One of the Spoonflower Design Challenges last year was "Pop Art Citrus".  I created a repeat pattern that I called "Orange Blossom Pop" featuring groups of oranges with orange blossoms and leaves on a polka dot background.  The original background was a shade of royal blue.  I didn't really love it so I went back and made some adjustments and, as always, tried a few different colourways.  One of those was the green background shown above.  I really liked the bold motif so I took away the other elements to create a piece of wall art.  Get the art print in my Redbubble shop and see the design on lots of other products here.

The challenge over at Spoonflower this week is to create a design featuring a composition of paper cut-outs to be displayed on table napkins. 

Instead of creating a brand new design I decided to tweak the teacup design that I created for the Chintz challenge back in November last year where I digitally cut chintzy patterned swatches with a teacup punch.  To adapt it for the current brief I removed the foliage from the background and reverted to a solid pattern on the teacups instead of the white heart cut-outs seen in the original design.  I also decided to go with a light blue background because I liked how it looked on the napkins.

Head over to Spoonflower to vote! Voting closes on 7th April at 3pm EST.

The latest Spoonflower Design Challenge is Faux Textured Wallpaper.  The brief was to "create a repeating design that you can’t help but touch".  I had lots of ideas for this, but not necessarily the time or the skill to make them happen.  In hindsight I should have saved my Mirror Ball design that I used for the Roller Rink Nostalgia challenge for this challenge.  But I didn't, so I had to come up with something else.  

I really like my collection of designs inspired by Spanish Tiles.  Originally in teal and white, I have tried one or two coloured variations of the Entwined design.  A while ago, while learning how to use mask layers in my graphics program, I played around with using textures with that design, so I decided to revisit those experiments for this challenge.

I was originally going to go with a blue and gold colour scheme, featuring blue glitter and gold foil.

But I wasn't completely feeling it, so in the end I opted for this pink and gold version.

The textures that I used here are glitter and gold foil. Did I make the right choice for my challenge entry?  Voting is open until 3pm EST / 8pm GMT on 17th March, so if you like what you see, please vote for me.

This design was created for the Spoonflower design challenge - Roller Rink Nostalgia.  When I thought of the brief I immediately thought roller ball, so that's what I attempted to re-create and I think that I did a pretty decent job!

I think that it would look amazing on a shiny fabric, like satin and it works really well with home decor and accessory items.

Mirror Ball is available on a variety of products (including the above) in my Redbubble shop and as fabric in my Spoonflower shop.

The theme of this week's Spoonflower Design Challenge is Chintz.  Chintz is originally from India featuring repeating, colourful motifs printed on cotton.  It gained popularity in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries where it featured first in home decor (wallpaper, furniture and hangings etc.) , but eventually it began to be used on clothing.  It became so popular that European countries banned importing it fearing that it would destabilise their local textile industries. 

Over time Chintz has been used to describe a particular type of floral fabric - think Laura Ashley.  It fell out of fashion in the early twentieth century, but is now seeing something of a revival.  If you're interested in learning more there are some interesting articles on the V&A Museum blog. 

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If you like the design please vote at Spoonflower. Voting closes Tuesday 12th Nov at 8pm GMT (3pm EST). 

In addition to the purple, I also used light blue, tan and pale yellow backgrounds.  All four variations are available in my Redbubble shop and will be coming soon to Spoonflower.

I had an idea for a Skillshare class about creating a "recipe" for mixed media art that would enable beginners to get great results more easily.  I decided to try out my recipe digitally and it was while I was doing that, that I came up with my new art peice "Golden Raindancer".  I knew that I wanted to depict a dancer and maybe some sort of rain.  The original work was far too busy and I didn't like where it was heading so I decided to take the dancer and place it on a much simpler background.  I love the combination of red and black and gold.  "Golden Raindancer" is now available in my Society6 and Redbubble shops.