I’ve been asked a lot of questions about my photography and here’s the scoop. All of the photos on my blog are shot with my iPhone. I often use an app called CameraBag that recreates the magic of film without all the chemicals needed to manually use and develop film. There aren’t any settings or choices for each filter, you just decide which vintage camera you’d like to use, some of my favourites are the instant camera (that I used for this Polaroid of vintage graffiti), as well as the Lomo (in action in these over-saturated photos) and Holga (that I used to put a dark and moody edge on some of my summer photography). But sometimes I don’t use any additional software at all. Just raw iPhone photography, iPhoneography.

Tulips at night

Last night I thought this bunch of tulips might wilt before I got round to taking some photos of it, so I took a few pictures with the camera in my iPhone, although it was almost midnight and the camera doesn’t have a flash. Tulips are an early sign of spring for me, even if you have to buy them at the store because the ground is still deep with snow and it’ll be months before they blossom here! I find these tulips so inspiring, but with all the excitement over Apple’s new iPad and the administration and economy that I handle at the end of each month I’m way too busy to do much more than capture them on film.

Blurred tulips

I really like the rough quality that the low-quality camera of a mobile device can bring out! And the immediacy. There’s something very appealing to me in this blurred photo of tulips. Perhaps it’s the almost painterly quality… Normally I wouldn’t post this photo, but seeing as I’m talking about photography, and some of the unexpected beauty of the imperfections of lo-fi photography, I did.

I absolutely refuse to spend time in Photoshop editing photos. If I’m going to be creating using my computer as a tool, I’d prefer to work on my own art. There’s something endlessly satisfying about the simplicity of lo-fi photography, trusting the moment, seeing what happens. Finding moments of serendipity. It’s a liberating contrast to the sometimes laborious methods involved in designing icons and the endless and complicated options and settings available in the tools of my trade, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

I first got an iPhone because I was designing icons for the platform and I needed to see what they actually looked like in their own environment. At the time, I’d never guessed what a huge inspiration the iPhone turned out to be for me! A digital playground and a canvas to experiment with and to capture ideas with the built in camera, notes and voice memos. It’s become the place where my creative process often begins. But my favourite source of creativity on my iPhone is finger painting with Brushes! More about that another day!

Tags: apps, CameraBag, creative process, ease, imperfection, iPhone, iPhoneography, lo-fi, Photography, serendipity, simplicity, software, technology

It’s like someone powdered the trees with icing sugar. Or dipped them in a bag of sugar. Or poured a bag of flour over the landscape. Or something like that… And it’s breathtakingly beautiful!

Turkish Angora

My main focus for January is to create my first design for fabrics based on the Full Cold Moon. I’m so enthusiastic about the whole project and I’ve got such a terrific feeling about it! I’d got the fabric samples and colour chart just before Christmas and only need to transfer the design to a curtain format and adjust the colours so they work for printing on textile before I can have the first sample printed. I don’t know about “only”, but still, I’m so close to being there, and so I was very surprised to find resistance within me! What am I afraid of? The technical process that I need to learn? Getting the curtain dimensions wrong? Is it about putting this project out in the world? Is it about completion and what to do next? About the possibility of failure? Or success? I don’t know. All I know is that these ultra cute cats emerged, at this very time of the process.

They’re terribly cute, kawaii, as sweet as sugar, and really not what I consider “my style”! And yet here they are. I thought about it. Then I decided to just let them come. They’re fun and playful and perhaps they appear with ease because I have no big dreams or strong emotions attached to them?! So I’ve been making more friends for the first cat. A family. A collection of cat breeds. They could be a collection of icons or they could be a set of prints or illustrations in a children’s book. Cute as a Button. That’s it, that can be the name for this cute crew!

I’ve been spending more time offline, unplugged. Batching my internet activities three times a week. It’s bliss. Now if I only got round to sorting out my mailbox too!

And I’m looking for a good recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon for my birthday dinner. I’ll be serving it either with potato puree or Potatoes Boulangères and a green salad. Not sure what the desert or starter will be yet. I’m thinking of trying Delia Smith’s recipe for Boeuf Bourguignon but I’m interested to hear if anyone has any other recommendations?

Tags: art, cat, cooking, creative process, cute, Cute as a Button, design, ease, fabric, focus, Photography, snow, textile, trees, winter

Bombay

During the weekend, this cute little character appeared out of nowhere.

It’s funny how things can happen unexpectedly! When I look at the illustration I can see how it’s inspired by kawaii and characters in Japanese packaging design, but at the time I had quite different plans for my weekend and this cat seemed to appear of his own accord.

Birman

I started making a few friends for him, but I can’t think of a good name for the series yet. Does anyone have any ideas?

I thought these cats might make nice prints and later on this week I’ll do some testing to see how they come out on paper.

Well, now I think it’s time to curl up with a book and a cup of hot chocolate to wind down from all the excitement these cute cats brought me!

Tags: cat, character, creative process, cute, Cute as a Button, illustration, Japan, kawaii

It’s been a fortnight since I started the Creative Minutes Project, where I’ve been trying to find ways to have fun growing my creative projects organically, each day, in small bite sized chunks of time and I’ve documented the process here on my blog.

So how has it worked out?

Well, sometimes I’ve cheated. Especially when I worked on the watercolour studies of trees, that lead to the image “Blue Branches”. I spent a lot longer than 15 minutes on these studies, but each time I started working on them, I thought to myself that “I only need to put in quarter of an hour”, and perhaps that got me going long enough to get absorbed and into a state of flow…

It’s been a joy for me to document my creative process and to show it to my visitors. I feel that the creative work I do, even in small blocks of time, was made visible through this project, and it was empowering to see that even when time was short, I had indeed been developing my creative ideas.

I also felt it was very rewarding to prioritise my personal creativity in this way. No, cooking or playing with children or picking a fabric for a sofa did not count although I think all these things are creative activities.

Turning this project into something I blogged about, rather than simply doing on my own, did have an influence on the outcome. On one hand, blogging about it took time too, to add to the actual Creative Minutes. On the other hand, it made me accountable, and helped me stay on track. And it made me feel less shy about showing my unfinished work to the world, the creative process.

It’s been fun to share this process here on my blog, but I think that if I continued blogging about it daily, I would risk that it turning into being “for show and not for blow” so I’m thinking of continuing my Creative Minutes in an offline journal in the future, just to keep for myself. Actually, perhaps I’ll blog about it again, but not on a permanent basis.

My blogging activities are winding down now and I’ll be focusing on completing work that needs to be finished before the holidays, redecorating the studio, migrating to brand new iMacs as well as sending a winter holiday letter to members of Club Marmalade Moon, releasing two winter wonderland wallpapers, and preparing for Christmas. I can’t wait to start the New Year making something with the pattern that emerged in The Full Cold Moon! Wait, did I say something about slowing down?

Tags: Club Marmalade Moon, Creative Minutes, creative process, Creativity

The creative process of The Full Cold Moon

Here you can get a peek into the creative process of The Full Cold Moon.

How it started off with the basic composition with bare trees and a full moon. How I added snow and then a bird that got too detailed to fit in with the rest of the image. How I gave the bird flat colours so it would fit in with its surroundings, although I still miss the bird in all its glory!

Tags: birds, creative process, full moon, snow, winter