New Edinburgh drawings

This week I am home from university as it's Easter week and all the workshops aren't open anyway! I am also doing some work experience which I will post about separately! 

I went to the range - love that place - and bought some lovely papers and inks and paints and brushes and all sorts! Spend about £40! Why to easy. Here are some of my new drawings. I enjoy doing a base layer in a watercolour basic detail and then waiting for it to dry, and going over areas in pen or ink. I enjoy going outside the lines and different ways of drawing, for example blind drawing or continuous line.

This is a drawing I made from my own photograph of the scot monument, from the ground. The composition isn't quite right, the colour isn't there either and you can just see way to much emphasis on the interior detailing which is essentially the underneath of the monument, but I still love the technique.

Here is part of the piece close up. You can see the texture of the paper in the brush strokes and also the pen lines.. I used a continuous line method which simply means I didn't take my pen off the paper for the whole drawing. My wrist ached so much! And some lines are thicker and more saturated than others.. Lines meet, which shouldn't, but it gives it a bit more life :) 

A blind drawing of a small part of the scot monument, I love blind drawing because you can't fake them really!

I love blind drawing! Here is a gravestone which was beautifully adorned with concrete curves and William Morris style vines kind of..! 

Lanterns Recreated

Well i created a lovely lantern repeat print today, from a drawing, and i skipped into uni to show my tutor.. oh.. she didnt like it!! not at all. Thats annoying i was really happy with it. So this evening i have been playing around with it some more to make it more loose. I also tried some new colours. and im really happy with these!! We will see how they print in fabric before any decisions are made :)

Blue :)

A nice strong green! Not summery - more royal

Another blue. Can you tell what my favourite colour is?

Love the pink - a bit different for me!

Greeeeeeny teal :)

Visual Journal

Got a moleskin journal. its great for scribbling ideas, without feeling like its a formal sketchbook, but at the same time, its an expensive moleskin so you want to make each little scribble a good quality!

Heres some of my scribbles for fabric repeats. these probably only make sense to me!. Basically planning a gold overlay. i plan to submit this moleskin as my 'visual creative diary' - but with no dates.. nobody needs to know i only got this at christmas! ;)

doodles doodles doodles

Digital Fabric Printing

Having my first tutorial this year tomorrow! Im quite nervous because they either send me on a motivational high where i work work work or bring me down to a state of depression which means i just want to sleep, eat chocolate muffins and watch big bang theory everyday for about 4 days.. soo.. yeah, nervous haha! Ive missed the last two weeks because ive been visiting London, including a trip to Top Drawer which was really great, i saw some great designers, and it gave me an insight into smaller trade shows which i could more than possibly exhibit at this time next year! Also good to see layouts as im thinking forward to my degree show, and trade prices was interesting to see too!

The shop featured in the next few photographs is called 'Miss Katie Cupcake' - an adorable little shop absolutely filled to the brim with handmade and vintage-esque goodies, my mum and i stumbled accross this little shop when we were wondering up to the royal mile. its no bigger than my bedroom and we probably spent an hour in there! Anyway - i fell in love with a little linotype tray filled with goodies, got a good photo, bought a brooch and then went home to draw up from my photograph! And it features in my print below :)

Miss Katie Cupcake - Shop in Edinburgh - Photo by MacLean Photography :)

 Visiting Top Drawer in London was a great eye opener! We turned a corner to see some lovely scarves, my flatmate nudged me and said 'Hey! you can make scarves.. they would sell so well, definately get on that!' anyway.. 55 stands and about 1200 scarves later we decided its er.. its already been done. ive never seen so many scarves at a show!! maybe i wont bother with those then!!

Top Drawer London!

Oh and the fabric design - im getting somewhere - but SO slowly... I have to work at it for hours and hours and then just before i quit photoshop i have this idea.. and it comes from there! Also i havnt got illustrator so i cant make vector files, which means i cant reeeeally use these as theyre not good enough quality. when means all the work im producing, is infact, a waste of time.. but i figure ill go through like this, and then when i know my final designs ill re do them in high quality! A decision im sure ill live to regret! 

This is my latest design featuring picknmix bags from the christmas fair, in my colour palette blue tone, with drawings from miss katie cupcakes shop over the top. a continuous line drawing created in pen. Its a little different i think i quite like it.. and it does feel more surface design than fabric design.. i can see it on notebooks etc.. we will see! the white is a layer inbetween just the break up the colour and line.. but i quite like it. hmmm.. i havnt slept on this yet though!