spring and flutterbies

It’s spring in Santa Cruz and I’m drawn to painting flutterbies or as most people call them, butterflies. Here are a couple of my sketches.

Here are two that I watercolored.

The next butterfly, I made on my Wacom tablet. I’ve been learning to draw on it and it’s really hard to get the hand eye coordination down. Here is my first drawing and guess what? It’s a butterfly.

Here is another set of flutterbies that I drew on the tablet and then made into a pattern.

What have you been up to this week?

Kyrrha

pattern making and beetles

Folks have been asking how I go about creating patterns. It starts first with an inspiration, which I usually find on my walks on the 200 acre orchard I live on in Happy Valley.

Lately I’ve been inspired by spring and all the wild life and flowers, in particular beetles. I first start by sketching. I gather ideas and inspiration from pictures on the web or pictures I have taken. Here is an original sketch of the beetles from my sketchbook.

Then I sketch them on watercolor paper and watercolor them. Here is an example of two of the finished pieces. I can also use these finished watercolors to make cards and other lovely gifts.

I then scan each individual beetle and place them in a repeat pattern in Photoshop. Below is the final repeat pattern that can be placed on any surface curtains, wrapping paper, iPhone cases, calendars, cards, etc.

Here is an iPhone case that I had made with the pattern.

If you are interested in having a product created with  my patterns, let me know. Check out my website and see all the patterns that I have available.

What have you been up to this week?

k

sketchbook view

Thought I would share some views of my sketchbook this week. Spring has sprung and I’ve been drawing bugs, flowers, and butterflies.

The above sketch turned into the individual watercolor pieces below. I’ve been working with them in patterns too. More to come on that next week.

What have you been up to this week?

k