more coloring book pages

Found some more mushrooms and did decide to add a few to my next coloring book pages... and I have been painting in some of the pages after I take a photo to use for the coloring book. still don't have the coloring book printed though, having too much fun with fabric and wanting to get outside on my lunches....

And MY most exciting thing this week...

My book is up on the WalterFoster website!

It will be out April 1st, 2016!

you can see it here!

finished the tea towel calendar in photoshop....

here is the final version....which will be available on spoonflower once I preview it by ordering....

and this one for a birthday poster as Tracy suggested....but for you to color. will have to look into where to get this printed....

2016 tea towel calendar

I worked on this design ALLweek. 

That is unusual for me; to stick to one piece all week, plus to add this much detail....

it's a large piece and I did very small designs.

i just need to add in the days of each month and it will be ready to print at spoonflower into a linen tea towel. 

I am not sure if i want to add color, maybe just one, or maybe just a few in the open month shapes, or maybe lots of colors all over. I could leave it blank to be colored in permanent markers...

I just don't know.

But I did take one luch hour off to go see the water...

a beautiful fall day

 (before the day of snow we already had)

and I found a mushroom that matched my shoes.

 I always feel like I won a prize when I find a mushroom,

since they are easy to miss in the leaves.

And this one was so black lacey looking... I should find out what it's called.

It makes me want to switch gears again and design some mushroom fabric... but no, can't do that yet, gotta finish the coloring book. I do think I will add some mushrooms to my next coloring book pages though... I should have it ready to print a book of ten pages very soon, hopefully show you next week.

(linking to PPF and Fabric friday)

Also...

The winners of the heART digital coloring book are...

 Stephanie Stark,

 Rose of Walk in the woods

 and Joan Kubes! 

Congrats!.

 Please send me you emails if you haven't already so I can get you your copy.

5 things

I have become obsessed with even more new ideas lately. If you have followed me for long you may realize my creativity goes in spurts along certain paths. I draw certain things for awhile, then right in the midst of that I find something new that inspires me and I start that, and so it goes, eventually going back to where I started in circles. It is hard to finish a project but always so tempting to start new ones. But then, when I do finally finish things, I finish a lot all at once. Sadly I haven't quite finished the Bee Queen children's book I started a year ago, or the rest of the 5 or so projects I am working on but I found so many new inspiring things lately. 

1. I made this board of ideas on pinterest because I wanted to decide what to do with the fabric swatches I created at spoonflower lately. I was planning on making a charm quilt. I have always loved them, the look and the story behind a charm quilt. 

I wanted to make a hexagon one as it is just so "charming", and I love the honeycomb shape.

2. But doing that led me to this!!!!!!!!!!! 

 

image: Lilabelle Lane

3. and this!

4. and this! 

 

Image: the little red hen

 

So stunningly beautiful, and full of possibilities. Any quilters out there may have heard of ... 

5. this book and the Passacaglia quilt I assume, but I had not. Once I found it I started seeing people all over the web are making it and posting about it and every single one is gorgeous! I realized I could take one of my painted mandalas, make part of it into fabric on spoonflower, then using English paper piecing and fussy cutting, I could turn that into a quilted mandala or kaleidoscope or millefiori quilt and it could just go in circles and circles! That seemed so inspiring! So, of course I jumped right in, not waiting to buy the book or the templates or papers, just starting. Nothing so grand as that passaglia quilt right away. As I have never paper pieced that seemed a little to ambitious for my first project, but I did start fussy cutting some hexagons.... Now I am not good at getting corners to match up, I have never been able to. My mother is the quilter, when she pieces a quilt she can't even get her corners to be crooked if she tries. I should do a post of her quilts someday.     But I thought I might be able to get my corners to match with paper piecing, and it turned out a bit better than when I have tried piecing on the machine....I made myself a hexagon template so I could see the piece I was cutting...

 

And after a week, using mostly my fabrics from spoonflower but also some "borrowed" from my mother, I am here...

*linking with paintpartyfriday as I feel I am "painting"with fabric, and also to  fabric friday....

coloring book pages of Unruly Flowers

Last Saturday I posted a giveaway for 3 copies of the heART digital coloring book... that doesn't end until october 15th if you want a copy... click here to take you to that post to comment for your chance!

As I have a mandala in it that means I finally got it figured out...
photoshop is a struggle when you just don't know what you are doing...but now I do have some coloring book pages available in my etsy shop to download and print yourself...

I found it works best to not hit fit to page when printing as I have them set to a little less than a standard copy page so it should print smaller to give you a bit of a white border ...
and I found that I liked some of the lines being less dark, when you print them, it's not a mistake and you are not low on ink. you can still see to color them but they aren't as prevalent as some coloring books so it will look a little more artsy when you are done than like a page you colored...
you could print on regular copy paper for kids to color with crayons, or print it on cardstock to frame,
but my favorite would be to print on watercolor paper to end up with a piece just like mine when I was done... I did about 7 of these in my sketchbook...they are in various stages of completeness...

 This is the one you have seen before in my sketchbook and that I used to create that fabric with the giant flower that became a tiny pouch... 

Just playing with an old idea

Sketching a design for a little fabric pin I have been wanting to make...

Gonna submit to sunday sketches and try to visit some blogs there...

And just want to say i posted a giveaway for 3copies of an e-zine coloring book yesterday that i have a mandala in. It is heArt magazine's coloring book issue, so stop by yesterdays post for a chance to win!

giveaway!

Remember I told you before about the online coloring book?

well  it's now available ....

I was just published in heART Journal Magazine's first Colorbook Issue!
25 different Artists have collaborated to make 40 beautiful Colorbook pages for you!

More great news! I have three issues to share with you lovely readers. Please follow the instructions below to enter this giveaway. And If you don't end up winning one of the issues, No worries...
 heART Journal Magazine is offering the colorbook for only $2.99! That is 50% off the regular price of 5.99! And if you buy now and win one of the issues
you will have your choice of sharing with a friend or choosing another one of heART Journal Magazine's many back issues. So don't wait to purchase, this sale ends Oct 15.

This Colorbook issue is available on iTunes bit.ly/heARTMag,
Google Play bit.ly/Heartjournal
or heART Journal Magazine's cart for a pdf version

For help with accessing the Colorbook please email heartjournalmag@gmail.com This Sale is good until Oct 15th 2015.

To enter the giveaway just leave a comment here by October 15th saying you want to win a chance to try out this cool coloring book!

To see what everyone contributed you will have to buy a copy or win, but here's a peak at my mandala  page inside...

More index cards

I seem to be totally stuck on creating patterns for fabric lately...

I have always loved doing patterns, starting with the fabric in the ladies clothes when i was doing all the falling ladies...

Then there was the patterns in circles in my mandalas, 

Now to turn those same patterns into repeating patterns is so much fun....

And i have gone to index cards and pens instead of my watercolors, just temporarily, because to make the repeating patterns i cut the cards in quarters or use two or even four taped together. And i don't want to cut up my sketchbook, but i have no problem cutting index cards. 

Plus i love the colors in my set of pens, bright but juicy looking, 

like fruit flavors....

The current weekly contest at spoonflower is cephalopods....