Monday: I finished the linear flower drawing I was working on during  the previous week.
Tuesday: a mock-up for some colour ideas for a pattern.
Wednesday: I began work on a coloured version of the linear flowers, painting with gouache.
Thursday: I completed the gouache work when it filled the entire sheet of paper.
​Friday: i played around with different coloured stems and backfill fronds.
Then, over the weekend I took scans of some the sprigs in the drawing and cleaned them up. They look pretty and full of character which I like, I am sure they will come in useful.

​Thanks for visiting, see you next week!

I had a brainstorming session this week. What I do when I brainstorm is to work very fast, allowing myself 4-10 minutes per drawing, and do as many as I can until my brain runs dry. I don’t worry about good drawing, expertise, or mistakes. In fact, the time limit prevents overthinking, so mistakes are good; I believe problem-solving is one of the key processes which help an artist to find their own voice, and working fast forces you to think on your feet and get resourceful in a way only you know.

Once I have finished the drawing session I take the more interesting ones into photoshop - not necessarily the best, but often the craziest which appeal to me - and I treat them in the same way as I would treat a considered project. It is amazing what reveals and connections occur. The collage above is a mix of revisiting works I have made as early as 15 years old, bonkers stuff that came out of photoshop, one which is rough as anything but I worked on some more (the yellow cat), more bonkers photoshop, prints I made 10 years ago (bottom left) which have good pattern-making potential to take forward, and lastly the line drawing in sepia and brown, where this week’s happy process led me today.
I recommend this exercise to anyone who suffers from creative block. I only get creative block in times of great sadness or similar emotional times, but I do get incredibly frustrated with myself. I have too many ideas and try and go deep into them all. This is a great way to separate the wheat from the chaff, to get back to your core, to see what is time-wasting and get back into your quiet self. I always feel cleansed, relaxed and stimulated after one of these sessions, ready to take on new work.

Thanks for visiting, see you next week!

I made a return to working with my hands this week, as opposed to digitally!

Procreate on iPad was a miracle during the house move, requiring no space or materials other than a stylus and a charger which enabled me to continue to work and generate new ideas (when there was time). I created some digital work which I find truly wonderful - see last week's post.

At the beginning of this week, however, I was struggling with it. In the end I became aware that I was trying to replicate my freehand drawing methods and it wasn't working for me. I tried every brush and everything the digital brushes could do, but I was going silently mad in the process. I know there are artists out there who effortlessly produce work in Procreate and create their own brushes to suit, and I can't tell the difference between their digital and hand-made works, but I was spending hours - days and hours - and getting frustrated and wasting time producing hellish, ugly, stiff, overwrought works.

In the end I thought that was nuts. My studio is well enough organised now to be able to work by hand and get it into Photoshop. I set up my room so I have a drawing table and a Mac table with a large enough monitor to finish hand drawn and painted work for Redbubble merchandise, so here is what I came up with: a floral watercolour which became a very lovely pattern, a home-made rubber stamps design (ditto), and a cyan line drawing of a spaced-out cat in a garden which I don't know yet what will become.

I will continue to work in Procreate, it is an amazingly powerful tool for iPad and I enjoy using it. I have created many works over the past year, discovering fascinating ideas which I wouldn't have happened without it (see previous posts!). But I have to say it was lovely to get out the pens, pencils and watercolours again, too.

Thanks for visiting, see you next week!

PS I will be linking to my Redbubble shop, it just doesn't have very much content yet!

This week I worked on the tightest drawing I have made to date, inspired by illustrations in a 1930s gardening encyclopaedia I found (probably my grandmother's). I worked in Procreate with gel-pen streamlined to the max to produce the repeat pattern of andromeda, which looks great as a scarf, and on throw pillows and just about everything on Redbubble's products.

To loosen up a bit after all that tension, I played around with a folksy ear-of-wheat based pattern, which in an altered state formed the posh rug these kitties are playing on for this weekend's Caturday hashtag on Instagram! It was so nice to get out a painterly brush and play with cats and colours. It's a bit of a rough idea so far, but I will tidy it up and make it into something, because it worked really well.

​Thanks for visiting, see you next week!

I have had fun with ferns this week! The design above shows a ferny dither with no repeat pattern in 4 colourways. I made them for one of my Redbubble collections which I have named ‘Granny’s Attic’, and I was delighted with how they looked on the different products. I enjoyed getting my head around the logic of fitting the elements of the design together. 

It gave me the idea that I would really like to design large, delicate ferns in white line to print on black and other deep colours. I have a vision which I particularly fancy on throw and floor pillows. I believe in making things I would like to own myself, and letting the fun happen; I reckon if I like it, I am sure other people will, too.

I worked on fern drawings for a few hours today, playing around with a couple of ideas and trying different treatments. There is still a lot to do to get the design print ready, but I am happy with progress so far. In the mean time, I blogged some images and thoughts on that over at The Weekly on my Heather Eliza website.

​My plan for the coming week is to clean up a few more of my Instagram Folktale Week and Inktober 2019 posts which people have asked for, as well as to keep going with the new fern design. It won’t be long until I can do the ‘press release’ (grand term for telling my friends I have a shop at long last) - but it is such interesting work, I am loving it!
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Thanks for visiting, see you next week!