BLOG HOP TROPICAL FUSION


Once again I am forced into the blogging world. I am actually dragging myself back to the blogging sphere. My friend and pattern collegue Mary Tanana gathered us together to form a blog hop so when you know you have been a 'non poster' for a while, what better opportunity.

If you are following on in the Blog hop you have probably come from the lovely Jennie at J.L.Illustration blog here.. and will probably know all about it by now so I won't bore you with details.

Lets just get on shall we...

Here is what I made (I hope you like it) and below that is how I did it..!! For the most part people read blogs to find stuff out, nitty gritty stuff about how things are achieved, how they did them, was it drawn or photographed, did the person take an age to do it, or whether they just threw it together. I'm not ashamed to admit I started these patterns and completed them in around 4 hours.. (you can tell, can't you?)


I began as usual with my friend and obsession Pinterest. I made up a board of all the things which I feel relate in some way to the theme tropical fusion. You can see (and hopefully follow my boards here).

After a good root around and lots of diverted pinning (about 300 pins worth of non related stuff actually) - not the best idea when you are sofa surfing with chocolate at hand.  I started drawing a few shapes in pencil, an idea etc. I think Pinterest is quite clever, it's sort of like shopping on the cheap, you pin it, and it's kind of yours some how.. weird.


I work in Illustrator for the most part, but if I'm feeling brave I might finish in Photoshop and below I added a couple of subtle brushes to complete the effect - gives it a bit of mood I think. The pattern above has quite a big brush of a dead rose head..


Here are a couple of shots of work in progress within Illustrator.




I tend to gather all my motifs and a few besides together in my file and start adding colour. My patterns can go either way at this point and are often dragged to the rubbish bin if they refuse to come together in say 15 mins max. I like to work quickly but with an idea of what I want in my head before I begin.

So I hope you liked them, please pop over to the next blog - lovely work by Joni Barriere at Studio Lulu Designs here. 

Or if you just joined me, and think you might have missed something jump back to the beginning blog Mary Tanana of Groovity Designs here

Thanks for visiting - and come back soon.