Colouring in Shells...

All this horrible weather is making me pine for the seaside again, only a few weeks ago I was sat (in the UK) outside this beautiful surf hut...

With a view like this....

Well, you need a cheeky cider in Cornwall, in weather like this!!!



So I started doodling some of my favourite seaside finds.... Shells!!
I love finding shells, and collecting shells, so I thought I'd doodle some shells.

I decided to create a colouring-in pattern (like the colouring-in-cakes I did for the Ideal Home Show), and this is the creation I came up with...

And, this is what it would look like in the kitchen (pass me the colouring crayons)...

Aaahhh - the seaside - possibly my favourite-ist place in the whole wide world!!

October Wallpaper...

Welcome to October (not quite sure where the year has gone!!)

I was asked a couple of weeks ago if I would be interested in doing the Design Juices October Wallpaper download.

Needless to say, I jumped at the chance!

To me October is all about Halloween (and my mums birthday - she's witch you know!!) Everything starts turning orange, and all the pumpkins and vast quantities of chocolate start to appear on the shelves. With that in mind I went VERY Halloween with my October Wallpaper...

If you want to download the wallpaper for yourself just click here it comes in various sizes to fit all types of screens, so take your pick :)

Happy October :)

Fairytales...

Ok, so enough of Christmas stuff.

I found a drawing that I did for someone else, that never got used - I quite like the quirky faces of the fairies, so I thought I'd depart from the Christmas theme - just for now - while we're still in September!!!

I'm thinking I might like this as a pillow or bedspread - well, I probably would have when I was about 7 or 8 :)

And yes, I know she's got a wonky face, but so have I :)

Xmas Berry...

September has been a bit of a manic month, so doodling has had to take a back seat, however, I have managed a bit of doodle nod towards Christmas (which I hate to say it, is coming around sooooooooo quickly!!)

This is the Xmas Berry doodle....

Just Circles...

In a previous blog I mentioned that I was going to be doing a "collection" called Just... I think I also mentioned that I like drawing circles, so I was rather pleased when another design challenge came up to design using circles only, and only 4 colours!!

Needless to say the Wacom pen was out and I was endlessly scribbling away!!

The challenge was to design 3 different patterns, that could all be used as the same collection, and this is my concoction....

I'm thinking tea towels might be quite nice...

The Challenge Cup Challenge...

Having been 'brought up' on Rugby (League and Union) since I was a nipper, I thought I would challenge myself to create a new pattern for this weekend's Challenge Cup Final.

My home town - Warrington - are in the final of the Challenge Cup. A feat which, when I was little, was near-on impossible!!

However, since the whole super league thing, and changing from The Wire, to Warrington Wolves, they seem to keep winning stuff, if it's not the League Leaders Shield, it's the Challenge Cup - so here's hoping they can win it again!

(Although, after last weeks performance against London Broncos I'm slightly worried!! But we wont go into that!!)

I wanted to create a pattern which reflect the proud and celebratory atmosphere that's in the town at the minute - even the town hall has a Warrington Wolves Flag flying...

Anyway, even if you haven't a clue what I'm on about, I hope you like the new pattern. It's totally out of my comfort zone (i.e. it's not the seaside or camper vans!!), plus the colours aren't my usual palette of subdued blues and greys - but that's because the colours of Warrington are Primrose and Blue :)

Just...

So, the Olympics has been and gone :(

The only cure for it, is to doodle some more!! So I've started a very basic collection called "Just..." It does what it says on the tin and over the next few weeks I'll be doodling many patterns. The first couple in the collection are Just...Hearts and Just...Starfish.

I know, more seaside symbols - who doesn't love the seaside though!!!

Just...Hearts

Just...Starfish

Circles in the sand....

A recent brief I worked on, was to use Circles and only 8 colours.

Circles are a doodle favourite of mine - no sharp corners and very doodle-able.

As for choosing the colours I always head over to Design Seeds to pick a palette of colours - in particular colours of the ocean, shells, and the seaside...

Colouring-in-cake

So, a while ago I designed a wallpaper pattern, which came runner up in the Ideal Home Show Wallpaper of the Year Competition.
Here's me on stage talking to the lovely Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen.....

I didn't think anymore of it, until someone pointed out to me that they'd love that wallpaper in their kitchen!! This got me thinking and looking at what is out there at the minute. The idea behind my wallpaper was that kids could colour it in (and it's wipeable!!).

Who would have such crazy wallpaper - turns out no one has, but I really thought this kind of idea would go soooooooooo perfectly with the patterns that you find at Ikea (also one of my favourite shops!!)














So, I got a pic of an Ikea-like kitchen and super-imposed my wallpaper on it.....

What do you reckon?!? Would you have Colouring-in-cake wallpaper?????

And if you know who chooses the patterns that Ikea use, do you think they would use it?????

All this talk of cake is making me hungry.........

Doodle Exhibition

This week is a lot about the Warrington Collegiate Annual Exhibition at The Gallery at Bank Quay, so rather than creating some new patterns this week, I've mostly been printing, gluing, sticking, tiling, sewing new exhibition pieces, using some of the patterns I've been creating over the past few months - here's a sneaky peek at some of the tiles I've done, with my beloved Campervans on....

All I need now are frames for everything - which I intended getting at the weekend, from Ikea. But, as those of you that live near Warrington Ikea will know - getting anywhere near Ikea has proved a tad difficult!!!

So here's hoping I can get there today!! I love Ikea frames - they're not too fussy, and let the artwork do the talking!!

So if you want to get yourselves down to the Warrington Collegiate Annual Exhibition - the opening night is 12th July 6pm - 8pm and then it's there until 24th September (when it will then be getting ready for the Warrington Contemporary Arts Festival - but that's a whole other blog post!)

The Lighthouse Keeper

As a lover of all things by the seaside, these patterns are inspired by Lighthouses. The remoteness of Lighthouses fascinates me, not to mention their 360 degree view of the ocean, and the collection of seagulls that seem to hang out around Lighthouses !

Along with Beach Huts I do have a bit of an obsession with Lighthouses, and would love to live in one. If anyone knows of a Lighthouse that's for sale, with the option to be converted in to a house please let me know! Although it might be a bit of a walk/swim to the nearest local pub!

New Adventure

I am sooooooo excited, I can now reveal that I'm working in collaboration with the fantastic Believe Creative Studio and as if that wasn't enough...... this collaboration means that my patterns will be winging there way to Paris, as Believe CS are going to Indigo Paris (the place to go for surface patterns and designs) Believe Creative Studio will be on Stand U49 in Hall 5.

Needless to say I'm more than excited to be working towards this amazing opportunity.......

Doodle Seagulls

This week's pattern design comes courtesy of the seaside.

I love the seaside, as much as I love camper vans! The colour, the noise, the smell of the sea - I love it all.

Inspired by the Washed Shells colours from the fantastic Design Seeds and the insane seagulls in St Ives.....

Just having a mess around with the design on another pikadoodled bag....

Beetle Mania

Having purchased myself a lovely new Wacom Bamboo, there is no end to my doodling now, and I don't have to scan the doodles in either - I can just keeping on doodling!

In the same vain as the camper van doodle pattern I created a couple of weeks ago (post Sunday 3rd June) I went with another national favourite - the V-Dub Beetle.

The colours are heavily based around the colour of my aunty's original beetle, that I remember being shoe-horned into the back of, along with my brother and cousins... I think we were in Llandudno, but that's by the by.

The Beetle Mania pattern is a tribute to all the lovely old beetles tootling around still....

Doodle Boats...

Recently we had an exercise on the Surface Pattern Design course I did, to design patterns aimed at boys - if you look around all the shops, there really isn't a great deal of designs targeting boys, it's VERY girlie!

In saying that, having visited the Lego shop recently, there's lots more Lego for boys than girls - life's way of evening things out?!?

I don't have kids, but have a vague recollection of my brother's room when he was a kid, and by the time he got to 9 patterns had to go! So I figured my design is for the younger ones. My pattern is based on a nautical theme, and using colours for season S/S 2013 (so I'm told by t'interweb!)

Blog Hopping

As this blog is all brand spankingly new, I thought it would be a great idea to be part of the fantastic Passion for Pattern bloghop (see the link in the sidebar to start from the beginning).

I'm guessing if you're here, you've been bombarded by my incessant tweeting, or you've hopped over from the lovely Sandee at www.beautifullivingblog.blogspot.co.nz who's also part of the Passion for Pattern bloghop. After my blog, get yourselves over to Tammie's blog at  www.tam-me.com and keep following the fantastic blogs.


I'm in overdrive for my doodling this week, so I'm hoping to be turning them into quite a few designs - but today's design is for a bag aimed at kids (big and small) and is a favourite of mine, simply because it is covered in camper vans - who doesn't love a camper van....

I would by something from a shop that had bags like this - just to get a bag!!!!


Happy hopping :)

Doodles away...

Ok, here we are, a new blog, about doodling!

Well, doodling and designing!

Having finished the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design course (looking forward to getting my graduation button for the blog soon) I am on a mission to get my doodle design onto shopping bags - how much more beautiful would your Zara bag look like with doodles all over it? Or your Hummingbird Bakery bag?

For today, for the first blog, I've kept it simple.... A simple doodled line drawing, that makes a plain old white bag look much nicer...

So the mission begins *cue mission impossible tune* to doodle-design the retail world :)