Cozy cloudy day
Made for comforters and cats
And hot chocolate.
Art Prescription: Not how I spent my day…well maybe the comforter and cat bit for a while. Went for a morning swim, worked on my Open Studio post card, and then Finn had a chiropractor appointment.
8 1/2 x 11 watercolor
October garden
Lantana and cosmos brave
The onset of chill
Art Prescription: My cheerful garden is still so pretty. The butterflies and hummers have left, sigh… We all begin our shift more inward.
Watercolor 6 x 9
So you guys know that last week I went on a tour of Spoonflower with my art buddies. Here are a few highlights of our tour.
Spoonflower (from their about page):
“Spoonflower was founded in May 2008 by two Internet geeks, Gart Davis and Stephen Fraser, whose creative wives asked why there wasn’t anywhere to design custom fabric for their home décor. The first company of its kind, Spoonflower was launched in Durham, N.C., on that dream of empowering the individual to create on-demand, custom-designed textiles.
Eight years later, the Spoonflower community has grown to over 3.5 million individuals who use their own designs and our Marketplace to make curtains, quilts, clothes, bags, furniture, dolls, pillows, framed artwork, costumes, banners and much, much more. Spoonflower’s digital print process uses eco-friendly, water-based pigment inks and dyes which produce very little waste. And with over 350,000 designs (plus more added every day), the Spoonflower Marketplace is the largest collection of independent designers in the world.”
We began our tour in the lobby surrounded by samples of fabric, wallpaper, and gift wrap. We were greeted by Meredith Feingold, our tour guide, and she told us how the founders of Spoonflower started the company and how far it has come.
Spoonflower offers an array of fabric. When you place a custom order you can select the type of fabric your design will be printed on. The lobby boasts a wall of these samples.
Through the door to the right is the Greenhouse, their on-site teaching studio. I’d like to spend some time in this room!!
Now on to the working bits of the factory. This is where the magic happens via huge printers and skilled workers paying close attention to color and quality control.
From the print room the fabric is then cut and sorted for shipping.
If the fabric is found to have a flaw nothing is wasted as Spoonflower has a community outreach program.
We ended our tour checking out the newest addition to the company, Sprout Patterns and the Roostery. Go see what that is all about on Spoonflower’s site! http://www.spoonflower.com/welcome
I left the tour with ideas and inspiration and hope I will be sharing some new products here on the Art Prescription.
Hope you enjoyed following along with me!
Number two pencil
A notebook ready to fill
With observation.
Art Prescription: Thank you Jane, https://www.facebook.com/jane.eckenrode, for a lovely class today at the North Carolina Botanical Garden on keeping a nature journal. My regular blog readers know I’m a total bird geek, and learning how to observe and draw birds in their natural habitat is a skill I aspire to.
I’m excited to go out into the field, or to my back-yard feeder, and practice.
Art journal with #2 pencil:
See your reflection?
Who does it remind you of?
Are you becoming?
Art Prescription: People say as we get older we become more like our parents…GASP! My hope is that we become more like the good our parents taught us. And that we are able to grow into our authentic skin seeking the positive in each and every day. We have this one precious life…seek the glass half full!
Watercolor 8 1/2 x 11
Can the rose define
Flowers, well if anyone
She can say it all.
Art Prescription: I adore everything about roses…their smell, their soft, velvet petals, their slight attitude with thorns…and the simple fact that a bunch of roses says love.
8 x 8 watercolor
Each whole day offers
An opportunity to
Strive for true balance.
Art Prescription: Despite his very own water bucket being full of fresh water, Max the barn cat chooses to balance precariously to drink from the horse trough.
He knows balance is involved in knowing what you want, asking for what you need.
Well done Max!
Watercolor sketch:
Dream big and start small
Follow your inspiration
Share it with the world.
Art Prescription: That is just what the founders of Spoonflower did! My art friends and I took a tour of their facility today and it was very inspirational. Stay tuned for a little write up of our tour, as soon as I can get my head out of the day-dreaming clouds…
Organization
Having your ducks in a row
Know where you’re going?
Art Prescription: I know where I’m going tomorrow!! I’m going for a tour of Spoonflower! And I will be covering my adventure here at the Art Prescription, so stay tuned!! Yip!
Not birds entirely
In contrast with things that sing
The mind and the wind.
Art Prescription: Sometimes the mind and the wind whip around without direction, a force not to be tamed, but acknowledged.
Abstract watercolor:
art prescription 