Oct 20, 2016
3 patterns in 3 weeks with Bonnie Christine
Intro to Surface Pattern Design Course

Hello! I'm Cathy from Seattle, graphic designer, wanna be illustrator, entrepreneur, and mother of two teenagers. Sixteen years ago, my mother asked me to design a decorative sleeve to beautify plain plastic pots that hold fresh flowers on church pews with a pew clip she had invented. 

Long story short, I printed way too many decorative sleeves and thus designed a cupcake wrap and had a die made to cut out of the overstock of decorative sleeves. Since then, I designed a new "tea cup" style cupcake wrap and my goal in taking this class is to illustrate 3 collections of whimsical patterns. 

Thank you for reading my story. I look forward to 'meeting you' and sharing ideas!
Cathy

Party Animal pattern for cupcake wraps colored in Illustrator. . . 

Party Animal Motifs

Party Animal and Floral Theme Sketches:

I drew directly on the cupcake wraps to get a better feel for how the drawings and motifs will work together. Then I cut, paste, tape, make mockups and play with color ideas using gouache. When happy, I develop it further using a light box to refine and add detail then draw my artwork using a dark ink pen. 

Next, I scan at 600 dpi and image trace in illustrator CC per Bonnie's instructions. To color, I selected  Object, Live Paint, Make in order to use the paint bucket tool. I was a bit confused about the process and have much to learn about Live Paint, the Shape Builder Tool and better understand what expand does. 

So much to learn, but making progress!

These are drawings for my party animal theme:

I'll continue to develop the sketches below to create a whimsical floral theme.

Theme: Whimsical Floral 

Phase 1 - Deciding on 3 themes 

My 3 are: "party animals", "modern vintage" and "whimsical florals"

Phase 2 - Inspiration board & Sketching

Ten descriptive words: Whimsical, modern, vintage, floral, lace, tea parties, colorful, charming, nostalgic, tea cups.

 

Theme: Whimsical Floral, Gouache & Photoshop

Don't know how to add or change the colors in Photoshop so I'll stick to coloring in Illustrator for now.