Tomorrow is Spruce Up Your Space time and the theme this month is Summer Vacation!  A summer holiday for me is down by the beach, doing nothing of much, except watching the waves and eating lots of sea food.

I really wanted to make something inspired by my coastal photos, something vintage maybe, gently worn by the sun and endless trips to the beach.  Not wanting to go with the normal cockleshells I picked a mussel as my inspiration.

Sometimes I will sketch out a few ideas in my note pad and scan them or simply draw straight into illustrator.  Illustrator for me is the best for drawing or scanning in your sketches, the way you can smooth, adjust and recolour everything and anything.  It’s is an awesome tool!

I wanted a simple design that could lend itself to a repeatable pattern, picking a colour palette inspired by my vintage beach photos.

Once I am happy with colours and shapes I quite often create a mood board, so that all my ideas are in one space and I can instantly see if a different pattern or fabric suits the overall theme…..this one fell into a natural flower, with the mussel shells becoming like petals, which I really liked!

Once the pattern is seamless and the ideas are drafted I will add the textures and play around with the colours.  You may have noticed I have moved from illustrator to Photoshop, this is quite normal in my workflow to flick between the two, utilising illustrators vector capabilities and photoshops awesome texturing and layering (Read more...)

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