Penguin Parade

This morning I was rather chuffed when I opened my email and found that my recent penguin design is one of the nine designs in the Spoonflower email advertising this week's design competition! The winners won't be known until the end of next week but I think this feels as good as a win. Especially considering I enter the weekly competition mainly to give myself a deadline to work to and a challenge to create something I might not normally do.

This week's theme is 'Penguins' and there are a lot of nice designs that have been entered. (Some can be seen in this screenshot of the Spoonflower email shown here.) Check out all the other designs here if you are feeling penguin-y.

I chose black, white and greys for my repeating pattern of penguins and drew it using Copic markers after sketching it out with pencil. I then fiddled around with my drawing on my old version of Photoshop to create the seamless repeat. I'm looking forward to receiving my test print of it on fabric so I can then decide what to make using it. Perhaps a t-shirt with this all-over print on a knit fabric, or perhaps some sort of top/blouse on a floatier fabric?

I have added the design to my Society6 and Redbubble stores and it will soon be available as fabric in my Spoonflower store.

EDIT - 16 Jan 2015.

With the help of the above appearance in the Spoonflower competition email this week my Penguin design broke into the top 40 after voting closed. I was very pleased to see that I came in 39th, considering that I average around 224th position. The only way is up! See you in Hit Songwords magazine. (Sorry... sorry for my bad "Top 40" references/jokes.)

Turning Your Work Into Something Else or Something More.

Have you visited Society6.com before? Do you have an account and try to sell your work there? After I've finished my design for a Spoonflower.com weekly contest I have been putting it up on Society6. There is something really pleasing about seeing a design transformed into a cushion cover or a mug, even if nobody purchases them except me.

"Thermos Pattern Blue"mug.

Some of my designs as throw pillows on Society6.com.

One of my original drawings before it was turned into a design for Spoonflower and Society6.

I am terrible at talking about what I do with my time and energy... or terribly scared of doing it. I find it really hard to talk about myself and my interests and activities. When meeting new people I dread the inevitable question "So, what do you do?". As I see it, artists and creatives have to be their own brand. Part of my creating and collecting has lead me to want to grow a style, a portfolio and some confidence and therefore, I guess, my own brand. I have a handful of little online stores in various places now and they have only had a couple of visits and sales so I have realised that it is time to bite the bullet and put myself out there a bit more. I am finding it really difficult to even post on my own personal page to share my work with friends and family. If I can't be confident about my own work then why should I expect other people to be interested in it. My (seemingly) confident husband said to me "If you like it then someone else out there will like it. If you don't like it then someone else out there will be bound to like it". (He knows how contrary and anti I can tend to be!) I could just put up posts without this little intro but that wouldn't be me. For some reason I often feel like I need to explain myself... but I really don't. Anyway, here goes nothing! (And thanks for visiting and reading!)

Blog - http://www.thisbusywork.blogspot.com.au

Fabric, wrapping paper design - http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/busy_work_

Art prints, throw pillows, totes, mugs, clocks - http://www.society6.com/georgiatapper

Vintage, handmade and paper items - http://www.etsy.com/shop/thisbusywork

And I help to run an etsy store for my mum and aunt - http://www.etsy.com/shop/duchessandlulu - handmade one-off clothing for children under 5.

My Thermoses for the next Spoonflower Competition.

The theme for the upcoming weekly contest on Spoonflower.com is "Thermoses". My attempt is made up of hand-drawn, retro thermoses.