making cushions!

So this week is vacation week! YAY

I have spent the best part of this week hanging out with my sister and my daughter Rosie or helping my mom in her new place (I will post photos!)

My sister is also redecorating and that gave me the idea of making her some custom throw pillow covers.

Here is the process:

I started with blank IKEA Gurli pillow covers...  At 4.99 a pop, it is certainly worth not making them myself (i.e never get it done...)

These are my scribbled sketches!

I cut up a piece of foam with a plastic liner used for installing laminate flooring and placed it inside the pillow to avoid bleeding through to the other side.

I also taped the edges to get a clean look.  I used regular latex paint and some tri-art acrylic paint for the red.

These are the looks so far.  This was super fun to do and quick, all done during Rosie's nap time!!

xox Manuela

Birds

I have been busy painting birds this week!  Maybe it's because of summer, but I've had it in my head since before my two week vacation to paint me some cardinals. I worked on the first cardinal painting and ended up making the second a blue jay painting.  I find these paintings very 'textile'...  What can I say??  My hand is my hand, and I trust its movements.

Blue birds by Manuela Jarry
36x36
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas

Cardinals by Manuela Jarry
36x36
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas

Au revoir!

Marriott Hotel art

We have been working on a new hospitality project at Ren-Wil..  Some grand art for the Marriott Hotel lobby.  I was asked to create a digital rendering of a multi-level piece with specific colors :

These SICO colors were my reference

I created this digital rendering:

The digital mockup

And when all was approved, I got the okay to start working on the actual piece, which measures over 6.5 feet wide and 4 feet tall!  It was a fun project, an idea I will probably use for another piece soon.  A smaller, vertical version would be awesome I think!

The finished product!!

I gotta say, I have a pretty sweet job!  Now I'll be waiting for an invitation to the opening party or something!  I deserve at least a free mojito for this!! ;)


cheers

Sweet S6 and a free shipping promo

My Society6 shop opened officially on June 16th, 2013 and so far I have had over 20 prints selected for the Society6 store, and 8 sales and counting...  Okay, okay, I made like 20$, but considering I am a NEWB at this, I think it's not bad at all!  I love that I can just upload anything, no need to make it a repeat pattern or anything, like on Spoonflower.  Not that I mind, it's just that creating without boundaries is more liberating!!

A selection of my work from Society6

My most popular designs have been the aqua bird silhouettes and the midsummer pattern in MINT, which is one of my personal faves ;)  I ordered the 'natural graffitti' pillow for my house, as well as the aqua birds...  Can't wait to get them and check out the quality, packaging, colours...etc.

 'Natural Graffiti' pillow on Society6 by MAJA Studio

There is a new promotion for Free Shipping until JULY 14th, 2013.  You must click on this link in order to redeem it: http://society6.com/MAJAstudio?promo=32d77f

Happy shopping :)

a midsummer night's dream

 Sometimes I find creating with no boundaries to be very difficult...  Which is why having weekly design challenges on Spoonflower is a great idea!  I am sure many designers find the direction and restrictions actually quite pleasing to work in.  Last week's Challenge was a design based on Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (which I read in high school, btw!  ... well it was mandatory!) Not only was there a theme, but this week there was also a restricted palette imposed on all designs:

I was like...  Easy shmeezy!!  But as I started working on it, I found the colors to be difficult to proportion correctly.  Anyway, this is what I ended up with, using all the four colors, plus white:

Midsummer flowers by MAJA Studio

Overall pretty satisfied, and I was pleasantly surprised by how many people took the time to comment and favorite my piece!!  What a great community Spoonflower is!  The other entries are quite impressive...  I think voting ends tomorrow, and the next round theme is CITRUS.  I'll post soon about how my citrus design adventure has ended  :o  Turns out citrus was a fun starting point, but ended up totally elsewhere!

FREE SHIPPING worldwide!

Society6 is having free shipping worldwide through Sunday, June 30th!  Time to take advantage of awesome pieces by independent designers :)

www.society6.com/majastudio

Society6

All this surface design has inevitably led to me spending countless hours online searching for places to share and mingle with other designers.  I have been busy uploading work onto my new Society6 shop.  To me, there is nothing more exciting than seeing something I made on a product or in somebody's home.  I like STUFF, which I think is a good thing when you create for consumers!

Anyway, I was pretty happy to see a sale after just 2 days of my store opening!  How exciting!  Hopefully more will come...  I know this is a brand new venture for me, and I need to be making MORE and MORE designs if I want a chance to make it in the business, but I feel like this is for me.  

CHEERS to a new adventure!

new concepts

I'm developing new concepts in the style of Moroccan textiles and patterns... some working concepts so far:

Are these not succulent?

Working on an art presentation for a client: SUCCULENTS!  So much fun and summery :)  Now if only the weather would follow... :(

Quick digital sketches using photoshop.

v o t e s !

Well the time has come to vote!  I am seeing for the first time my collection printed on actual fabric.  While I must say I am very pleased with the colour, I am not so sure about the scale of my patterns...  I wish I had scaled down the design of the bottom-middle design, I feel that everything is a bit large for this kind of close-up photography.  I imagined my designs on upholstered pieces more than on quilts, thus the scale, but for the purpose of this contest, I wish I had forseen they way they would be presented...  Alas, what is done is done! Who knows... I might be pleasantly surprised by winning!  One can dream... ;)

Vote here

My collection Fabric8 Genius

the eight final collections

Congratulations to the seven other designers, your collections are looking gooooood!