Daisy Chain Hearts for Valentine's Day . . .

. . . over on my other

blog

What does a Daisy mean to you?

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘daisy’? 

My first thoughts are of the little wild daisies that grow in my lawn, followed by the tall, semi-wild Ox-eye Daisies that my father loved to grow on his allotment. Or the Michaelmas Daisies that my mother grew in our garden, to provide some colour in Autumn - but which refuse to thrive for me! And then there’s one of my favourites, the white Marguerite, especially when grown in a pot . . .

Oops-a-Daisy Espresso Mug, White, Yellow, Blue 

As if that weren’t enough, there are actually so many more types of daisy – click HERE to read about five of them – and they come in all sorts of colours too. These are from a photo of a friend's garden that I made into a screenprint years ago:

Customizable April Birthday Card, Red Daisies 

But for my new April Birth Month Flower cards I’ve chosen the little daisies, that we used to make daisy-chains as children. 

I made the motif from a handpainted collage as that seems to add depth and texture to what could otherwise have been quite a bland illustration.

Daisy, April Birthday Card to Personalize by poshandpainterly
 

The symbolic meaning of the Daisy is: innocence, loyal love, hope and purity and they can represent, ‘I’ll never tell’ so can be given to a  friend as a promise to keep a secret.

You can read more interesting facts about daisies HERE.

But when I think of daisies, I think of cheerfulness and sunshine and that's the message they often convey in greeting cards and other situations that call for something akin to a smiley face! Maybe that’s because they open early in the morning and love the full sun upon their faces?

Pretty Mother's Day Card: Daisychains, Polka Dots by poshandpainterly
   

I’ll let you into a secret; when I saw that the Daisy was the Birth Month Flower for this month, I thought it was going to be really hard to come up with ideas for patterns that I would be enthusiastic about. 

How wrong I was! This one unpretentious little flower, nearly always regarded as a weed, soon had the design ideas flowing and flowing . . . and I’ve ended up wanting to carry on and make more!

Pillow or Cushion, Daisy Chains Faux Patchwork by poshandpainterly
 .

Click

HERE

to see my full

Daisy Chain

Collection

Surfacing Pattern Designers 'Spring' Showcase -

This month my fellow graduates of the Art & Business of Surface Pattern Design course have worked on patterns for spring.

Once again, I'm struck by the variety of interpretations, though the pastels we associate with the springtime do seem to link them. Here they are in alphabetical order of first name:

Andrea Rincon

Anchobee Designs

www.anchobee.com

Papalote

Carol Robinson

Daisies

Chloe Wood

www.chloe-wood.co.uk

Bunnies

Daniela Butonoi

http://ohsocreative.blogspot.com/

Spring is here!

Jan Shepherd

https://www.facebook.com/thepatternlab 

Spring

Judy Adamson

http://www.zazzle.com/helikettle*

White Rabbits and Primroses

Julie Ansbro

Sky Blue Spring

Laura Escalante Diseno

https://www.facebook.com/lauraescalantediseno

Paper Flower Garland

Lisa Deighan

Spring Chicken

Liz Minton

http://www.lizminton.com

Spring

Mel Pope

Spring has Sprung

Mi Jung Lee

http://www.mijungdesign.com/

Tulips

Natacha Devaud

www.theLazyGiraffe.com

Big Spring Flower

Trina Esquivelzeta

http://surfacehug.com/

Spring

A big 
THANK YOU
 to all the artists who have contributed to this post!

Next month's themes are 'Vikings' and/or 'Pantone's Poppy Red'
(Low Res images to me by Sunday, May 5th, if possible,
but I'll do my best to accommodate any 'stragglers')

The Humble Daisy and Exotic Mock Orange Blossom!

The daisy is, apparently, the Birth Month Flower for April. 

According to one website I found, so is the Sweet Pea. But April seems a bit early in the year for either of those flowers here; though when I mowed my little lawn a few days ago, hoping that my wrap-around sunglasses would protect me from the pollen, I noticed a couple of little daisies in the grass. And they inspired this April Birthday Card design.

I painted it with gouache on blue sugar paper so that I wouldn’t need to paint the blue background. Sugar paper absorbs the water rather quickly so I used the paint much thicker than usual. It almost felt like using pastels and it freed me up from the rather ‘tight’ approach I’ve had to use recently when making repeating patterns. I was almost able to revert to my ’fast and furious’ ways that I feel so at home with when I use both oil pastels and soft pastels.

But I really do enjoy making repeating patterns, in spite of all the extra stages they take, and the accuracy they demand, even though that doesn't come naturally to me. And I was really delighted that a customer ordered a phone case with my primrose repeating pattern earlier this week.

Pretty Spring Primroses Case-mate iPhone 4/4S by helikettle

It just happened that on the same day, I was tidying up – something I have to do occasionally when I run out of flat surfaces! – and came across a whole sheaf of papers with drawings of flowering plants that I made in my Norwich garden, in the days before the pollen began to affect me.

It seems miraculous to me now that I could have taken the time to make a careful study of probably my all-time favourite flower, Philadelphus, or Mock Orange Blossom without any pollen problems. In the days before its wonderful fragrance began to have this adverse affect on me, I used to have jugs and vases of it all around my house when it was in season, but sadly, now I mostly just admire it through the window!

So this series of plant drawing was a terrific ‘find’ and it included the daffodil drawing I mentioned a few posts back. I couldn't wait to make a start on a repeating pattern with Mock Orange and Weigelia and here is the tracing:

'Can you see what it is yet?' - as Rolf Harris would say!

I seem to have a horribly busy week ahead, dentist check-up, appointment with the bank, and the newsagent wanting some of my Easter Cards, featuring our local  St Mary’s Church, with the greeting in Welsh.

All these things are extra to my normally very full schedule of uploading cards and, currently, organising my Weddings category on Zazzle – a rather huge and tedious task!

But I really hope to have the Mock Orange Blossom design ready to post next week - if only because there are so many more flowering plant drawings just begging me to make them into designs!