Making: Ceramic Mobiles

I had this idea yonks ago to make some mobiles, using hand painted porcelain pieces strung from wood with linen string. Like most ideas I have, it sat at the back of my brain and perpetually near the bottom of my ever growing to-do list. But the other week I finally had some time to play around with making the pieces, and it was super fun - I made some different shapes and used colours I don't usually use. 

Then after the usual waiting, waiting, waiting for ceramics (for the clay to dry, then to sand it, paint it, then get it to a kiln and fire it and refire it!) the pieces were finally finished and ready to go last week, so I got to bring them to life. And I'm kind of in love and now I can't wait to make some more. The first batch are in the shop, I hope you like 'em too. 

Hand Painted Pillowcase

I've been working on lots of new ideas lately, but was getting frustrated with having nothing to show for it. What I needed was a quick crafty project that produced a real-life thing that day, not next week or next month. So I dug up a blank pillowcase from the pile I've got in my studio, pulled out all my favourite custom-mixed screenprinting inks and painted directly onto the pillowcase and here's what I came up with. It's kind of full-on in terms of pattern/colour craziness but was so so fun and took no time at all. And I kind of like the fact that some of the ink colours bled a bit at the edges, to give a gradient of colour. 

Happy Monday to you.

Pattern February

UM, HAPPY 2017. Glad we've got that over and done with, especially as it's mid-February already. 

My year has gone way too quickly but has been pretty great - it's summer, I've been swimming in pools and the bay and the ocean and eating lots of amazing fruit - two of my favourite summer things.

Last week, five days into February, I decided to set myself a challenge of spending an hour each weekday in Feb working on new patterns. IE: the one thing I really want to do but never seem to have time for. I'm so used to thinking about pattern and design in terms of screens and colour separations (for screenprinting) but for this project I've set no limitations. GO NUTS! The aim is to just create, starting on paper and then digitising. So far I've used tools I haven't used before or haven't used in a while - thick Sharpie pens, potato stamps, new paint brushes with India ink and a range of black felt pens I got in Japan. Here is a selection of what I've come up with.

Happy Tuesday!

Flowers © Spin Spin | Susan Fitzgerald

Melbourne © Spin Spin | Susan Fitzgerald

Nature © Spin Spin | Susan Fitzgerald

Fish © Spin Spin | Susan Fitzgerald

Staples © Spin Spin | Susan Fitzgerald

More watercolour patterns

Here are some watercolour patterns I painted yesterday and today, when I realised I had a full blank pad of watercolour paper that I'd forgotten I'd bought. I've been quite into making freeform watercolour doodles lately - it's fun and therapeutic and relaxing. And because I'm so colour restricted with screen printing and with ceramics, I've gone a bit nuts on colour overload. Who needs a colouring in book? 

Happy Friday.

Patterns: Watercolours (& fabric packs)

Because screenprinting requires a different separation for each colour, I tend to think about design/patterns in a certain way. As I'm also a massive fan of minimal colour palettes (two or three colours maximum), this has been just fine. But lately I've had a hankering for a change, so the other day I bought a set of watercolours. Here are a few patterns I've been playing around with (ie: me going colour crazy).

On a different note, I've just posted a couple of fabric packs in my Etsy shop. Snap them up while you can...