From Paintbrush to Digital

A long, long time ago, I came to New York to follow my dream of becoming a fabric designer. I loved art school, and after I graduated, loved working in the fabric business. We did everything by hand: the designs, the repeats, the colorways. It was magical when we could have designs reduced or enlarged on a copy machine, and even more amazing when the color copier helped save time.

This was one of the first repeating designs I ever made and screen printed; it was the spark that got me interested in a career in the fabric business.

I loved selecting designs, traveling to the mills and seeing thousands of yards of fabric rolling off the print machinery, watching as each color rolled through the screen and onto the cloth.

The years went on, and I had a family and didn't want to travel any more. I shifted into doing layout design, and later, writing. I never stopped loving art, and kept painting and designing in my free time. Fortunately, I learned to use QuarkXpress and Photoshop in my work as a layout designer, so I wasn't in the dark digitally. I explored Photoshop on my lunch break and created patterns that I printed and used in my artwork.

I also discovered stamps, stencils, geliplates, and mixed media. I made a lot of art quilts, and through a SAQA project (Studio Art Quilt Association), had work in shows and began designing my own line of fabrics. I printed my favorites at Spoonflower. It was really rewarding to see my designs go from paint and paper to actual fabric. I had some sales, but mostly it was just for the joy of creating. 

This art quilt, Eye of Panic, was in the Sacred Threads show as well a magazine, book, and newspaper article.

Along the way, I joined some creative teams, started blogging, joined Instagram, and started teaching local mixed media classes. 

In 2020, was fortunate to have StencilGirl begin producing my designs. Still, my heart was in fabrics. I used my Spoonflower fabric for art quilts, journal pages, collages, dolls, and journal covers.

My third collection of stencils, with samples of designs I created using each one

Meanwhile, the fabric business changed--companies went offshore and went digital. When I thought about re-entering the fabric design world, I discovered that I had a lot of catching up to do.

Surface designs made with hand drawn doodles that were colored and manipulated in Illustrator.

So, I took a couple courses in digital design with Adobe Illustrator. It's an amazing and powerful program. Maybe some day I'll master it. For now, I am puttering and seeing what I can do. Some things are super fast, like producing a repeat (once you have the design technically correct of course.) Trying new colorways is as fast as spinning a wheel. Some days I want to cry and break my computer. But some days I'm amazed at what I can create digitally.

The black and white shapes were scanned, translated in Illustrator, and used to create floral patterns.