Wednesday 29 August 2012

Just Mucking Around, Playing with Colour!



At last the waiting is over and the Surface Pattern Design course has begun!  

Over the weekend, as the students introduced themselves, I became increasingly nervous. Almost all of them had at least done a degree in Graphic Design and worked in that field and some were even Textiles and Surface Pattern Design graduates! I began to have serious doubts about whether I would be able to keep up with a course that was apparently aimed at people who were already trained and experienced in this field!

But I needn’t have worried – not yet, anyway! The course has started off fairly low-key with this week’s topic, ‘Inspiration’. Anyone who has been following my blog, may have concluded that inspiration is not something I lack – it’s the time to carry out all my ideas properly that I’m short of! 
(Here's one of my posts from the archive on Inspiration.)

There’s been a fair amount of sketching and taking photos this week, both of which I do anyway. 

And by now I’m thinking that it’s probably a good thing that this week hasn’t, so far, been too demanding. There have been so many new people to get to know (nearly 100 on the course at the moment!), a new Pinterest board of ‘Patterns I Like’ to create and finding out how to upload my images to Flickr, for the ‘Group Pool’ took a bit of time!

One thing that I can already say is definitely a Good Thing, is that this course has encouraged me to ‘play’ again!

 
I must admit it feels a bit strange because I’ve grown so used to working under pressure, to deadlines and with a very clear goal in mind. All very ‘left-brain’!

You can see some of the results of my ‘playtime’ on this Pinterest board, when I discovered a cheap and cheerful 650-piece ‘craft set’ unopened in the cupboard where I keep toys for visiting grandchildren!



And these stripey, postcard-sized experiments were great fun to create!

They’re a bit rough and ready as the tissue paper is difficult to cut in clean lines once it’s been painted.  I think two of them are pretty awful, one I quite like and one I’m enthusiastic enough about to use it as the basis of a pattern for some Zazzle products!



I wonder if you can guess which one that is!

12 comments:

Jess said...

hi Im a fellow student and a graphic designer and I felt just as nervous!!

drawing is not my strong point.

how do you find the zazzle thing?

Judy Adamson said...

Hi Lil

Good to meet you here :)

A google search will bring up lotos of links to Zazzle and if you're interested in signing up as a seller, there's a tiny 'Sell' button down at the foot of the homepage.

I'm off to visit your blog now . . .

Jess said...

thank you for pointing me to the you can draw tips, I really need to up my condfidence, yes I meant how do you find selling on zazzle works for you? :)

Judy Adamson said...

I quite like Zazzle - putting my designs on jugs and cushions etc is fun! I don't make a lot of money but some people do. I don't think many of my designs are particularly suitable for the typical Zazzle shopper. And the whole business of thinking up a title, description, keywords etc is time-consuming and can get tedious! But I prefer Zazzle to the greeting card sites that I sell through because it's not just, or even primarily, greeting cards.

Carole Barkett said...

It looks like your having fun and just hearing about it makes me think that's what I need to remember to. I think they will make excellent designs and I even like the uneven lines it's so much more real than all the perfect computer digital art.
These darn validation words are getting worse and worse. It took 7 tries

Judy Adamson said...

Hi Carole - interesting point about the uneven lines! I hadn't thought of that and was planning to create the stripes on the computer. Maybe I'll think again :)

Sorry about the catchpas! They seem to be getting out of hand everywhere. I heard that Zazzle are talking to Google about them so maybe something will be done?

Crystal said...

I am loving all the colors in your designs. I know you will excel in the class. Have a great weekend my friend! :-)

Judy Adamson said...

Thank you, Crystal - and I hope you have a great weekend too!

Betsy Grant said...

Good for you for taking action on learning and growing in this way!

Judy Adamson said...

Thank you, Betsy. This is something I've wanted to learn about for a very long time and the internet has made it possible :)

Jayne said...

This looks like great fun although I too would be intimidated in that company.

Judy Adamson said...

Hi Jayne - since I wrote this post, someone has joined the class who is actually designing for a wallpaper company! But I've been relieved to find that there are a few people with even less experience than I have :)