Project Selvage - Fabric Design Contest on Spoonflower.com

I have decided to go ahead and try to make a fabric for the Project Selvage contest that Spoonflower is hosting. The theme of the contest is BABY BOY.   The prize is a contract with Michael Miller fabrics.  Awesome!!  Amazing!!  Total career maker.

I am new to fabric designing, but I am going to at least try.  If I didn't I would always wonder if I could have done it.  So my dilemma lies in my procrastination.  I haven't been able to decide on a theme.  I wanted to come up with an original theme for a baby boy's room.  Something unique that hasn't already been done and might catch the eye of the judges (the main voting is open to the public, but the initial pool is juried).  All the things I could think of have been done a bazillion times...animals (zoo, jungle, farm), robots, cars, planes, bicycles, dots & stripes, cowboys, dinos, insects, etc.

So now the deadline is looming next week, Thursday, March 24th (my Dad's birthday).  It is also Spring break and my birthday on Tuesday the 22nd.  So probably have only given myself about 2 days to actually work on my design...lovely!

The good news is I came up with an idea!!  Might not be a great idea but at least it is unique.  I have always thought that the cutest baby items are the shoes.  Something about the tiny stitching and miniature details is so charming.  I decided I would do a baby shoe themed fabric. 

Here are my initial sketches.  More to come... I will update later with the link to the contest with my final design.

Here are a couple of colored versions I did last night.  I am not sure it is babyish enough.  I may change gears and do one of my other ideas of stripes of different colors.  

Butterfly Fabric Now Available!

I found this amazing new site the other day.  It is called Spoonflower.  They allow you to design & then purchase your own fabrics.  I used some of my butterfly paintings to design a fabric.  Click on the fabric link below to check it out! It's a lot of fun. 
 

"Up Seems So Down" Album Cover- Part 3

 
Here is the finished album cover painting.  I decided the trees didn't add to the overall look enough so I took them out.  I painted the whole sky red and then went back and added cobalt blue and yellow to tone it down and create more depth to the sky.  I also put rings of color around the stars and added more light blue to the horizon line.  The sun was also brightened with a stronger yellow.  I love the overall effect.  I hope it makes an impact for Robb's album.  I can't wait to hear the songs!

Below I played with some potential fonts for the cover to see how it would look with the painting.

Here below are all of the work in progress photos.  It shows the changes I made to it before it was completed.

"Up Seems So Down" Album Cover- Part 2

 I worked on the album cover some more today.  I decided to change the font, so I took the words out for now and made the sky a darker red for more contrast with the moon.  I also added some trees to make the landscape more obvious. Pine trees have an obvious direction, almost like arrows, so I think they work best for this kind of alternate up idea.

 

Here it is after I played with some fonts on PhotoScape.  I love the double image.  

"Up Seems So Down" Album Cover

I started working on a painting for an album cover today.  Robb McCormick (aka Some Guy Named Robb) is releasing a new album in December called "Up Seems So Down".   I'm really excited about working on this.  The theme of the album is based on confusion.  The moon is mentioned in some of the lyrics so I wanted to use it on the cover.  The idea I had was to have the sun and moon swap positions in the sky.  Moon at dawn, sun at night.  Hopefully it will translate to canvas like I am picturing it!