keeping the creativity real

Ever get yourself in a rut creatively? Or worse of all, having the bug to make and create, but feeling like a deer caught in the creative headlights, trying to decide what you want to make and what purpose would it serve and how would you do it and so on and so forth. Myself, I really like pattern design. Patterns for paper and fabric, colors and repeating design motifs, I'm completely into it. This started out when I took a textile class in art school and designed and printed silkscreened patterns on fabric. I've managed to sneak in some pattern design occasionally in my graphic design day job. A few years ago I was both desperately wanting to work on some pattern designs and immediately tripping myself up wondering what their purpose would be, could I make a living as a pattern designer, would that suck all the joy out of it? So I got nowhere having this love-hate realationship with my creative passion. It seemed so fun and so overwhelming all at the same time.

In order to break myself out of the endless cycle of creative dispair, I decided to give myself a bite-sized project. I figured that I could make a simple design, carve it out of linoleum, blockprint it and have cards to give away for Christmas. A manageable idea with a end goal - perfect! Making block printed cards is great fun, especially mixing the colors and jumping up and down on the block to get a good print. I make about a hundred of the design and give them away to friends and family. Here are photos of the first two designs.





This week's goal is to finalize this year's design. I've got a few ideas and its time to sketch...