2 posts tagged “doodling”

I've always loved patterns, and have been drawing them since I was a tiny kid. I have a plaster-headed, faux-fur bodied puppet that I made when I was in kindergarten, and it's head is covered with circles filled with abstract patterns. If I can find it in the basement I'll put up a pic of it.

I do have a picture of a drawing I did as a gift for my favorite second-grade teacher, Miss McGee.She was kind enough to track me down about 8 years ago and return the drawing, which was really neat since I didn't haveanything quite like that in my kid-art portfolio. I drew a dragon in seventh grade, which is also filled with abstract patterns, and gave circle drawings to my favorite teachers in middle school also. Like Henry's notebooks, my school books throughout my entire educational career are filled with doodles and patterns and not too much in the way of schoolwork.

So it seems very comfortable to be designing patterns again, and I love it. I've continued to do a few pen-and-ink drawings through the years, mostly as charity auction donations, and they've all been fish filled with patterns. Why fish? I don't know, but I recently discovered that my friend Kelton had also been drawn to fish throughout his artistic life.

I didn't ever consider that I could design patterns commercially, until just recently. They always just seemed like a fun artistic distraction that could be made into fine art when needed, but I knew I wasn't going to be a fine artist. I've always been more interested in large scale production for my work, maybe because I began as a graphic designer. Just recently I've discovered that there are people who are "pattern designers." I know that seems like it should be really obvious, especially for someone like me who has been in the kids' products and textile industry for such a long time. But I always felt like I had to produce something that used the patterns that I designed myself -- bedding, or placemats, or stationary. And that's what I've been doing with Grow ever since.

From whence doth inspiration cometh? From all sorts of places. My most recent patterns were inspired by multiple things, but the most notable is from Henry's language arts journal. He has all kinds of cool patterns that he has designed when he was supposed to be doing schoolwork. Here's a page from a couple of weeks ago, that inspired my little icon on the blog header.

These circles are for a project that I'm working on, due on Monday. I'm creating a modern interpretation of a holiday tree, to be auctioned off for the Rocky Mountain Children's Law Center. It's part of an event called Bough House that my friend Sarah helps to put together.

My plan is to print these patterns (organic, abstract, tree-inspired designs) on a translucent vellum paper, then mount them inside a 4-sided structure made from glass steel, or polycarbonate. Then I'll put an LED light in the structure so it will be illuminated from within.