Pattern Jots: July 2014

Jul 31, 2014

What I am up to during the summer...

After two lovely weeks in Germany seeing family and enjoying some summer fun I am back in Switzerland where we had tons of rain...they actually say it has been the wettest July since weather recording...I believe that. My poor tomatoes are still mainly green.

The bootcamp by Lilla Rogers and Beth Kempton has ended this month and it is kind of sad...no more monthly assignments - it was so much fun.

I did not finish the last assignment on time due to summer break but I started working on it.

The topic was beverages...and since I always wanted to paint some cups I thought I can combine this now. So I pulled out my very old water colours I have not used in many, many years due to all the excitement with modern technology and have been painting very slowly. I very much enjoyed the process and happily painted my way. The next challenge was bringing the paintings into the computer...but with a little help here and there I figured it out.

Here you can see my small collection "Tea Time"...I am still working on an illustration.

copyright©Pattern Jots by Maike Thoma 2014

With all the rain I had a lot of tea during the last few days but today the sun came through and I was able to switch to lemon juice.

Happy Thursday !

Jul 14, 2014

Happy Summer Time

It is Monday already and I feel terrible that for the first time I did not have a blog post ready on time ( last Thursday ). But with kid's summer holidays started and lovely house guests visiting it just did not happen.

Today I want to wish all my lovely readers a very Happy Summer Time with lots of sunshine, time to relax and having fun.

But I also want to share some beautiful, patterned gifts I received from our lovely visitors who stayed with us over the weekend.

New origami paper - we had a fun night making origami together.

I received my first Kokeshi doll...remember my post about Kokeshi dolls back in May ? When I started drawing Kokeshis I decided I want to start a collection...just did not know when this would happen since there is nothing like Kokeshi dolls in Switzerland.

And besides my Kokeshi doll I am absolutely in love with, I received these little patterned chopstick rests.

Kokeshi doll and chopstick rests.

Since our friends came via Amsterdam I asked them to grab me the latest Flow magazine not knowing it is a special edition this month and there is this beautiful paper book coming with the magazine - I am so lucky !

Flow magazine with bonus paper book.

Due to kid's summer holidays I have to skip two weeks of blogging and will be back July 31st.

Happy Monday !

Jul 2, 2014

Floral Experiment

I am really loving my hydrangeas on my balcony and it seems those are the plants I am doing good with - in general I do not have a green thumb.

Hydrangea

I planted new ones this year but they are not very pretty yet but the one I planted two years ago is looking amazing this summer. In the evening I took my camera out and made some random shots of the hydrangea plant and uploaded them onto my computer and started playing with it.

Oh the possibilities are endless and it is so much fun...so far I only made patterns out of the photos but I can not wait to mix them with my drawings...

Later today I will head out and take some more photos...hope to find some peonies.

Happy Thursday !