March 2024
Hello, my dear friend,
During my walk with Luther this morning, I noticed that the Magnolia petals have almost all fallen. Every year, I marvel at how short the season of these flowers is. Like all good things in life, I guess. Most years, I don’t fully enjoy the short Magnolia season as they are gone before I realise it! But this year, I was ready! I’m lucky to be able to admire a lot of these trees in my neighborhood. Even my next-door neighbor has one! I visited a nearby park with several of these trees and sketched away one weekend. I did many little studies for a pattern, and here is the result:
Magnolias on sage background
This pattern is available on textiles through my Spoonflower shop and on a variety of products through my Redbubble shop.
I also painted another pattern with Magnolias and Finches.
I like both the clean lines of vector and the spontaneous ones of brushes. Which one do you prefer? You can also find the Magnolia and Finch through Spoonflower and Redbubble.
Magnolia and finch
Early on in the month, when it was colder and darker, I made an enchanted forest pattern for which I couldn’t decide on a colour scheme. Do you have a favourite?
Here are the links to Spoonflower and Redbubble.
More patterns coming up!
The one below is inspired by Matisse’s cut papers.
Blue Dancers
Available via Spoonflower and Redbubble.
For a design challenge on Spoonflower, I made a pattern featuring desserts! Cakes and pies and ice cream!
Sweet treats
You can find it through Spoonflower and Redbubble.
This next pattern with seagulls was featured on the home page of Redbubble in March! You can also find it through Spoonflower.
Seagulls under the sun
And to stay in the summer theme, I illustrated a poster of a beach lady.
Available via Redbubble.
Coming up next, a peak in my work at the art academy. While my illustration work is mostly digital, at the academy I work exclusively in traditional media. Following are some acrylic paintings inspired by James Ensor and a little teapot. Mostly works-in-progress, I haven’t decided yet.
And through it all, I also try to keep a regular sketchbook practice. It doesn’t work out as I’d like it quite yet, but I’m getting there!
Below are some sketches from the park. It was colder than I had anticipated and my fingers started feeling numb. The ducks and chicken were moving more than the magnolias (can you imagine?) so I had to capture them in a more gestural way.
There is also a landscape with a tree, inspired by Van Gogh’s brush strokes for clouds (I wish we had clouds like that too). My drawing is with coloured pencils. The last sketch is of a garden of potted plants somewhere in Japan. Inspired by a photo taken by Ringo Gomez-Jorge for De Standaard Magazine.
To close, here is the cover illustration for this March, available via Redbubble.
Till next month!
Ema
Find all my patterns and illustrations below:
Drawing is not about what you see as much as what you can make others see.
I am an artist and illustrator who believes in the power of images to make people happy. I’m most known for my colorful cards and patterns depicting people, flowers, and animals, in a sensitive and feminine style using flat simplified shapes.
I live in Beersel, Belgium, and I like to go on long walks with my little dog, Luther.
