Christmas Gerbera's & an addition to "How to Design Fabric"

I painted a lot for Christmas.  One painting was one I particularly wanted to keep for myself, as I love gerbera daisies.  Any kind of daisy really..  but the colors that gerberas grow in.. it makes painting them especially fun.

Can I take a quick second to write a note concerning fabric design?  I'm not sure if it is because I have my "How do you Design fabric" link on the sidebar..  (I wrote this to address this FAQ, but it seems to be getting worse rather than better..)

I get about 4 emails a day from people requesting info on how to become a fabric designer.  I'm so sorry, but these emails have to go unanswered.  I feel like a wench letting contacts flow away without a response, really I do.  But there are a few reasons I can't answer these.

1) It would take a LOT of time to teach you how "I" design fabric.

2) The way "I" design isn't standard.  Every designer I know has a different process.

3)  It isn't something that can be taught through email.

4)  Even if it was something that could be taught through email, I really can't take that time (see #1) to teach to you basically become.. my competition.

Several of my fellow designers are dear, dear friends.  But honestly, we are each others competition.  Sarah and I frequently talk design, and design methods etc etc..  show each other what we are working on.  One day , in the middle of one of these design phone call chats, I said to her..  "you know we are really helping each other but we're actually competition right?"  And she gasped and said something like, "NO, we're not!!"  And then we laughed, and agreed that, yes - we are.  But we don't care and it doesn't get in the way of our friendship.. but..  there you are.  Things are what they are.

5)  I really have no say in who becomes a Michael Miller designer..  I'm just a licensed designer who loves working with the company.  I'm not the creative director for the company..  (This really could be number ONE.. but "time" won out in the end.)

Hopefully this doesn't come off as snarky or rude.. if I could help make everyones wishes and dreams come true with the wave of a wand, I really would.  But I can't, and am still working to make my own happen.

My best advice to you if you are considering design, do your research.  Don't worry about the money you will make (If you want to get into it for the money, do something else..)  Don't spend time researching the best equipment for the job..  just start drawing.  That's how it happened for me.  Don't worry about digitizing and repeat and color and theory and mills and contracts..  Just pick up that pencil.  The rest will just come into place if it is meant to be.

xo

Sandi

Comments

[Heather]

Your painting is beautiful and Gerbera's are such happy flowers. I think your reasons make a lot of sense and I hope that everyone else does too! I think I've read about a book that talks about fabric design on amazon.com. Maybe the people that are interested need to check in to it.

[Sandi Henderson]

Thanks Heather!

Do you know the name of the book so people looking can find it?

xo
Sandi

[Erin Waters]

This may not be the book that Heather is referring to, but there is a relatively new book out titled "A Field Guide to Fabric Design" by Kimberly Kight (True Up blog). It seems favor pretty well in book reviews I have seen. For me personally, I have no interest in fabric design...just love what you all keep coming up with for me to use (just call me lazy).

[Sherri Gauthier]

Hi Sandi...daisies are my fav too...had them for my wedding. Your painting is so delicate...does that sound odd? It really is a wonderful thing!
I beleive your words were really well spoken...or written as the case may be...hopefully your honesty will reduce your inbox overload on the subject. I did a quick search for "fabric design" on Amazon and got a lot of hits. Here is the link for those who are interested.
God bless,
Sherri

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/187-4894029-9681267?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=+design+book&x=0&y=0#/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=fabric+design&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Afabric+design

[Mark]

Love the word "snarky"!

[terriaw]

What a beautiful painting! I love how you rendered gerbera daisies. They are one of my favorites too, well, any variety of daisy. I wish we could grow them here in the upper midwest as a perennial but our winter climate would be too harsh. Always have to add them to our gardens as an annual.

I commend you for addressing all those questions you get on your fabric design career. I find it strange that people send you emails asking how to design fabric. I would never dream of emailing a famous author to ask them how to write a book, or a musician on how to play guitar. I think you are an amazing artist and I admire your work. I am a graphic design and illustration student, learning how to be an artist in my own way. So thank you for sharing your art with us in so many wonderful ways! You are an inspiration to me.

[Sandi Henderson]

Ha! My best friend and I used it all through high school. Its actually one of my favorite words. :)

Sandi

Sent from my iPad

[Mark]

I am going to ask you to please stop playing whatever deluded games you have decided to play with me. I don't understand why, all of a sudden you commenced harassing me, but again, please stop.

[Sandi]

Mark.. Eh? ??

[Karen]

Love your daises and strawberries. Beautiful, wish I had an ounce of your talent!!! I can't trace a Stick man:) So I make up for it by buying beautiful fabric.

[Becci]

I was just coming on to post this link also:

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Art-Fabric-Printing-Design/dp/1452101159/ref=sr_1_1?s=booksie=UTF8qid=1330128669sr=1-1

I haven't read it before but I read your blog post earlier today then I saw this book pinned just now and thought I would come by and put it here :)

[digital voice recorder olympus]

Daisies and strawberries = LOVE!

[K.D.]

Hi Sandi,
I loved your post. I loved the honesty and directness of it. And frankly your advice (to draw) really hit home after the rest of the post. So, thank you, from someone who's not a competitor but dreams to be.
Sincerely,
K.D.

[Monica Lee]

I love a girl who is honest. You don't sound snarky, you sound busy and real. It's ok to be real!

[Khristian A. Howell]

Well said!

[Lea]

Thanks for the info you put into FAQ. You are right, everyone has to follow their own path, if it's meant to be into designing. I am happy you are doing what you love, love what you do, and make beautiful art!

[Yhessy]

Hello,I also wanted to say GREAT JOB with this plug-in. I eekchcd out several login/register plug-ins and I like this one the best. However, I am having a similar problem with email verification. I submitted a couple practice entries and the email verification is not being received through practice accounts. It seemed to work with a squirrel mail account, but not a yahoo account. I submitted it several times with the same results.What am I doing wrong? Please help.Thank you,KimS

[Adidas JS Panda Bear]

Thanks for the info you put into FAQ. You are right, everyone has to follow their own path, if it's meant to be into designing. I am happy you are doing what you love, love what you do, and make beautiful art!

[Gifts to Pakistan]

Dasies are my favorite, your painting is really nice
but it can be better.

[Anoop]

Yes, you are absolutely right major of our elncits are small business owners. Hiring a full time SEO firm is bit expensive hence Local SEO Services are best for small business owners.

[Thekuin]

July 2nd 2011. We have searched and found BMSB eggs, sintar 1 s and a very small amount of sintar 2 s on our zucchini, squash, pumpkins. Have not found any on corn, tomatoes, sring beans or cucumbers. We have a 5 meter trap crap perimeter around the entire garden 3 rings of sunflowers and one ring of pumpkins, Internal size of garden is .5 acre. BMSB have already breached the trap crops as obvious from above.I think we needed to plant sunflowers earlier along with pumpkins.We are actively searching, cutting and place affected plant material in insecticival soap.

[Linda]

Danke bezfcglich Dieser blog, Thema hat mich wkcilirh Sehr viel Aufgehangen. Grace in Diese Se4ule habe ich Wahnsinnig wkcilirh gelernt Neue Sachen die ich Ich kannte nicht.

[Amir]

I'm on WP 3.1.1 Multisite.The error is showing up in Dashboard for sites which had this pilgun already activated, including those sites with some content within the widget, and also a site that it was activated but had no content yet added.Deactivating and reactivating did not help.When I activated it on an existing site that had not yet had this pilgun activated, it does not show the message so maybe it is something left over in the options table?I seem to be able to edit old post widgets content, I click into them and save edits, and have had no problem in the past. I can also create new post widgets. Existing sites seem to be rendering properly using the widgets. As far as I can tell everything is still working, just getting the error msg.Hope this helps. I'll get more info to you as I try additional things.I'm using this pilgun more and more all the time and find it very useful.Thanks!~Jeff 0

[Nisha]

SiteSubscribe: That sounds like a WP-bug of some sort. Shouldn't be cbeause of the plugin I don't think.Harry: At the moment this plugin only works with the custom post type. Not sure why the social media/share buttons shows though. Which plugin is it and I could have a look at it?Anna: Try the beta 3 of version 1.0.0. That version has a search function. But it sounds like a bug that only 10 latests posts shows. So I will fix that and I think it's time for a 1.0.0 version after that. 0