Primroses Colour Palette for Springtime

What colour comes to mind when you hear the word 'primrose'?

I'm sure most of us associate primroses with the colour yellow - the particularly delicate, pale yellow of the wild primroses of springtime. I remember, as a child, travelling on the old steam trains in the Isle of Wight, you could look out of the window and see a 'carpet' of pale yellow! 

The wild primroses almost completely covered the grassy banks of the cuttings we passed through just before we went into a tunnel. Anywhere else, they would have been picked or even dug up for someone's garden. But it was probably too dangerous for anyone to venture down the steep slopes of the railway cuttings to pick them. So they were left in peace, to grow and multiply - a lovely sight in spring!

But cultivated primroses come in a wide range of colours!

Years ago I grew them from seed. But nowadays my lack of wide enough window sills for the seedlings, sends me off to the supermarket to buy the plants. (That's my excuse, anyway!)

I particularly like the pink-ish orange ones  - 

Sometimes I can't get enough of them all the same colour for the shelf in my front porch, so then I go for as many different colours as I can:

To me the different coloured flowers look fine - splendidly bright and cheerful! 

But when you look at all the colours together, I can't help feeling that there are too many colours, that some need to be eliminated to make a cohesive colour scheme.

So from this group of eight colours, we could pick out lots of different schemes.

I have chosen 2, 3, 4 and 6 for this traditional Islamic pattern:

But there are lots of other possibilities!

Which four would you choose?

You can save this pattern tile and experiment with it if you wish -

How to Make an Easy Floral Hand-painted Paper Collage

My eldest daughter was born in the late Sixties which I realise, with hindsight, was a time of momentous change in the world of Children's Books.

I'll freely admit that I never much enjoyed reading my children their bedtime stories but I was constantly drawn to the illustrations! My favourite was EzraJack Keats but it was only relatively recently that I discovered that his illustrations were made from handpainted paper collage.

Painted paper collage seems to be a popular medium with children's book illustrators and when I decided to have a go at making a collage myself, I found Eric Carle's demonstrations really helpful.

And it's really quite a simple process - you just cut out the shapes and glue them onto a sturdy background!

My very first attempt was really far too ambitious for a beginner and involved some drawing and the use of tracing paper to place the pieces where they were supposed to go.

But if you stick to something simple, such as imaginary flowers, you don't even need to be able to draw!

So, in case you'd like to give it a try, here are a few hints and tips -

Here's what you'll need

• Tissue paper or any kind of fairly thin paper.
• Paint - children's ready-mixed paints in pots, acrylics or gouache
• Big paintbrush
• Newspaper to protect surfaces
• Craft Knife
• Scissors
• Glue - pva or any craft clue. I used wall paper paste for my first attempt and it wasn't too bad.
• A sheet of card, probably best to start with something about A4 size
• A cutting mat or surface that doesn't matter if it gets scratched
• Craft tweezers (optional)

First paint your papers - 

leaving plenty of time for them to dry thoroughly before you plan to use them.

Use the thickest, widest or fattest brush you can find and don't make the paint too watery or your brush will tear the wet tissue paper. Paint a good selection of colours, including several shades of green if you are going to make a floral collage.

You don't need to worry about painting the colour evenly. In fact, you can have fun making your painted paper streaky or use a piece of sponge or scrunched up newspaper to create 'paint effects'. It all looks much more natural when it comes to creating flowers and leaves.

Once your paper is completely dry,

 start to cut some shapes - petals, leaves etc.

It will save a lot of time and make your petals and leaves more uniform if you fold the paper and cut through several thicknesses at the same time.

This is probably easier to do with scissors but you'll discover by trial and error when to use scissors and when to use a knife. At this point, you may discover that it's not wise to sneeze, or even sigh with any force, as your petals will scatter far and wide if you do!

Then all that's left to do is to stick the petals and leaves onto a firm sheet of card.

I sometimes use old coloured page dividers that I no longer need!

Here's mine, scanned.

It came out pretty dull and dreary with that yellow background but this is where Photoshop comes in so handy - an advantage that the illustrators of the Sixties and Seventies had to manage without!

And now it's all ready to have a quotation written in the big yellow-ish space at the top.

Anyone guess what the quote is going to be?

if you can't guess, don't worry - you'll find the answer 
in next week's 'Work in Progress' blog post!

September Birth Month Flower -

Morning Glory!

Lots of Gifts for the Home

over on

Mugs, Mousepads and More

Are you a Shrinking Violet?

The Violet is one of the Birth Month Flowers for February.

Poems about violets often refer to them as blooming in April and Yardley even have a range by the name of "April Violets". I shall keep a close eye on my front garden this year and notice when the violets start to bloom. 

What is the word that we most often hear in connection with violets? 

There’s the African Violet, the Dog Violet and the Parma Violet – the one that is sometimes used in confectionery and cake decoration - 

And of course there’s the ‘Shrinking Violet’.

Not because it can literally shrink – though when exposed to too much sun, it may shrivel up and die.

‘Shrinking’ in this case is another way of expressing modesty, humility or even shyness, human traits that have often been associated with violets because of their habit of hiding away in woodlands, close to the ground and often hidden by leaves.

Violet motif for the
repeating pattern.

Poems suggesting these qualities in the pretty little wild wood violets abound! Here's a selection.

While modesty and humility are surely positive qualities, shyness isn’t necessarily a good thing. It has been suggested that shyness is the result of too much preoccupation with oneself and how one appears to the rest of the world. And it can certainly hold us back from becoming all that we’re capable of becoming.

I’ve been a ‘Shrinking Violet’ in my time – until a very wise elderly relative pointed out to me that my ‘walking small in order that others may walk tall’ was not serving any good purpose!

But when I was looking up quotes about violets I came across one that stood out from the rest and I think it’s my favourite. It doesn’t deny that violets are not particularly showy; they don’t grab our attention like the daffodils and tulips that flower around the same time.

But they are tenacious! And there's power in that tenacity – as I discovered when I first dug over the ground beneath my Magnolia tree. 

'Tile' for the
repeating pattern.

When I moved into my house, there was grass beneath the tree but it wasn’t a pretty sight. It didn’t get enough light and it was impossible to mow because of the roots of the tree, even though I bought a strimmer especially for the purpose. Hence my decision to dig it all up and make a wild, woodland area of my front garden.

As I dug out the grass and the dandelions, I began to see the violets hiding closer to the ground. I was planning to scatter wild flower seeds in the soil so I dug out the violets as well – with some difficulty because of their long, enormously strong roots! 

But now, ten years later, the ground is covered in violets again! 

So whenever I have time in the autumn, I plant daffodils and irises around the tree, removing just a few of the violets to make room for them. As the tree has grown over the years, it has become harder and harder for anything else to grow beneath it – except for the violets! 

So maybe the violets are telling us something, especially those of us who are introverts by nature. Perhaps their lesson is that we don’t need to put on a show, to draw attention to ourselves in order to be purposeful. 

As the quotation suggests – and as I discovered in my front garden! – tenacity and modesty, strength and humility can happily rub along together!

Please feel free to pin or download and print
 this 300 dpi image (for your personal use only).

PS I recently discovered that the Violet is associated with Mother's Day.

Originally known as Mothering Sunday, it fell on the fourth Sunday in Lent and in the 16th Century, it was the occasion for everyone to visit their 'Mother Church', ie their nearest large church of cathedral, for a special 'Mothering Sunday' service.

Later, the idea of honoring all mothers on that same date meant that domestic servants were given a rare day-off to visit their mother church or, more often, to go home to visit their mothers, whom they probably hadn't seen for months or even as long ago as the previous Mothering Sunday. The servants would gather a posy of wild flowers along the way and the most prevalent wild flower at that time of year was, yes, you've guessed it - the violet!

This year, Mothering Sunday (or Mother's Day) falls on Sunday, 30th March in the UK.

Violets, Pretty Mother's Day Greeting Card by poshandpainterly
 

There are plenty of Mother's Day greeting cards and gifts to choose from in my Zazzle stores but here's a link to the cards that feature the Violets.

  

Pretty Violets Wrapping Paper to Customize by poshandpainterly
   

February Birth Month Flower - Violet

I’ve never much liked violets. 

I tend to prefer bright, colourful flowers like Pot Marigolds and Daffodils. By comparison, I always thought of violets as rather drab and dreary, too much leaf for such tiny flowers and anyway, purple is by no means my favourite colour, especially in the garden. I tend to think of Violet in particular as an 'old lady' colour . . . 

But I’ve noticed that when I draw flowers for painting or for making a pattern, it feels as if I get to know them. It’s almost like getting to know a person, like making a new friend.

And that’s exactly how it was with the violets I needed to paint for a new series of February Birth Month Flower Birthday Cards!

Violets, February Birthday Card for Cousin by poshandpainterly
 

In fact, even before I’d made the violets into a birthday card design, my enthusiasm had grown so much that I began to make ‘Violets’ repeating patterns and coordinates to create all sorts of pretty products for my Posh & Painterly store!

White Porcelain Teapot, Sweet Violets Pattern by poshandpainterly
   

I made my patterns using Photoshop and if you’re interested in how to do it, you’ll find some easy to follow instructions HERE, on some of my blogs from 2013. 

The main violet pattern was based on an ogee-shaped repeat, instructions in #4. But if you’re a newcomer to repeating patterns, you’ll probably benefit from starting with #1 and working your way through.


If you don’t have Photoshop, don’t despair! 

I made some of my best and most popular repeating patterns, such as this one, using paper, paint, scissors and sticky tape! 

Mock Orange and Weigelia Bone China Coffee Mug, Bone China Mugs by helikettle
 

I found the very clear instructions for making repeating patterns without a computer on another blog, Design Sponge .

Good luck with this - but just think carefully before you get into making repeating patterns - you may easily find yourself getting addicted like I am! 

Snowdrop Quotation to Inspire You

I love this quotation by 20th century American author, Anais Nin!

It fits so well with my belief that flowers, plants and anything that grows make the clearest metaphors for life and ‘what it’s all about’. 

I’ve never read any of Nin’s work so I don't know what sort of ‘blossoming’ she may be referring to. But that doesn't matter; there are innumerable ways in which we can all blossom – or alternatively, remain, painfully, tight in the bud!

Buskers take a very public risk!

So often fear prevents us taking the plunge, raising our heads above the parapet or however you choose to describe that moment when we show the world what we, uniquely, have to offer. 

For some of us it may be our upbringing that has held us back from being all that we know, deep down inside, that we are capable of being; or maybe it was something in our experiences at school. Or maybe we tried once before but met with failure or even ridicule.



But there comes a tipping point, when, as the quotation says, it becomes more painful to hold back than to take the risk. It has happened to me and I’m sure it will have happened to many others. Some will have been lucky enough to receive all the encouragement they needed. But even then, there were probably moments of self-doubt to overcome – few of us are totally self-confident.

Young busker in Abergavenny

Some will take the risk at an early age and live lives that are comfortably aligned with their true selves and their talents. Others, like me, take longer to be convinced that it’s worth the risk. We try all sorts of other things first, trying to avoid that fateful step from which there’s no going back, that blossoming, that ‘unfolding of our petals’. 

But it's never too late, as George Eliot wrote, to be what you might have been!

Are you one of those ‘on the brink’? Or do you know someone in that position, a friend or a relative you wish would just embrace their talents and, like the plucky little snowdrop, start to show the world what and who they truly are? 

The snowdrop doesn’t hold back from bringing beauty into our world and hope into our hearts, in spite of the worst that the winter weather can muster. 

So why do we?

Please feel free to download this A4 high-res sheet
if it will inspire you or someone you know!

 (Just click on it then right-click and 'Save as...')

Finding Art on your Doorstep

Doodled beginnings of an illustration of the Emerson quote

“Art is not to be found by touring to Egypt, China or Peru; if you cannot find it at your own door, you will never find it.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Some twelve years ago I decided to see how I got on with trying to sell my pastel paintings, in effect ‘coming out’ as an artist. 

When I told a friend about this, her immediate, excited reply was to tell me how lucky I was because this would mean that I could go to Venice. Although Venice is one of the few places I would love to spend some time, I was totally at a loss to see the connection between trying to make a living from my art and going to Venice. 

I still am – and I was delighted to come across Emerson’s quote because it expresses my own approach to art. I don’t believe that we need to travel to find inspiration; for me at least, inspiration can strike at any moment, no matter where I am or how familiar or apparently 'ordinary' my surroundings.

I might suddenly notice the play of the light on the lace curtains in my bedroom –

- or, probably more often, something outdoors, in my local area or especially in my little garden, simply begs me to paint it or to make it the basis of a pattern or greeting card design:

Lipstick Pink Roses

Periwinkles

Mother's Day Card - 'Tulips'
   

Tulips in the park I cross each time I go shopping

So, over the coming months, I plan to introduce you to the ‘art’ that I've found ‘at my own door’ – or perhaps just a little bit further afield - beginning, tomorrow, with some Roses at Christmas:

PS By trial and error, I've learnt a valuable tip today! Next time I attempt to illustrate a quotation, I'll definitely make things much easier for myself if I put the text in place first and illustrate around it!

.......

Click

HERE

for some of the

Gifts and Greetings for Gardeners

that I've designed

From Greeting Cards to Repeating Patterns . . .

Mock Orange and Weigelia Bone China Coffee Mug, Bone China Mugs by helikettle
 

A few days ago, a customer ordered three of the coffee mugs in my Zazzle store. I was over the moon!

I didn’t make a huge amount of money from the sale and it was just one sale among many at this time of year. But it meant an awful lot to me because the three mugs were ones I had created with my repeating floral patterns earlier this year.

So the sale came as a kind of affirmation that I’m on the right track in shifting my main focus away from greeting cards towards pattern making. And as well as that, my own reaction showed me that the bold floral patterns are my first love – which is probably a helpful pointer in determining my ‘signature style’.

Over the course of the past ten years, I’ve gone from Fine Art – my pastel paintings – to greeting cards – to repeating pattern design and I feel I have finally homed in on what I love to create the most.

Wallflowers Birthday Card by helikettle

I do enjoy designing greeting cards but I absolutely love creating patterns! I find it quite addictive – I just wish my technical knowledge could keep up with my enthusiasm!

One of the things I find difficult about creating greeting cards is that I really dislike cards with verse inside, particularly if it is ‘sentimental’. And unfortunately it seems that there are many customers for whom the ‘verse’ is just as important as the artwork.

 

Sunflowers Birthday Card by helikettle
online at Zazzle.

As I wrote in an earlier blog post, I prefer to let the design do the talking, conveying the sentiments more subtly through the image. And while that suits plenty of people, it also excludes many potential customers for my cards.

To my great relief, there is no ‘verse’ to worry about in Pattern Design! It’s simply a case of putting together shapes, lines and colours in a pleasing way . . .

 

Pretty Scarlet and Yellow Nasturtiums Jumbo Mug by helikettle
 

. . . or is it?

Many years ago, when I first discovered William Morris and the Arts & Crafts Movement, I read something to the effect that a pattern should always evoke a feeling, recreate an atmosphere, transport the beholder to a place they would like to be. I have searched the internet in vain, trying to find the exact quote. But the gist of it has always stayed with me.

So, in a way, a pattern carries just as much of a message as a greeting card. It just does it in a much more subtle, sometimes almost subliminal, way.

But there’s nothing very subtle about flowers, which I must admit form the basis of most of my designs to date. Most of us love gardens and flowers and in the case of a city flat-dweller, a floral blind or coffee mug may be the nearest they get to a garden on a day-to-day basis. And that provides me with the motivation to keep on working – or, more accurately, playing – with the constantly inspiring ‘source-book’ that Mother Nature provides!

Pretty Spring Primroses Bone China Coffee Mug, Porcelain Mug by helikettle

What feelings do floral patterns (not necessarily mine!) evoke in you?

The Magic of Flowers!

At last I’ve got around to making those ‘Poppies and Cornflowers’ greeting cards!

Bright Poppies and Cornflowers 65th Birthday Card by helikettle
 

But on the other hand, that Islamic Pattern that I made for the collage for my brother’s birthday card is only partly edited. It’s going to take a very long time, and not being a person with a lot of patience, it’s quite likely it’ll languish in its current unfinished state until I forget all about it!

And I’ve only just got around to creating the customizable version of the ‘Bubbles’ Screenprint design from a couple of weeks ago!

Stylish Aqua, Sea Green, White iPhone 4/4S Case Iphone 4 Case-mate Cases by helikettle

I seem to be far more in the mood for flowery designs, in spite of our decidedly un-summery weather!

I’m sure this has been said many times before, but I really believe that this is the worst, coolest, windiest and, above all, wettest summer we’ve ever had! I shall actually be glad when the autumn arrives and we can stop pretending it’s summer!

I haven’t been a great fan of the summer for a couple of years now as I was feeling quite unwell whenever we did get a hot and sunny spell, due to my pollen allergy. I love growing flowers in my garden, particularly the sweetly fragranced ones. And most of them seem to really thrive in this Welsh clay soil!

But gradually, year after year, my symptoms increased and going out in the garden became a no-no and as for bringing flowers into the house – well, my shelves of vases had sat redundant, gathering cobwebs, for a while now -

But then, at the end of May, after the only really hot and sunny couple of days we’ve had, I had my first ever asthma attack after going out to bring my washing in from the garden! 

Scary as it was at the time, I have reason to be grateful it happened. As long as I use the puffer my doctor prescribed, I can enjoy my garden again and even fill my house with vases of flowers, just like the old days, before my allergies. I've even had the posy below in my bedroom and enjoyed a good night's sleep without coughing!

I usually like to let flowers fall naturally in their vase, rather than ‘arranging’ them. And this little posy of lavender, Albertine roses and Mock Orange Blossom particularly caught my eye and asked me to take a photo of it. This weekend I got around to using the photo as the basis of a design – not a painting as such, but a motif that I’ll use to make a repeating pattern. And probably some greeting cards as well!

First I have some more catching up to do - why do I so often seem to be trying to catch up? When Zazzle launch new products, as they have recently, I generally find that some of my older designs will fit on them nicely. So that will keep me busy this week.  

But maybe I’ll find a little bit of time for those ‘New Baby’ designs I mentioned last time!

Wedding Invitations

Click here

for a selection of

Wedding Stationery

Wedding Congratulations Card by helikettle
See other Wedding Cards

What does your art say about you?

I tend to store up the pleasure of reading other people's blog updates until last thing at night, before I go to bed so that I can enjoy them rather than rushing through them during the day, with all the pressing things on my ToDo list at the back of my mind. That way I can take the time savour them almost as a reward for having ploughed through a whole lot of often tedious and freqently challenging computer-related tasks.

A few evenings ago, one of the blog posts I read was written by an illustrator who was in the same habit of catching up with other illustrators' blogs at the end of the day. But he wrote that it was a habit he wanted to break because seeing other artists' work that he thought was better than his own, worried him and his anxiety stopped him sleeping. I don't seem to have that difficulty and it started me wondering how other people react to seeing work that is 'better' than their own.

For example, how did Ruth Steinfatt's wonderful watercolour paintings that I posted recently affect you?

 My own response was to wonder whether I could ever learn to paint like she does, capturing the light so beautifully. It seems that, for me, the work of other artists is usually inspiring rather than depressing. And a few days later, I did 'have a go' at some watercolour flower painting! Needless to say, I didn't produce anything remotely resembling Ruth's delightfully glowing flowers, even though I watched a couple of video clips on how to paint watercolour flowers before I started.

Maybe I'm just a slow learner, or an awkward  pupil when it comes to learning something new. But I think there are a couple of other reasons why I didn't succeed. The first one is purely practical. I am much more used to using soft pastels, working from dark to light and once I got going, I completely forgot that I needed to be working the opposite way round! Maybe I could eventually train myself to work differently but I rather doubt it because I actually like working from dark to light. It seems to me to be much easier to change one's mind in the middle of the painting, working that way. And that is something I need to be able to do as the painting takes shape and tells me what it needs. I also work instinctively all over the surface of the painting - something that's almost impossible with watercolours because of the drying time! To me, that 'waiting for something to dry' just doesn't fit into the way I work! (It doesn't really bother me with my pen and wash designs because the 'creative' part goes into the drawing and the painting is just a kind of optional extra.)

The second reason is more speculative. The teacher of the Art and Design Class I gained so much from in Norwich was enthusiastic and knowledgeable about The Bauhaus and would often base the 'instruction' part of our lessons on its teachings. One day, when we had all done the same exercise - playing with circles, triangles and squares, as far as I remember - she commented on how different our finished exercises were from one another. And she attributed this to the differences in our physical appearances! She used one of her Bauhaus books to show us a drawing by a student who had wispy, flyaway blonde hair that tended to curl. Her drawings were similarly 'wispy', carried out with light pressure and with plenty of 'curls'. On the other hand an artist with much stronger, darker features had drawn the same object in thick, heavy black lines!

I suspect that this also applies to perhaps an even greater extent to the personality differences between artists. For instance, I'm sure I'd be right in assuming that to paint watercolours like Ruth's would take a degree of patience and peacefulness, something I'm not known for! My pastel painting is very physically energetic work and if isn't virtually finished in 45 mins, I lose interest!

So my attempt to paint like another artist was a failure but not one that depressed me in any way. I learnt from it, which is always important and I was actually quite happy with what did emerge from the attempt.

    

   

My nasturtiums entirely lack that delicate, translucent quality of the best watercolour paintings but I feel that they are definitely 'me' - and I think they make a nice bold statement on a T-shirt!

Nasturtium Ladies T-shirt by helikettle
Many t-shirt designs available at zazzle

Maybe this is telling me that, hidden beneath my tentative musings, is a person of 'bold statements' trying to get out!

What does your art say about YOU?

Increasing Online Sales

I'm wondering how far to go in order to increase my sales through the online stores.

A newsletter from Zazzle this week listed the following 'Top Searches':

- Personal Business Cards
- Anti-Obama Bumper Stickers
- Bridal Shower invitations
- Wedding Postage
- Wedding Announcements
- Graduation Invitations
- Birthday Cards
- Bachelor Party Invitations
- Funny Posters
- Geek T-shirts

And the top sales through GCU were:

- 4th July cards
- Weddings
- Graduation

Of all those listed, the only categories my designs would fit into are the birthday cards and perhaps the wedding announcements, though I haven't made a lot of those - and even this one was not my idea, but came from a customer who found my sweet pea bookmark and asked me to make it into invitations for her wedding and I adapted it later for GCU -

.

Just as I find it hard to create Christmas Card designs in the summer, I don't find it easy to design for something to which I can't relate and if I try to, I think it comes through in my work. Unfortunately, the subjects of most of the top searches and sales are outside of my experience - for instance, we don't have 'bridal showers' in the UK, as far as I know, nor do we celebrate 'graduation' in quite the same way as in the US. We do have 'Stag Nights' which I presume are what are meant by 'Bachelor Party Invitations' but they are generally very informal affairs and formal invitations would hardly be in keeping with the spirit of the occasion. As for the 'Anti-Obama Bumper Stickers', I'd never have known that there was any demand for such a thing!

So - unless I can somehow get my head around these, to me, quite alien concepts, I'll have to continue with my birthday cards and perhaps take advantage of all the flowers coming out in my garden to make more Wedding Invitations.

There are plenty of roses for inspiration -

- and my first autumn-sown sweet peas are beginning to flower -

And maybe I can make something of the mock orange?

Or these love-in-a-mist might make a pretty design?

But with the flowers in my garden coming out thick and fast at the moment, it's difficult to keep up with them all!

I've just checked on Zazzle and there are a few floral business cards - so maybe that's something to be thinking about, if I can put myself in the shoes of a florist or garden centre owner? I often find that I have my best ideas when I'm not trying to think of something. My son is coming down from York to stay with me next and I expect we'll be out and about in the mountains, weather permitting. So perhaps something will come to me while I'm trying to keep up with him on one of our hikes!