Laser Cut Luminaries

Tags

cancer, childhood cancer awareness, creative, gold ribbons, graphic design, graphics, lantern, luminaries, luminary, Ohio

I wanted to learn more about designing for laser cutting. So I designed this paper lantern, or luminary that holds an LED candle using my artwork for Friends of Faith Pruden Foundation.

First I developed the 3D shaping I had in mind and constructed hand cut tests to refine the shaping. Then I drew the 3D pattern pieces in Adobe Illustrator as vector line art. Next I added vector artwork I had created for the Friends of Faith Pruden Foundation scholarships and childhood cancer awareness work and began cutting tests of my design in the Fab Lab at CCAD.

At first I thought I would be lining the insides with yellow vellum paper to create glowing silhouettes of Gold Ribbons; the symbol for childhood cancer awareness. But when I tested my design with the warm white battery operated LED candles I had ordered, their yellowish light worked perfectly with plain white vellum paper as the lining, giving off a soft golden glow.

After laser cutting several iterations to refine my design, I ended up creating a movable lid that slides up the handle to get the LED candle in and out, to turn it on and off. I then cut and constructed 8 lanterns from my final design to donate to Friends of Faith Pruden Foundation. And had fun taking pictures of them assembled all together before they left my house.

©2017 Alice Frenz  all rights reserved

Read more about my artwork for Friends of Faith Pruden Foundation in this post.

 

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Psychedelic Succulents Design

Tags

Adobe Illustrator, colorful, design, motifs, Op Art, Peter Max, psychedelic, succulents, textile design

For this textile pattern design, I was working towards a design inspired by Peter Max posters from the 1960s and 70s and also the current popularity of succulent plants. I decided that for at least this version, I wanted to go with the energy of bright colors and the rainbow/color spectrum feel of Peter Max’s work.  And I just kept thinking about Orlando and the rainbow colors of the Pride flag.

I think the plant and flower shapes that aren’t succulents, as well as the color, makes the succulent concept not come across and it simply feels floral. Perhaps I’ll try a more predominantly soft green palette for one of the colorways.

©2016 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

 

Here are 2 great exhibitions of Psychedelic Art to see this summer:

 

 

You can see the work of Peter Max
at the Tampa Museum of Art
through Sept 11, 2016

 

 

 

 

You can see the artwork of Jerry Garcia
at the Psylodelic Gallery
in southeast Ohio
through July 31st.

 

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Psychedelic Succulent Motifs

Tags

active wear, floral, mood board, motifs, pattern, psychedelic, succulents, textile design, trend

This mood and motif board is for my Op and Pop trend observation and corresponding leaf and flower motifs. I photographed succulents in my garden and drew the leaf and flower motifs in India ink pen in my sketchbook. I then selected my favorites, scanned them, cropped and retouched in Photoshop, then assembled my board layout in Photoshop.

My idea is to combine the current popularity of succulents with a poster style reminiscent of Peter Max, in bright psychedelic colors. I also would like to incorporate some Op Art curving stripes into my final pattern inspired by the work of Op artists such as Bridget Riley.

To me, the current popularity of succulents, Mason jars, and hand letter reminds me of the 60’s and ’70s popularity of mushrooms and snails motifs, organic typography, and the psychedelic neon color posters everyone hung on their walls. I think it’s something about their curvy shapes and casual beauty. Though I don’t recall snails and mushrooms being a decorating theme at any weddings I attended back then…

I had so much fun putting this board together! I hope you enjoy it.

©2016 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

 

See my colorful Psychedelic Succulent design
created using these motifs here.

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Motifs for Boho Borders

Tags

active wear, Adobe Illustrator, Boho, floral, mood board, motifs, women's

I’m working on motifs for women’s active wear for a trend I found in the Vogue runway fashions for Fall 2016. I’m calling the trend Boho borders. I found designs that interested me in their pieced together look of multiple ornamental borders.

I’m trying to build the sense of zigzag stripes and diamond shapes composed of the small flower buds and leaf shapes I created. I will probably combine these motifs with curved or angled abstract stripes, and linear textures to increase the feeling of empowerment and energy for the active wear market.

I first drew the flower bud and leaf shapes in pen and ink. Then I manipulated scans of my drawings with Kaleidomatic by Stuffmatic to generate ideas for different arrangements and combinations of the smaller shapes.

Then I redrew the motifs I liked best in Adobe Illustrator as vector shapes. This allowed me to compose most of the motifs by reflecting and rotating copies of the vector shapes. I also composed the mood board in Adobe Illustrator.

I have some very different flower and leaf motifs for the other trends I found and hope to get them organized to post tomorrow.  It was such a great treat to take time out to spend with the flowers and leaves in my gardens working on my sketchbook.

©2016 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

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Pattern Design on the iPad

Tags

app, camera, design, ipad, iphone, Kaleidomatic, kaleidoscope, pattern, repeat, tile

This design only needed a small amount of editing in Photoshop to create a final version I was please with. Most of the design was create through experimentation with Kaleidoscope apps on my ipad.

While playing with the app Kaleidoscope Camera by Binary Noise Ltd. on my iPad, I discovered that the play of daylight and shadow on the dimensional fabric of my solid colored peach comforter and dark red pillows created interesting shapes.

I played with many different compositions, saving those I liked to my iPad camera roll. Next I opened them with the app Kaleidomatic by Stuffmatic and played with them in more complex compositions. You can find instructions for using this app at Kaleidomatic.com. The following are instructions for how I used it.

Open Kaleidomatic and touch the button in the lower left corner to open a design saved on your camera roll. These designs were first created using the app Kaleidoscope Camera with my iPad’s camera.

Touch two fingers to the screen then move and twist them to change the pattern. Pinching will zoom out. Spreading your fingers apart will zoom in.

If you touch with two fingers and first hold them steady on the screen before moving them, a box will appear showing the placement of the kaleidoscope piece in relationship to your photo. The box will stay visible as you move your two fingers around to change the pattern, but will disappear when you lift them off the screen.

Sometimes I find I want to see what’s happening in the box. Other times I just start playing without it.

Change the shape and arrangement of the reflections with the scroll wheel at the bottom of the screen. Shown here are “Grapefruit” and “Meadow”.

When you are ready to save a design, touch the arrow in the lower right corner to go to the save settings.

Select to save as a tile, and change the color scheme if desired.

“Plain” keeps the colors unchanged. I liked how this design looked “Burned” so I saved once as “Plain” to keep the original colors, and once as “Burned”.

Touch the lower right corner button to go to the final save screen.

Turn “High Quality” on. Press the green button to save to your iPad camera roll. A progress bar will appear across the top of the screen. When complete, the app turns back to the kaleidoscope design screen.

Here’s the final saved tile from the design above. The saved tiles I’ve tested in straight repeat with Photoshop and on Spoonflower appear to be very accurate.

Since I don’t have to spend time perfecting the repeat, I have more time to make edits for design aesthetics. I use Photoshop for editing, then test the revised tile again in repeat until I’m pleased with the design.

©2016 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

 

Read more about using apps for pattern design in these posts:

Kaleidos Pic app by Fluocode

Kooleido app for iPhone

Echo I

Tags

diamond, grain, pattern, repeat, symmetry, wood

Lines converge to evoke shapes and dimension. The first in a series of designs with bilateral and radial symmetry using mirrored patterns of lines and neutral colors.

Lilacs and Bitty Bugs

Tags

bugs, floral, lilac, pattern, purple, tiny, twigs

This design is inspired by the tiny twigs and florets of my Spring lilacs, where I imagine purple bitty bugs hiding among the tufts of lilac florets.

This pattern will be available on Spoonflower soon.

Jazz Trio

Tags

design, floral, orange, pattern, purple, repeat, spoonflower

A trio of abstract shapes, reminiscent of flower forms, appear to spin and pulsate to a sparkling jazz melody.

 

The Nutcracker

the Mouse King

To create artwork for my Nutcracker Sketches fabric design, I first had to learn more about the story then began to select which scenes I wanted to include.

Dance of the Snowflakes

I selected color schemes and a light on dark value strategy to suggest both the mood and night time scenes of the story, and the impression of stage lighting for the ballet performance.

the Sugar Plum Fairy dances with her Cavalier

I used the hard and soft chalk pastel brushes in Corel Painter for the artwork.

the Marzipan Dance

I worked towards keeping an emphasis on gesture in my illustrations and a minimum of strokes to not overwork them and maintain a sketch-like quality.

Marie and her Prince fly away back home from the Land of the Sweets

I created each illustration separately using a shared palette in Corel Painter. I then used Adobe Photoshop to assemble them all together into the final design.

Land of the Sweets vignettes ~ Act 2

During assembly, I uploaded my design to Spoonflower and used their pattern tile repeat tool to test the basic layout and decide what type of repeat I would use before working on the transitions between the separate illustrations.

unable to sleep after the party, Marie gets up at midnight to care for the broken Nutcracker toy ~ Act 1

Marie’s Nutcracker comes to life and fights the Mouse King ~ Act 1

I used some soft and dry brushes in Photoshop and some layer masks to refine some of the transitions in the final design, and in some instances went back to Corel Painter to refine some details in the figures.

my fabric design in half-brick repeat

In the final printed fabric, the figures range in size from 1″ for the seated figures in the sleigh to 4.25″ for the Mouse King. The design printed nicely on silky polyester faille from Spoonflower. Now I can’t wait to sew something up with the fabric.

©2014 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

Plum and Ivory

Tags

creative, design, ideas, ipad, ivory, kaleidoscope, mandala, pattern, photography, purple, repeat, spiral, surface design

Ideas for patterns in repeat created with the Kaleidoscope Camera app by Binary Noise Ltd on my iPad.

click to view larger images

©Alice Frenz 2014