Design-A-Day SpoonChallenge: Day 5

Today's #SFDesignADay is pen and ink! Lucie Duclos (known as Snowflower in theSpoonflower Marketplace) will show you all you need to know to delve into this rewarding design process. Be sure to follow along on the blog and in your inbox until March 15 as we feature a new Design-A-Day technique, presented to you by members of our talented community of designers! Lucie: Pen and ink drawing is a line based method of creating images. Subtle variations in style and line quality can range from whimsical and clever illustrations to super realistic drawings. There is an endless amount of pen and ink techniques, but I prefer the basic black and white line drawings because you can create strong graphics with a clean, modern look. And you can always add color at the end and still keep the black outline for definition! Lucie: Let’s start by picking a theme, let’s say “leaves” for example. First, I like to gather items for inspiration. Go outside and collect leaves, then look for images on the internet or anything you can find around you. Usually, my final drawings look nothing like the images or items I gathered, but it’s a good way to get me started and it always sparks other ideas. Lucie: Start drawing as many kinds of leaves as you can imagine, play with scale, texture and shape. I like to use Marvy Uchida Le Pen Technical Drawing Pen in 0.5 mm and draw on a white smooth bristol or tracing paper. At the doodle stage, just let it flow and try not to overthink it. Lucie: Scan everything and clean up the drawings in Photoshop. At this stage, you can tweak and change part of your drawings until you’re happy with them. Lucie: The final step is bringing the file from Photoshop into Illustrator, do an image trace, separate all elements and pick the best ones to create your repeat to upload to Spoonflower. You can do it all in Photoshop if you want, I just prefer to work in Illustrator. Have fun! Inspired? We want to see what you create! Be sure to tag your designs influenced by today's SpoonChallenge technique with #SFDesignADay on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!

The design I made for the pen and ink prompt was actually inspired by yesterday's block printing. The floral pattern that I made with pen and ink yesterday turned out better than the carved stamp, and I enjoyed using the same process today. The final sketch started with an outline in pen that was then completely filled in with a brush pen. I took it over to my computer for a little cleaning and coloring, and then I put the finished flower in a seamless repeat.

preliminary drawing of the leaf

the blossom

the final sketch

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