MATS BOOTCAMP MAIN ASSIGNMENT - PART 1

Monday saw the arrival of our main assignment for Bootcamp in our inboxes and the brief is to design journals. This gave me the perfect opportunity to concentrate on completing another piece for my website homepage: flowers in vases for the journal cover. I wanted to design a vase for my flowers with a Springtime theme to complement the magnolias.

We’re lucky enough where I live in Devon to occasionally spot little yellowhammer birds darting around. They seem to be shy little birds and so often it’s just a glimpse of their yellow underbelly, but they’re quite unmistakable. I find them absolutely captivating and get really excited every time I glimpse one! Sadly though, they’re on the endangered ‘red’ list here in the UK as their numbers have been declining rapidly in recent years. So, I decided a yellowhammer it was to grace my vase which obviously had to have a vintage feel to it!

It’s actually got me thinking that I might quite like to get into the ceramics room and hand-paint some porcelain, because I’d rather like this vase to grace my own home! The Blue is a deep ultramarine, another colour I have tended to use little of in the past and have fallen quite in love with!

I also had a play in photoshop with my original magnolia design and spurred on by a dear friend, created a repeat pattern.

Next, I will be concentrating on putting this image onto a journal cover and creating some hand-lettering for it, so off to work I go… but I’m nearly there, you never know I might actually have this one ready to submit early, which will be an absolute FIRST for Mats Bootcamp!

Magnolias & Yellowhammer watercolour painting in Handpainted Vase by Susie Batsford
Magnolias Hand painted Watercolour Painting Repeat Pattern by Susie Batsford

Repeat Pattern in Blue & White

It's been 3 days since the snow came to Devon, the first snow in 5 whole years and our first ever 'Red' weather warning. Everything really came to a standstill, the UK isn't equipped to deal with these weather conditions. All the local schools closed, much to the children's delight and we now have igloos and snowmen scattered around the garden. In the meantime, I have taken the opportunity to stay warm and concentrate on learning about seamless repeat patterns in photoshop. I've taken some of the icons from my vase of flowers to make this repeat pattern to be used as wrapping paper with my Mothers Day card for Folio Focus. It's taken forever to learn, but I have finally achieved what a year ago, seemed like the impossible!

Delft.Blue.Repeat.jpg