I’ve been using a variety of media to produce my background textures. I love the effect I can get from high resolution scanned pencil lines. I produced two simple striped textures, one in pencil, and one inverted to look like chalk lines on a blackboard. These are for sale in my image collection on Shutterstock.
I opened an etsy shop to sell my patterns as printable craft papers. It’s a surprisingly time consuming process but I figure once each listing is up there it’s done and can be used repeatedly in the future. Here’s an example.
I’ve been going through some more of my older hand-drawn patterns and making vector versions of them. It is pretty time consuming but I really like the results.
I love the pattern making tools in the latest version of adobe Illustrator, they are an efficient way to create complicated and accurate pattern repeats. I’m having a hell of a time getting the pattern tiles not to explode when the file is saved in a legacy version though. Stock agencies like Shutterstock want the file saved as an Illustrator 10 eps so it’s a problem I need to solve. I have some ideas on how to do that which will keep me busy.
I think this one will be good as a fabric pattern too so it will eventually end up on my Spoonflower collection too.
One of the fun things about going down the stock image route is that I can get out all my old illustration experiments. I’ve always had problems settling on one creative style so there are a few of them. Here’s a pattern I made from a loose doodle style made with watercolour and fine liners. I like the light-hearted brightness of this one.
As part of my stock selling mission I’ve decided to include textures in my portfolio. I have a long habit of scanning anything I think might make an interesting texture and then tinkering with it in Photoshop. This week I have mostly been making two-toned lino textures.
These are for sale on Shutterstock and the red one has already had some downloads which is an exciting start. More textures to come soon…
Here’s an inverted version of the lino textured concentric circle pattern.
It’s my definition of inverted because the white on blue version came first but it could be argued that this is the positive version really.
I love the scanned lino print texture. I printed multiple versions of an uncut A4 lino sheet to get an authentic and convincing effect.
I’ve had a blogging hiatus but definitely not a creative one. The last few months I’ve been mainly focusing on pattern designs. I’ve opened a shop on Spoonflower with my first ten uploaded designs at https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/quirkymundo
It’s what happens when you cross a vector pattern with a scanned lino print texture and a nice blue colour.
One thing I’ve struggled with in recent years is the fact that I like working in different media and styles. I draw, paint, doodle, scan, retouch and vector away to my heart’s content but that doesn’t create a consistent style. Is this a problem I wonder?
I sometimes go fully old-school with acrylic paint on canvas.
It was always been drummed into me is that it’s OK to have a versatility of styles as a graphic designer but not such a good idea as an illustrator. I’m considering stepping back from the process of finding a ‘signature’ style and allowing the natural variety back into my work. A lovely friend has suggest that becoming a stock illustrator / designer may be a way to accommodate this idea. The more I think about it, the more I like it.
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I remember way back when I was doing a BTEC in Graphic design I did a project that needed a design for a Windsor and Newton Gouache box. I painstakingly painted a complicated circles pattern using said gouache. 27 years later and I’m back to drawing circles.
I was so happy with the result of that project that it was the turning point that convinced me to be a graphic designer. In hindsight I think it was actually the circle pattern I was happy with, more than the graphic design elements that surrounded it.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Quirky Mundo - Pattern & Texture 