First week at Lilla Rogers School

Yay! I survived the first week of Make Art That Sells class by Lilla Rogers! This class is intense (especially for a person who has a full time job), but in a very good way. I have over 400 classmates, and most of them are professional working artists. That alone is amazing, because I learn so much just by seeing what other people do toward the same brief, and everyone is just so unbelievably supportive, helpful, and warm toward each other. If the remaining 9 weeks of the course is like the first week, then I am sure we are all going to grow beyond our imagination. I will try my best to record my thoughts and share what I did for the class along the process.

For the first week, Lilla covered the bolt fabric market. Every Monday we are given a little exercise to do, and on Wednesday we will be given a real assignment which we have until Sunday afternoon to complete and submit our final piece. Our mini exercise for this week was this:



Yes, we were to draw mushrooms and vintage casserole dishes, and I probably doodled more than 150 little sketches, mushrooms and casserole dishes combined. Drawing from real life can be challenging, but what I learned from this process is that by the time I hit the 50th mushroom, my hand started to loosen up a bit and the style started to come out.



On Wednesday, we were given the actual assignment - to design two different retro kitchen themed fabric patterns. We were also encouraged to design a few coordinated patterns to go with the main ones. I did two pretty different patterns using elements I doodled during Monday and Tuesday. It's fun to see how two designs can look so different from each other using similar elements. Here is a more detailed shot of my first pattern, which is a grid and it's made up with both hand-drawn doodles and vector images:



And the repeated pattern with its coordinated designs:


Here is the detail of my second pattern, using only hand-drawn icons:



And the full pattern in repeat, with its coordinated designs:
 

Do you like them? Do you prefer one over the other?

Here are some of my thoughts along the way, not just about the class, but about the creative process in general:
1. Draw, draw, and draw more! There is no shortcut to good design. You have to draw a lot.
2. Experiment. Push yourself and work outside of your comfort zone.
3. Nothing gets wasted, even if you end up using only one element out of 100 sketches. All the hard work you put in will become part of you.
4. Stay positive. Negativity hurts your spirit and hinders the creativity.
5. Surround yourself with supportive people. And don't be stingy with your encouragement toward other people.
6. And, if you have knowledge to share, share it!

That's it for this week. Hope you are all enjoying a nice weekend. Stay creative! :)