Daily Pattern : So Hot

The first time I went to L.A. was miserable. I went on a work trip as an accessories buyer when I was in college. I roomed with a woman twice my age with loud sleeping habits and an early bedtime. I remember running around crappy districts, digging through boxes to buy cheap, bulk underwear and plastic jewelry. When I decided to visit again a couple years ago, I decided to go with a fresh mindset. This time, we had no major agenda, one tradeshow to go to, and the rest of a couple days to visit friends, eat great food and wander the streets of Beverly Hills. That trip was a solid about-face from the last, leaving me with a magical feeling. There was maybe even a little bit of crying on the way home, too. L.A. - you're so damn cool.



p.s. Say hi to all of my friends from MCAD when you visit! L.A. seems to collect Minneapolis transplants like crazy.

Daily Pattern: The Red Cyclone!

Who's more muscular than the RED CYCLONE himself, Street Fighter's Zangief?! No one! Also, who's got weirder armpit hair?



No one!

Daily Pattern : Thugs

Some nights we leave the studio really late. Being in an urban area is pretty awesome most nights because there are usually people out and about. Every now and again we'll pass through the back alley to get to our car and I always am in alert mode - looking for hidden thugs. Always good to be prepared (paranoid). Thugs are much stronger than I am. I am pretty sure they have, like, 20x the muscles I have.

EDIT: I just came back and looked at this. What the crap did I just draw! What is this!?

Daily Pattern: Muscle Inspired

I went to a furniture trade show in NYC earlier this year, and it was one of the most inspiring shows I've ever seen. I made a lot of sketches afterwords; the designs and shapes I saw were incredible and it made a lot of sense to record some of them. One thing that was a regular trend throughout much of the design was a sort of homage to organic. Not organic as in leaves and trees and things like that, but organic on a microscopic level. There was something really comforting about the duller colors and the rounded, "blobby" shapes.
I thought of a few ideas for the "muscle" topic, but I've been wanting to do some straight-up pattern design for Daily Pattern for awhile now, so here's some of that, inspired by muscles.

Daily pattern : Instagram

One of the best things about reading everyone's tweets is seeing their cute Instagram photos! I love that app! Chris just got it the other day and has been taking some cute pictures! Mostly of food and pets. (Some of my favorite things!)

Daily Pattern: Internet Café

Once upon a time, internet cafés had computers, since many people (myself included) didn't have them or the internet. Some people had dial-up, which was worse than not having internet. Nowadays, I'm back to not having internet, and normally I will post my pattern from my favorite coffee houses, so this is an homage to those places.

Daily Pattern: Internet Dating

The internet can be a skeevy place. Trust me, I've been there since the beginning. Here's to all the lonely hearts trying to find the perfect match (or an epic booty call) online!



Boi-oi-oing!

Daily Pattern: Sad Ghosts

These sad, bored ghosts are clinging to their graves, hoping a visitor will come. But here's the cliché, horror movie twist: no one's coming! Ever!



Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to stand in the corner and cry softly.

Daily Pattern: Mountainside

My other, semi-seasonal pattern is winter-y. Winter looks a lot better from this side of the year, after slogging through days and days of too-hot weather.

Daily Pattern: Spooky Story

It finally feels like fall, and I'm finally in the mood to make some seasonal art. We do a lot of that kind of stuff for work, naturally–everybody likes a holiday! My latest two patterns are for the holidays. This one is kind of Halloween-y. While I was working on it I sort of made up a story as I went.

Daily Pattern : Something Wicked...

It's late. Very late. Over the past couple days I've been spending my late night watching creepy documentaries about all sorts of terrifying things. Solitary confinement, drug wars, blood diamonds, prehistoric sea monsters... all late at night, right before bed time. "Haunted" was our topic for today and I am knocking on wood that I can keep the nightmares at bay while I continue my documentary spree. Here's a creepy one for you:

Daily Pattern: Winter Knit

“This is my interpretation of an Atari-inspired knitting pattern since winter means bundling up in fun sweaters, scarves, hats, and mittens, oh my! Plus I like knitting. And Atari.”

-Vân

Daily Pattern : Feels like Fall

I went to yoga tonight for the third time this week. The audio system was broken so we all practiced in silence. It was thrilling and the whole time I was thinking about peaceful things. One of the things that came into my mind was a forest in the fall. My pattern is all about the silence I imagined in that forest.

Daily Pattern: Mountain Trees

I wasted some time by starting this pattern on the wrong foot. It was too tight and clean, I knew I had to loosen up. Once I threw everyone away and started from scratch, I had a total blast.



Trees, winter, snow, rocks? Yes please.

Found: Creatures

Hello there and welcome to my first little column (of more to come) about 'Found' patterns and illustrators who utilise patterns in their work! This week I chose to feature who draw creature patterns!
 
First up is Helen Dardik, a freelance illustrator based in Canada. You can check out her work on her Website and her blog .
Helen has a beautiful and colourful illustration style with a flat graphic feel to her work, and it's wonderfully stylised! She doesn't only work in patterns but she has an entire section devoted to her pattern works on her website!
Next up is Tim Biskup, a California based illustrator. You can view his work on his Website or his Blog.
Tim also has a great style to his illustration work, somewhat similar to Dardik's rounded style and another illustrator I love! His crazy monster designs are wonderful!



For the last creature feature ( see what I did there ;P ) I've chosen an artist a little closer to home for me! Ben Newman is an illustrator from the UK, based in Bristol which is where I studied for my illustration degree! In fact he was a guest lecturer at my uni once a week, so I got to chat with him a few times about my work which was great!
You can view his work on his website or his Blog.
Ben has a wonderful illustration style using repeating geometric shapes and in an aesthetic style reminiscent of 50s print illustrations. You can buy prints of his work on his website but the last image is of a repeating totem pattern tape that you can buy at Betty & Dupree.






That's all for this week but stay tuned for more illustrator features :)
 
As a fun extra - we're adding the option for anyone to participate in doing an additional daily pattern based on this collection's topic! Daily pattern contributors - if you are interested, the "Creatures" topic is open for contributions! We'll post them anytime between now and the next post. Good luck and see you next time!
  
-Fran

News : Exotic Animals : Art Show

Hey! Here's some great news! Taisha Bosher (our awesome intern) has curated an amazing art show with the work of 9 fantastic artists, including herself!) The show goes up tomorrow at the Uptown Tea Garden in Minneapolis, Minnesota and will be up through October!

This show features a variety of artists and mediums. You'll see some great stuff including pen and ink, digital, painting and even an all felt sculpture! The show will be full of all sorts of animal themed work - ready for you to take a peek at.

There will be an official opening Thursday September Eighth from 7 - 9pm. Come to meet the artists, see all sorts of exotic animals and enjoy a bite to eat!
Can't wait to see you there!

Daily Pattern: Hunter vs Hunted

Winter used to be my favorite season. It was my favorite season for a very long time, though recently I think autumn and spring are a little more exciting. (it's the anticipation of a new season that is thrilling rather than the season itself). Still, I really like winter–it schools summer any day. Good thing I live in a place where we have it six months out of the year.

Daily Pattern : Snowfall

Today we pulled the topic "winter". I can't say I love it, but there are times when I miss it. I was thinking about the good old Minnesota snow as I was working. Instead of drawing a pattern full of slushy garbage and cigarette butts (which is what shows up in front of the studio during the later days of winter), I did the cute side of the season. These little guys are obviously well taken care of - seems that someone has thrown seeds out for them on this cold winter day.

Daily Pattern: Snowflakes

It was tempting to do something somber and dark for winter, and I hope someone does. Because when I think of winter I think of night. But my practical side got the better of me. After all, I can't even begin to tell you how many snowflake patterns I've made in my life. Everyone always needs snowflake patterns. It's a fact of life like Death and Taxes.

So I decided to draw some simple snowflakes instead!

Daily Pattern: Strawberry Fields Forever

My second Beatles tribute pattern! I didn't choose this song for the Beatles so much as for the subject matter (I like early Beatles music a little more). I remember my dad singing this sometimes when I was little. We used to go strawberry picking every summer around the beginning of July.

Daily Pattern: Every Rose Has Its Thorn

Every Rose Has Its Thorn, by Poison, has always held a special place in my heart. My older sister Sarah introduced the song to me as a very young child, but it's become a staple for everyone in our house since.

I've known the lyrics since before I can remember and it's a go-to song at karaoke (hater's gonna hate). I always sing it with more feeling than it probably deserves.

Daily Pattern : Livin' After Midnight

The first time I heard this song was about 20 years after it was made. There are so many things I find awesome about this song. These days it seems like a fitting anthem for my lifestyle (well, the Midnight part, I guess...). Rock out, my night owls. I'll be there with you in spirit.



Thought you might also enjoy seeing the song my pattern is inspired by. Time to go live it up! I've got about 15 minutes til Midnight - gotta get ready!

Livin' After Midnight -by Judas Priest

Daily Pattern: Yesterday's Pizza

Yesterday's cold pizza = Instant Breakfast!
Fran

Daily Pattern : Muffins Galore

We got a massive amount of zucchini in our CSA basket over the last two weeks and I've been racking my brain trying to figure out if I had the time to make something edible with them. I'm all for grilling vegetables, but I figured I'd do something a little more... sweet. I made nearly 40 muffins last night out of the zucchinis I had - and even added a little carrot and apple into them. It was a fun experiment and, wow, they are good! The only downside is that I'll be eating these muffins for breakfast, lunch and dinner until they're gone! (I made a muffin pattern today in tribute! These are blueberry, but tasty nonetheless.)

Daily Pattern: Tart Breakfast

Half a grapefruit for breakfast! Genius! It's nature's bowl coupled with nature's candy.



Well, it's a tart candy.

Daily Pattern: Balanced Breakfast

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I don't always have it, which may correlate with my fondness for it; a day where you can afford the time to sit down and eat something hot in the morning is a good day.

Daily Pattern: Tools of the Trade

I'm not a huge fan of talking on the phone but they are an important tool for the job.

I'm not sure why I colored this old-timey colors. I guess maybe it just shows how I feel about my own crusty phone.



Apologies for being a few days late. I'm playing catch-up again after having my computer in the shop (Again. I fell and smashed it in January and I've been slowly replacing parts since. But this time seems to have done the trick!) so expect another late one soon!

Daily Pattern: T'was Brillig

Daily Pattern: Hand gun

Art supplies are probably the best hand tools there are, unless there's a zombie invasion. It hurts me to say this, but we'd probably have to put down our pencils and Wacom styluses for a second and equip with something a little more suited for taking down the undead.

Daily Pattern : Duh, who turned the lights out?

Anyone remember Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade game? Donatello was the best character to use since he had the magical bo staff - totally awesome since it had the longest reach. When you're tearing down the streets of Manhattan looking for the foot clan, you have to make sure you take note of any open man-holes. Also - keep looking out for a random pizza box lying around that you should DEFINITELY grab and feast upon it's contents.

Collaboration with Ten Paces : Grease!

Chris Hajny and I contributed to Alyssa Nassner's Ten Paces and Draw Blog this week! The theme was "Grease". (Yes!)

I can't count how many times Chris and I have watched that Movie. I know Alyssa's probably seen it just about a trillion times. It's a classic. Everything about it - the dancing, the music, the hair... it's perfect. Those of you that don't know how it works - You sign up for a topic, draw a sketch, hand it off - then receive another fantastic artist's sketch for you to complete! Though they aren't patterns, I thought It'd be fun to show them off! Click through to see everyone's contributions!


Sketch by Alyssa Nassner, Final by Lindsay Nohl

Click through for Lindsay's Sketch, done by Emma Maatman.

... And here for Chris's Sketch done by Katie Turner.

... And here for Alyssa's final piece, originally sketched by Katie Turner.

One more - Chris Hajny's final illustration of Paul Windle's Sketch!

There are a lot more awesome illustrations on her blog from the other contributors, too!

Also - Ten Paces is hosting a sketch-a-thon around the theme "1980s". It sounds like a ton of fun! Thanks for the chance to contribute, Alyssa! Super fun, as always.

Daily Pattern: Pencil

Here's yesterday's super quick and simple pattern from my lunch break at work!
The humble pencil!
-Fran

Daily Pattern : Tools of the Trade

I've been teaching at MCAD for eight years and I've taught a class called Tools of the Trade every year since I started. It's a class where students learn how to play with and learn different techniques in all sorts of traditional-art media. I love creating artwork with all sorts of tools, and this year will be my first year handing it off to another teacher (my good friend Adam Hoppus - Good luck, Adam!). I'm sad to give it up, but I've signed on to teach a different crazy awesome class, Digital Illustration (for which I have an undying love for). So, farewell Tools of the Trade. When school starts again in two weeks, I'll be thinking of you!

Studio : Dramatic Vegetables

Wow - after a couple weeks of traveling, it felt so good to pick up our vegetables from the CSA again. We got a one-million pound bag of food today from Turnip Rock Farms. The sun was setting when we picked them up and snapped a quick picture to show you all of the goods. Taisha helped my carry them in and in the 5 minutes I was carrying the bag, I felt like I was getting a work out. (Not sure if that is awesome or sad?) It's going to be great trying to figure out how to eat all these!


Delicious!

Chicago Trip!

Paper Bicycle went to Chicago last month for the CHA Scrapbooking Show! Since this was my first time visiting, I'm going to regale you with all of the details of this fantastic trip!

Daily Pattern: Backyard Celebration

The joyous news mentioned in Chris's post reminded me of related celebrations, both here in Minneapolis and back in the Upper Peninsula. If we were going to have a celebration for a person (or people) there was definitely going to be some grilled food happening. Throw in some produce to make everybody feel a little better about chowing down on a whole bunch of red meat and you've got a bonafide party picnic.

Daily Pattern : Glitter on the floor

I love throwing a good party. In fact, I love throwing good DANCE parties. I love planning them, decorating, participating ... but I don't like cleaning up after them. I am in love with this pattern. It's so simple, but definitely reminds me of a the floor after a good celebration.

Daily Pattern: Balloons Away!

Today's topic is very timely! I just found out an old friend will be moving back to town, so there's reason to celebrate! If you need me I'll be outside blowing up a few hundred balloons!

Daily Pattern: Party Pup

“Today I decided to draw a pattern about two things without which a birthday is not a holiday. These are, of course, a cake with candles and gifts. I'm always glad for these on my birthday :).”

-Ira