Designer feature: Mary Jane Mitchell

Hello! Today we are very happy to have a feature and with a mini-interview Mary Jane Mitchell and he beautiful work. 

We were lucky to had Mary Jane as part of the guest designers that collaborated with Believe Creative Studio for the collection presented at Indigo-Paris back in February. We loved working with her and the customers loved her textured hand-drawn beautiful and clasical style.

MaryJane Mitchell has been designing textiles and products for the home and fashion industry in the United States and Europe for over 20 years.  She enjoys designing for the children’s industry because she loves coming up with designs that make people smile and that bring a bit of happiness to the world. Her style is both whimsical and colorful and besides the children’s market, her style lends itself to the adult market, as well.  She licensed her designs in the Tabletop industry for over 12 years and her

dinnerware has been featured in most major retail stores.

MaryJane Mitchell

MaryJane graduated from FIDM in Los Angeles with a degree in fashion and then, when she found she could not find the right textiles while working in the children’s bedding industry, she went back to school at night for a Textile Program at Otis Parsons.

She has been an avid runner for over 25 years and finds her greatest inspiration and brain storming come from running the trails behind her house by herself or with her dog, Maizie.  She is known for her abundance of energy, which she is proud to say she inherited from her mother.

 

©MaryJane Mitchell

©MaryJane Mitchell

A small conversation with MaryJane:

Which city or place inspires you the most to create?

MJ: I love Paris and the English Countryside. My favorite city in California is Ojai.

What type of music do you listen to while you are creating?  

MJ: I love Classical, Blues and Rock and Roll.

Which is your favorite blog to get design inspiration from?

 MJ: Print and Pattern by Bowie Style

Which is your favorite quote? 

MJ: “Listen. Make a way for yourself inside yourself. Stop looking in the other way of looking.” Rumi

What does the word, “believe” mean to you?

MJ: It means to feel strongly about something in a positive way.

©MaryJane Mitchell

©MaryJane Mitchell

©MaryJane Mitchell

If you want to be in touch with MaryJane, follow her and see more of the lovely work,contact her at:

Mary Jane Mitchell desings website

Mary Jane Blog

Facebook

Twitter

Floral patterns showcase

Hola!
Today I wanted to  showcase the beautiful floral designs created by different artist, this designs were submitted to the Tigerprint "Floral Wrap Pattern" competition.

Tiger print put together a creative brief, and invited designers and artist to create a pattern directed to the female recipient, for products like gift bags, wrapping paper and tags. Over 1000 designs submitted pieces, exploring all type of flower motifs, color palettes and handwriting.

Design competitions are "in" now, and is the way companies are sourcing artwork for their projects and contest are becoming more and more popular among designers. From my point of view contest are a way to keep creating for fun projects, and they are the way to keep your brand out there, but there should be a balance between creating for entering contest and actually promoting your own brand with personal work and creative research.

I put together some tips when creating for a contest:
1. First and most important of all, choose wisely, be selective to whom you are giving your work.

2. Read the fine print and document your self before submitting your artwork to a company.

3. Study the brief and stick to it, you may be disqualified otherwise.

4. Participate in contest for products that are out of your comfort zone, you never know which surprise you may find, you may discover a new technique, new skills, or a new market for your style.

4. Have fun when creating and take your time; do not only create only to have "something there" , Do your very best; you never know who is looking. You want your name and your brand  being associated to quality work.

5. Do not forget that normally is only ONE happy winner, do not let not being selected to disencourage you, pick your self up and be happy you entered, be proud, after all you did your best!

6. Analyze the work from the winner, what does that piece have different from yours? find the positive side, we can all learn something.

7. Plan ahead, and submit before the deadline, contest websites may be facing issues at the deadline time.

8. Use your work for your portfolio, to submit it to blogs for features, for your social media  etc.
Reuse your motifs in a different piece, give them a second life, after all you put time and effort for it therefore your work is valuable.

To support a bit my last point, I wanted to show the lovely work from other fellow designers that submitted work for this contest and I ask them "Which other products types do they see this pieces?

Angel Gerardo said: "I think my design will look pretty on a sundress or a journal"
More from Angel? get in touch!

©2014 Angel Gerardo

Tasha Goddard said "I would love to see this pattern in a dress"
More from Tasha? get in touch!

@2014 Tasha Goddard

 Nancy Mckenzi said "I could see this pattern working well on a scarf or blouse, or maybe on the packaging for  a specialist soap or tea"
More from Nancy? get in touch !

©2014 Nancy Mckenzi

 Annette Plummer said "I would also love to see this print on a summer dress, or enlarged for cushions or bedding"
More from Anette? get in touch!

©2014 Annette Kristine Designs

 Irene Tan said: "I'd rather wear flowers in my hair than diamonds around my neck"
More from Irene? get in touch!

©2014 Irene Tan

 Jo Chambers said " Fabric print, or greetings wrap"
More from Jo? get in touch!

©2014 Jo Chambers

 Jennifer said " I think my print would work well on paper, journal covers , and accessories.
More from Jennifer? get in touch!

©2014 Jennifer Wambach

Rebecca Stoner said: "I think this print would look great on fabric or pretty little note-cards!"
More from Rebecca? get in touch!

©2014 Rebecca Stoner

From me" I see this design in fabric, then made up in all sort of products"
More from me? get in touch!

@2014 Believe Creative Studio

Follow the link to see the gorgeous work from Claire Parker, the lucky winner and runners up and to see all submissions visit the Tigerprint gallery.

Big thank you to all the designers that kindly agreed to be part of this post!

Love
Rosie

Jan Shepherd a true pattern muse

Hello & Happy Friday!
Today I want to share with you the fabulous work of the lovely and a great professional:
Jan Shepherd from Pattern muse.

Jan Shepherd from Patternmuse

We had the fortune to have Jan as a guest designer for the collection we presented in Indigo-Paris Feb 14, and was a wonderful collaboration.
Jan has a unique and beautiful way to create wonderful florals, her work is rich, luscious and full of wonderful and intricate shapes. You can look at each of her pieces for a long time and discover new motifs.

©Patternmuse

Jan is based in the UK now, she was living in Australia for 3 years.

She met a surface pattern designer on the plane on her way over to Australia and decided that this was a job for her! Since then she has built on skills learned at Camberwell College of Art & Kingston University to become a successful and very happy artist/designer. Other things Jan has done are a career in retail, specialising in art projects, freelance illustration in publishing and setting up her own greeting card business when it was difficult to find work to fit in with her young family. 

Jane has a special love for  bold and simple design mixed with intricate florals, She describe her self as a "tidy designer with occasional outbursts of messiness…"

Jan Shepherd  studio ©Patternmuse

A little conversation between me &  Jan:

Which city or place inspire you the most to create?

Wherever I am, I can create, feel or imagine wonderful things so at the moment it's tropical Cairns which is so inspiring with it's Great Barrier Reef and Rain forests.

What type of music do you listen while you are creating?

I love music and it influences me greatly so I listen if it's relevant to the type of design I am doing, otherwise I like the natural sounds that surround me.

Which is your favorite blog to get design inspiration?

There are so many inspiring design blogs- I am choosing a lesser know one www.anchobee.com because there is a design challenge every week and it also gives motivational ideas - it's great and in fact the fish design on my computer in the studio photo started as one of those challenges!

©Patternmuse

Favourite quote?

 "Always look on the bright side of life"

Monty Python

What does the word Believe means to you?

It's knowing that everything happens for a reason, we can choose to learn from it and be confident that we are travelling through life in a good direction with good friends.

©Patternmuse

©Patternmuse

©Patternmuse

©Patternmuse

If you want to find more about Jan visit her Patternmuse website or follow her trought Facebook and Twitter @patternmuse

Have a happy weekend!

Love

Rosie

If you want to be featured in our blog, just drop us a note, by clicking the feature invite button!

A mermaid in a bottle :painting process

Hello! I want to share the final result of the new piece I have worked in the past days.
In my previous post I described to you my creative process, sketches and inspiration, now I want to share the painting process and the final result.
I decided to actually paint this piece in a common canvas, because painting in canvas make me feel very artistic!
This piece was painted  with acrylic, which is a medium I enjoy working with, although a bit messy is quite fun and friendly to achieve lost of colors and cool effects; the down side of painting with acrylic is the difficulty to paint very small and detailed lines, which I normally incorporate in my work.
I added a beautiful quote from Rumi, that I found perfect for the mood of this piece.
Personally I loved the result, please let me know what do you think of it? Do you like it?
Very soon I will be making a downloadable version so you can use to decorate your computer of phone screen.
Stay tuned!

Love
Rosie

My colors            

Background

Work in progress

The final result                                                                                                          ©2014 Believe Creative Studio

If you are interested in seeing other artists from different parts of the world work and their  approach to the nautical theme for wall art in all sort of media and handwriting, visit the online gallery of the Lilla's Roger Make art that sells Bootcamp. 
Eye candy!

Getting inspired for a new assignment!

Hello!
Aside of my busy days creating  baby and children's patterns collections for the Japanese and for the European market which we will be presenting to the customers in few more days,
I am  also currently working on a new assignment for the Make Art that sells Bootcamp which I take more as a treat to my self to enjoy and to discover new possibilities for my work.
The theme of this assignment is nautical and we were asked to create a piece for wall art featuring the theme and subjects as boats in a glass bottle, sea creatures, textures and typography.

Although I immediately had an idea in mind, I did my usual research in pinterest and find out amazing images, colors, techniques, ohhh a great visual treat.

Here is a glance of my pin board:

Images from different authors and published in pinterest.com

My sketch below was my initial option  before research, I have a particular obsession with hair, so I was pretty married with this idea, but I am a firm believer of  lateral thinking , therefore I always push myself for exploring new ideas and concepts.

Sketch by Believe Creative Studio                                                                                Option 1

During my research in pinterest I found this beautiful image (which I could not track the original author) I was amazed me by its beauty and  uniqueness, and inspired me to create a second option.

Author: Unknown                                                                          Source: pinterest.com

I wanted to make sure I was being inspired and I was not ripping of an original creation. I think I achieved to create  my own take from the beautiful original piece of art.
What do you think?

Sketch by Believe Creative Studio                                                                               Option 2 

Getting inspired by another piece of another artist is always a controversial topic; I do my best to respect other people work and to honor an original idea by taking it to my personal style.

I have asked Believe Creative Studio facebook followers which option they liked the most for me to use in my assignment, although initially was almost equal the votes, we majority selected Option Number 2, so I will be working on this piece next and I will share the painting process and the final result here in the blog.

Since I loved also the option 1 too I will work on that option too next!

Wishing you a great week!

The images published from pinterest.com belong to different authors,we are not claiming ownership on those. No copyright infringement is intended.