying. It's got a lot of techical info on different forms of repetition, so i'll see if I can advance beyond a simple square tile ;)

Anyway I had a go at doing a more random hand drawn pattern which was fun - took a bit of thinking to design it so the waves line up...

I can't really take credit for this pattern - I found the original amongst some scans of an old ornament book and recreated/touched it up it in illustrator & gave it colour.

some patterns ... for the Gocco maybe?

More jewellery

Life has been really good lately. It feels like we're settling into some good healthy routines - exercise, market shopping and cooking new things. Our apartment still needs some more art up on the walls and homely things, so I've ordered this mobile from the US. So cute!

Work is pretty full on with lots of jobs on the go, but I've been feeling guilty for neglecting all the crafty supplies I've stocked up, including the Gocco. Took a bit of time this weekend to sit down and make some jewellery. The blue dot beads have two holes running through them which opens up a world of possibilities and ways of weaving them together :)

Some real life mockups

I finally decided to take some of my packaging design ideas further, and make real life mockups out of them. Firstly, some retro soap packaging:

sketchbook scans

Pete's been home sick the last two days and it's been nice to have company. He said to me - I don't know how you can work from home all day- it's so quiet here ... no wonder you're so chatty when I get home and want to go out at the end of the day! It's interesting to hear somebody else's perspective of my work life. You just "get used to" working alone, and it'd be really weird for somebody who spends ever workday surrounded by people and noise.

That said I'm looking forward to winding up my home business and finding work at a nice studio. Somewhere where the people are friendly and knowledgable, passionate about design but not obsessed with style and "cool". It's not important to me what fancy design magazines and competitions feature your work - what's important is that your design does what it's supposed to do and does it well.

These guys look really good - http://www.the-letterbox.com.au/ They did the Nicola Cerrini logo and the massive Arts House sign down the street at the North Melbourne town hall. They also have a cool "typo tour" of a few areas in melb including North Melbourne which is nice.

Recent Discoveries

Have found a few really cool places and sites recently:

http://www.imagescience.com.au - Inkjet printing onto canvas, silk and archival cotton papers.

Was looking for a place to get some artwork printed onto canvas and came across these guys. Coincidentally they're located across the street from our house! I popped over there and had a look at some samples of their printing and it's awesome. Printing is as inexpensive as $15 for an A4, and about $100 for approx 1m x 60cm (with heaps of other sizes to choose from). I'd love to get one of Pete's artworks and print it on to canvas, and then stretch it onto a frame.

http://www.thumbtackpress.com - A great place to buy small & inexpensive yet high quality prints of select artists' work (like Jeremiah Ketner - one of my favourites).

"Thumbtack Press uses a state-of-the-art 8 color archival ink jet process on a heavy bright white stock. The final print is trimmed to size and protected in an acid-free polyurethane cover before shipment in a board-backed, water resistant envelope." Sounds great to me!

paper cut mounted on polyprop sheeting

I'm taking advantage of the Monday public holiday to kick back on our new comfy brown couch and make earrings - I went to the bead shop on Smith St and bought a whole bunch of glass beads and different coloured tigertail wire to experiment with. The shop has some great stuff, but unfortunately most of their beads are stored in semi opaque containers stacked against the walls to the rafters, and it takes lots of hunting to find the cheap-but-interesting-and-good stuff. Anyway here's my efforts so far:

After posting on here almost every day for a few weeks, it feels like I haven't written for ages. Work has picked up quite a lot (still working full time from home though unfortunately) so there's been less time for my on-the-side creative stuff, and not much time to make things with my Gocco! Have bought some paper stock from Paperpoint to do by business cards though, so I'm looking forward to progressing with those :)

Meanwhile here's more of me playing with ye olde style lettering and treatment...

loco for gocco

I took the plunge, and finally bought myself a print gocco. I'm so excited!

To make prints your original image has to be carbon based (eg from a photocopier or laser printer), but if you don't have access to either of those - like me this weekend - you can hand draw your image using a carbon based pen. Very cool.


equipment - PG-11 kit


my first print


closeup

Oh no! I just discovered that my blog settings were stopping people from posting comments on this site! So if anybody has tried and failed, try again now. Some comments would be great! ^_^

Copycat

Seen a few illustrations around lately with a style I really like. Here's me trying to copy them.

The last few days have been great - relaxed and cruisy and fun. Saturday night Pete and I went to 303 High St Northcote for Jo's party, only to discover that we were there a week early! Oh well, we made the most of it and still had a good time. Nice venue too - they sell 3 ravens beer which I really like but is hard to find.

Monday was our 1 year! Celebrating tonight with dinner at Hot Poppy I think :)