One pattern a week challenge: Week 4

Managed to survive a month of this challenge!!

For some reason I have a hard time drawing cats.  I think their fur pattern is difficult in this style or something... so I just went for a gray cat.  It's a munchkin cat!

I always think of bells when I think of cats so I went for bells in the background

One pattern a week challenge: Week 3

 This challenge has been such a good idea.  It's really forcing myself to get more work done!

      So for this week I saw that spoonflower was having a contest.  The theme was whales but with a restricted color palette.  The palette so happened to be pastel shades and I absolutely loved the colors so I had to give it a shot! (and I've been wanting to draw whales!!)

     

     I challenged myself even more and decided to play with more than two "pieces".  I usually only use two pieces -- Like my corgi or bird and cage patterns.  They're really simple.  I struggled with this one mostly cause of the fishes.  Every time I placed them somewhere, they looked weird when I repeated them. 

I think the end result came out alright! :)

One pattern a week challenge: Week 2

It's been another long week. How do the other artists work full time and produce art on their free time!? It's tough! (and I'm technically not full time!)

This week's pattern I really felt a strong urge to draw candy.  I went to Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's concert last saturday so I'm pretty sure she had something to do with it.. I've been putting this song on repeat basically. ♪


I also went for a different color palette than usual. I usually keep everything in a muted pastel with a few bright colors... I went a different route from my original design in my head so I think that's why I'm surprised on how this turned out.

But I'm quite happy with it.  I can always go back and change the colors to see what it looks like in a light pastel color palette too :9

I'm wondering what surface this might look neat in.  Maybe a backpack? Hmm.

One pattern a week challenge: Week 1

      So on my last post I mentioned I wanted to start this challenge to force myself to draw so atleast I can keep expanding on my portfolio!

        February was by far the worst art slump I've ever had.  So I need to get out of it!

       Actually, I've been doing a lot of research on wholesale greeting cards vs. licensing so I'm learning a lot. Kate Harper's Blog has been helping me SO much! It's wonderful to see all the information fellow artists give out. :)


So this week's pattern:

         I cheated a little and used this cage from the previous pattern I made. Although, I personally think that's the beauty of pattern design. you can make so many new pattern with existing images. So I've been saving all my .ai files so I can reuse them! Even the dot pattern is from another pattern I made previously!  And I just drew the bird and put it together!

Package mock up stuff!

      I've been wanting to do actual mock ups with my pattern design forever-- and now that I have my printer I can! This was for a birthday gift. I used one of the corgi watercolor illustration I did in the past and made a vector paw print and made a pattern with them.
      I actually printed out another sheet with just paw prints to put on the inside part so the brown kraft paper doesn't show but I guess I forgot to take the picture;; oops

        This was a birthday gift bag I made (for a different friend). I hand lettered happy birthday and added some cute polkdadot or bubbles~
       I used inkpress matte 60 so the paper was nice and heavy enough to hold (the gift itself was super light though) and thank goodness I had pink tissue paper to match the ribbon!

(Those dinosaurs are my bed sheets haha.)




        February was SUCH a slow month for me.  I couldn't get myself to work on anything! I would doodle everyday but I couldn't get myself to work on anything else... so I came up with a challenge for myself: One pattern a week!
      I have a really bad habit of not being able to work on anything until something is finished and I basically didn't want to work on any current projects -- which is why I ended up doing nothing most of February.  So I'm going to try to break that bad habit and make myself work!
   So starting March I should be updating this blog once a week! Yay!

Etsy shop!

I set up my etsy shop January 2013... Finally one year later I started to list items!

I've been looking into it a lot actually-- how to promote, what I should do to get more views, sales, etc.
It's actually a lot of work. But it's been keeping me busy so I'm hoping to keep this to motivate myself to create even more.

Valentine's Day is coming up so I put up all my Valentine's Day cards!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/HarukaIllustration

check it!

I also updated my twitter and blogspot.  Finally refreshing things since the new year and feeling really good!

How do you motivate yourself?

Seeing people work so hard to achieve their dream is really inspirational.. but it's so difficult to force myself to do something. Not everyone can wake themselves in the morning and work on art at home.

I know it sounds pathetic because I am trying to freelance yet I'm too lazy to do so. So maybe freelancing isn't my "thing"?

But I want it to be.

I have some friends who went to art school and is failing to get themselves in a career based on art (or basically do what they really want to do) and I think we all go to art school thinking we're going to love our jobs in the future. Thats why we pay so much money to go.. yet why is it so hard to motivate ourselves?

I'm still struggling with this. I noticed when my schedule is tight I'm motivated to do so much but I have no time.. but when I have like 3 days off in a row I'm too lazy to do anything.
But if I have a deadline I'll make myself work. So if it's deadlines that makes me work, how do I make myself believe everything has a deadline?

This is pattern design I rushed when I saw that spoonflower was giving out free swatches..
I always think "Well if I had more time..." "If I didn't rush it.." "If I started earlier..."

A little more melancholic of a post but... I guess I'm tired of feeling frustrated... yet I still can't figure out what to do so... 

How do you motivate yourself?