May Instagram Fave - Hülya Özdemir

When I find an Instagram page where I can’t stop scrolling I feel I need to share! One painting after the other made me stop and smile.

Hülya Özdemir is a Turkish artist from Istanbul who creates incredibly colorful and full of pattern watercolor paintings. The whimsical and beautiful women she portrays have vivid personalities that are full of life. I love her mix of contrasting textures within each piece. The individuality of their expressions, color and various flora and fauna that surround them, gives them vibrant life.

You can see more here.

I am super inspired! Gotta go get my paints out.

© Hülya Özdemir

© Hülya Özdemir

All images in this post are © Hülya Özdemir

© Hülya Özdemir

© Hülya Özdemir

© Hülya Özdemir

© Hülya Özdemir

© Hülya Özdemir

© Hülya Özdemir

June Instagram Fave - LIVINGPATTERN

Wow! I love to see how people are influenced by nature and this feed by Jenny Kiker is full of lush botanicals along with the sketches and paintings they inspire. She is a botanical artist who started Living Pattern "to connect herself and her audience to the still delicateness of nature and to themselves." I feel like I'm breathing fresher air just looking at these!

Sonoma

Had a great time in Sonoma last week housesitting for a friend. I took lots of walks and was surrounded by plenty of inspiration. My favorite part of the trip was being able to sit poolside with my paints and a glass of Rosé. It was very rejuvenating and a hard place to leave! 

Print & Pattern Blog Feature

I have a such hard time with self promotion—egad, it really is never easy to toot your own horn. But I have found that it is essential to know how to present and exert yourself in this industry. Self promotion is not a bad thing. It's about getting your name out there, showing what you can do and how you can be of service to others. I have submitted my work to numerous outlets in the hopes of expanding awareness of my brand and voice. It's a lot of work getting people to know who you are and what you can do. I'm making all of this work that I'm completely passionate about and I don't want to hide it away. I want to share it with the world! 

It's a wonderful feeling when you get little breakthroughs and today was a great one for me. I was thrilled to find out that I was featured on the Print & Pattern Blog. I appreciate any exposure and am happy to be amongst other creative people who share a common love for prints and patterns. Click image below to see the full article and all designs featured.

Cheers to all you creative folks out there. Keep doing what you do and please make sure to share it with the rest of us! 

In the Studio Sunday

I've decided to post a design at the end of every week. I create many designs over the course of a week, but this will help me to showcase my work regularly, because I'm pretty bad at that!

I often start on motifs and then set them aside to create a pattern later on. It's a trial and error thing until I hit on a layout that makes me feel content. I don't think I'm ever completely satisfied because the possibilities for a design are just endless. I design in a very loose style, so I tend to go back again and again and tweak colors or positioning until I force myself to stop. Does this happen to you too? Below is a design that I went round and round on but feel somewhat satisfied with now. What do you think?

To see a glimpse of the painting of the motif, see post from Sept 3rd. I started with a watercolor design and scanned it so I could manipulate it in Photoshop. I did a lot of playing with color shifts and layout—but we'll get to those details another time. :)

Colorful Concepting and Live Music to Boot!

It's been rather foggy this week and I always seem to gravitate to brights the grayer the sky is. I've been using one of my favorite mediums, Dr. PH Martin radiant concentrated water colors. They are so vibrant and saturated and thoroughly satisfying.

I included a short video of a bit of my work in progress. The music you hear (way off in the background) is actually my upstairs neighbor. She happens to be an accomplished jazz singer and her piano is directly above my studio. I got to enjoy some fabulous vocal rehearsals the other day which were the perfect accompaniment  to my dabbling.