MATS Home Decor Weeks 1 + 2

When I heard about the newest Make Art That Sells course about designing a home decor collection- i had to sign up. I'm two weeks in and I'm trilled that I did! It's making my brain work in different ways- rather than just creating the illustrations- i get to think about specific products that could be made with my art on it! Week one focused on metal with birds- here's what I came up with:

This one came together so fluidly- birds+triangles+bird sounds+a few flowers all with a fairly limited color palette. Week 2 was fabric with flowers week. I knew I wanted to push myself and show MORE! I started here:

I was feeling happy about this one- light and airy, very neutral. But then I got a push from Lilla to consider varying the density of my patterns. I realized I had illustrated a lot of stem-y botanicals and didn't have much counterpoint to the airy/neutral side. So we went to this:

Getting better...I like how the lettering in the dark grey tea towel relates to week one. But I was still hating on my table lamps and rick rack. So here is where I landed next:

Since there are quite a few different bits and pieces in this- my goal was that you could pick any 3 and they would relate in some way. I love how the hanging lamp turned out- very neutral but dense. Probably the most fun thing was thinking about trims and pom poms and MEGA pom poms! But this version was a bit too busy- like there were one or two too many elements. So i tweaked and nudged till i got this:

and now i'll step fully away. (at least for a few hours) ;)

MATS Part A - Round-up

Welp- here they are. My first five weeks of Lilla Rogers's Make Art That Sells course. Looking at them all together- i feel proud of what I made. My favorite is week 2's whistling goat plates and I think my weakest is week 1's root veggie pattern. I feel so fortunate to have been in 4/5 of Lilla's reviews (week 1 did not make it). I went into the course knowing that there was a high likelihood of not having any of my work reviewed. She talks about 15-20 pieces every week and with a class of about 200- well- you do the numbers. I truly feel like I learned so much while she talked about other people's work- that even if my work was not talked about- I would not have felt too disappointed. Creating this work propelled me into mega-productivity. Besides these 5 pieces I made a bunch more work in the 5 weeks:

The recipe, teeth, gems, and reef illos were re-worked from illustrations I had already made. Space cats and doll patterns were completely new, and the botanicals were for Audi Magazine. I also did a site-redesign and kept up with sales from my etsy shops and wholesale accounts. Basically the past five weeks proves my theory that I am most productive when I am juggling lots of gigs. Although I don't think I can quite keep up this pace 100% of the time- I am starting a 25-day holiday thankfulness countdown. I'm illustrating 25 things I am thankful for this holiday season. You can follow along on instagram. Here's the first one:

what's going on over at botaniche?

well, let me tell you! This week and next there is some multitasking going on. I am making some floral patterns for an upcoming project...here are the ones i've made so far. Go on over to my Botaniche blog to be in the know!