Challenge for September, Patterns in Nature

Kathy always gets the closest of closeups in nature and makes wonderful art from them. She suggested we all make art from patterns in nature for our challenge this month.

 The Yellow Basket 

by Denette Schweikert 

11" X 14"

Kathy told me that this painting qualifies as patterns in nature but I don't know. I started this picture a long time ago and put it aside. I then found it, really changed it, and finished it. Now I'm happy about it. I shot the photo at a "pond tour" in Merritt Island.

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Dragonfly Wings

Watercolor, 11x14

I do my best thinking in the pool, so while I was trying to think of a pattern in nature for this challenge, a couple of dragonflies were flying around. I decided to do some layered dragonflies in fanciful colors. The blue one is an actual copy of a certain dragonfly's colors, believe it or not.

Carmen Beecher

https://www.etsy.com/shop/carmensart

https://www.carmenbeecher.com

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I was happily overwhelmed by the challenge this month. You can get so lost in really looking at nature and how beautiful even a bug can be. I went off in several directions until I came across some photos of viruses, yes viruses. I could not get over how beautiful these deadly things could be.

They also reminded me of patterns that I see on native dress in Africa, which incorporate so much of nature in their design. I will not tell you what these viruses are but just know as Billy Crystal would say, "It is better to look good than to feel good."

 

Several viruses collaged together

 

Donna Vines

Donnavinesart.blogspot.com

Donnavinesart.Etsy.com

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I took this photo at the New York Botanical Gardens as it seemed Mother Nature had outdone herself in the design.  The leaves were so interesting they almost appeared to be a product in plastic made by a whimsical artist.  Little did I know this would be the perfect prompt for the challenge.

Costus Stenopuynas costacea

southwestern Costa Rica

And my doodled design...if I had had colored pencils with me I would have enjoyed playing with the greens but rendering it only in black and white was fun.

 

Cindy Michaud

art@cindymichaud.com

www.cindymichaud.com

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Patterns in nature are probably my favorite inspiration. I'm so happy my fellow pieces were willing to play along. For this challenge I was thinking snails! (Okay, I think about snails a lot...patterns, spirals, beautiful colors...what's not to love. ) It was, however, a rough month with very little time for art and so I just did some doodling. Here are two snail inspired watercolor and inks.

Home and Garden

Spirals

Kathy Garvey

Art by Kathy at www.etsy.com/shop/snailflower

Fabrics by Kathy at www.spoonflower.com/profiles/kgarvey

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One of the most intense times I have spent sketching nature was spent at Silver Springs on a Piece's retreat about four years ago. I was fascinated by the profusion of Angel Trumpets.

Interior View  2014

Tons of Trumpets  2014

A recent sketch


I change the challenge a bit from making a close-up pattern, to just making a pattern. The sketch with tons of Angel Trumpets made me think of the pattern of a cotton pinafore that was one of my favorites as a child. I took the form of the stem and added one blossom to each right sided angle (or is that angel)?. Now the pattern resembles the fabric these blossoms brought to mind. Not exactly what intended when I started this challenge, but it makes me happy.

Fay Picardi

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Insects are really beautiful 

Patterns in nature are a great inspiration for many artists. Dragonflies are especially interesting. I have painted dragonflies and had a couple in the file, but wanted to do something new and out of my imagination. I imagined a bee flying over a field and water. (Is there such a thing as a "bee's eye view?") It started as a watercolor (smaller print) and ended up as a mixed media. I just had fun with the patterns and a limited palette.

--Jean Thomas

ozworks22@cfl.rr.com  

A Pattern Not Made From Art, by Carmen Beecher

 You don't need a piece of art to create a pattern in Adobe Capture. It can also be done from a picture of four women being silly. Click on the pattern, you'll see us in there.

 

Carmen, Denette, Donna, Mary

Challenge for May, Creating a Pattern from a Piece of Art

Kathy Garvey taught us how to create patterns from our paintings in Adobe Capture, and it was quite kaleidoscopic. It's a different kind of challenge.

This is the pattern I created:

 

Below is the original painting, a watercolor called "Cosmos (sold)."

 Carmen Beecher

carmensart.etsy.com

This was a really interesting challenge.  Here is my pattern with the original painting.  I would never have guessed I could make this pattern from this painting.  It was fun to play with.

donnavinesart.etsy.com
donnavinesart.blogspot.com

This was a sketch from one of my sketchbooks. So here goes with Adobe Capture.
I could see how these could be adapted to patterns on cloth.
Here is the pattern derived from the sketch, above.
Jean Thomas
Ozworks22@cfl.rr.com

I love making patterns so I was quite happy when the group agreed to give this challenge a try. Below are my patterns for this blog entry all created using a watercolor done on our recent trip to Silver Spring. The top image is of patterns created with Adobe Capture, a free and quite wonderful application available for your phone of Ipad. The second example is from Adobe Illustrator. I frequently use it or Adobe Photoshop for my patterns that I then print to fabric at Spoonflower.com. While Capture is fun and quick, it is limited to just a few kaleidoscope type options. The other two tools offer endless design possibilities. (Click on any image to enlarge it.)

Kathy Garvey

etsy.com/shop/snailflower

www.spoonflower.com/profiles/kgarvey

Here Comes Another One (or two or more)

Not one of the techies in the group, I nonetheless gave Adobe Capture a try. Got a bit carried away. There are thousands of possibilities with just one photo. Here are two of my designs based on Kathy's extraordinary leaves and Denette's incredible painting. Lucky me.

 Try zooming in on the designs. I love how intricate they are. 

  Design 1

Design 2

Fay Picardi

Southern Accents Quilt show

Last Thursday there were only  a few of us meeting so we decided to visit the Ruth Funk Textile Museum at F.I.T.  We are so lucky to have that small treasure of a museum here.  The show was called "Southern Accents" and it was just wonderful.
I am always amazed at the wondrous cornucopia of visions that are in artists minds and the patience and love of craft it takes to express this these visions.  The motifs, colors, textures, ideas and results were so varied and just a joy to see.
I took a few photos to share.
Donna Vines

Foiled!!

One of the fun techniques that I did some experiments with was working with foil.  I really liked the way you could manipulate it with anything that had the ability to leave an impression.  You could use everything  from a spoon to a fly swatter.  All you had to do was press it onto the foil or press the foil on top of the impression.
When I was in Michael's I saw some really interesting pattern presses, before I started this I had no idea anything like that even existed.  The "pattern presses" are just small flat pieces of metal with an embossed design on them.  They had so many interesting ones that I had  to buy one to experiment with.   I choose one that had different machine gears embossed on the plate.  I also used various acrylics to see how different colors affected the design.  This is how it came out. 
Donna Vines