Lots of Work in Progress in spite of Domestic Distractions

Last month I wrote about how my planned fortnight of relaxed creativity was blown off course by the leak in my neighbour's roof that soaked through to the wallpaper in my guest bedroom and threatened to ruin it.

I'm pleased to say that eight weeks later, it doesn't look too bad - at least in daylight the stains are hardly visible unless you know what you're looking for. Not so good in artificial light but still better than I ever thought it would be. 

But November hasn't seen much relaxation or creativity because of the wrangling over which builders to use, a problem with my garage electrics that plunged me into darkness one very wet night, no power, no light, no phone, no internet. And, as luck would have it, my mobile's battery was telling me it needed to be plugged into a charger - as if I had any sockets working to plug it into!

So with the roofing work only finishing on Thanksgiving Day and the noise that has entailed, followed by my central heating boiler malfunctioning and a blocked drain, I've been thankful for the little bit of collage I managed to complete before all these domestic interruptions stopped me in my tracks.

The Rangoli patterns have led to so many coordinating patterns that I've created about 800 products and cards for my Posh & Painterly store - and there are still some more to come. With this pattern more than any other I've made so far, I think, it's been a question of knowing when to stop and move onto something else before I get bored!

First there was the whole Rangoli, on different coloured backgrounds: that went well on cushions/pillows, as well as cloth napkins, ceramic tiles, clocks and coasters -

Then I took the centre of the Rangoli and one of the flowers and made them into a new pattern in its own right -

Next I took the floral stems and made these repeating 'mini-print' patterns:

And here's another, slightly different, one created from individual flowers from the original pattern.

Then the fun really began! 

I love discovering which patterns Mix and Match well together, to make more complex cushion designs - 

- and Smartphone Cases, many of them ready to personalize:

As if that wasn't enough playing around with my original Rangoli, I still had the border pattern to explore. I'm getting a bit faster with practice and this time, I made two alternative borders, a single row and a double one:

Here's a link to all the Rangoli gifts and greeting cards in my Posh & Painterly Zazzle store. 

But it hasn't been all about the Rangoli pattern this month. 

I made this Penguin collage a few years ago but I only used it for Christmas Cards. When I found that penguins seem to be popping up everywhere - even on the John Lewis Christmas commercial - it occurred to me that my skating penguins could extend their reach and adorn other Christmas-y clothing and gifts. So I used the Photoshop feathering tool to soften the edges and here they are, with a new lease of life:

As far as actual, away-from-the-computer art and design goes, it hasn't been easy with hammering immediately above my head in my attic studio. But I did manage to make a start on something I've wanted to do for a long while - a collage fish! Well, when it comes to sticking tiny pieces of painted tissue paper onto card, you can get a bit tired of flower petals and I thought I'd give fish scales a go instead.

Not quite finished yet, Finnegan the Fish!

I'm not sure whether I'll make other fish and sea creatures and use him as part of a repeating pattern - for shower curtains and beach-bags maybe? Or he may have possibilities as a stand-alone design; Pisces birthday cards spring to mind - or greeting cards for the Persian New Year, Nowruz.

Maybe that's something to think about for early next year? I certainly have plenty to keep me busy this side of Christmas!

So, although this has been yet another month when too many Domestic Distractions kept me from creating as many new designs as I'd planned, it has still managed to be quite productive time for me.