This is Eric
And this is Julie. While you wait for me to put together a tutorial for the hexagon coaster, let's tell you how Honky Tonk came to be.
One day I was working at my computer and I got an email from Cheryl at Moda Fabrics. It said, "Now that you and Eric are offical Texans, I have a request..." Then she asked if we would be interested in designing a fun, hip and trendy western line with guitars, boots, etc. Of course I said, "Yes!" Then I said to Eric, "Hey can you draw me some western stuff." (Are you sensing a pattern here?)
For this line, I didn't really start with any pencil sketches. I drew the beginning art direcly in Illustrator. After a while, I had this file to send over to Julie. It all started with Cheryl's mention of Guitars. In fact, I got so hooked on the guitar thing that I even started creating patterns with them... something I usually leave to Julie.
When I got the file, the first thing I noticed was that the colors were really similar to TV Dinner. That's when we had the idea to make the two lines match. The color palettes are the same, except I replaced the pink in TV Dinner with the warm greys in Honky Tonk.
People ask us all the time how we come up with our color palettes and when I tell them I often get an exhasperated look because they feel I've been no help. We just make up the colors as we go along. I like to create these little color squares to the side of my working document so I can see all the colors together in one place. Then I import them into my color library in Illustrator. I continue to add them or change them as necessary to make the line work.
I do the same thing, but I don't hold myself to the palette the way Julie does. This tends to drive her crazy because I'll have 50 something colors that are all slight variations. I hear rants from her all the time about using the wrong blue or needing to be consistent, but hey this is art... all the colors in the world are available for it, right!?!?
Yes, but customers like things to match!
You can see from my master document that Honky Tonk came together easily. How can you tell? Well there is very little mess left on the sides. This is an extremely tidy file for me!
That's because I gave it to you so perfectly!
Something you might notice about Honky Tonk is a different rhythm to the patterning. Because our primary focus was designing it for fabric, rather than paper, the patterns were created a little bit differently. Can you sense it?
Julie created the stamps using some of my drawings and some of her own designs, but she couldn't get them all to fit in the matrix. This is really unusual. Julie is like a master organizer of suitcases, closets and shapes within matrices (think stickers, chipboard, stamps, etc.). She sent me the file to decide which stamps to take out to make it all fit. To her surprise, I rearranged them and got them all on there. You can thank me later.
This is true. Did you know that my high school aptitude test results indicated I would be a great car mechanic or mover because I am good at working with shapes and folding up flat boxes in my mind? Funny, designer/artist was not mentioned as a possible career choice.
So Julie, do you have anything else to add?
Just one more thing Eric. I really love how you drew the mustache for the canvas brads.
Why, thank you.
You're welcome. Did you know that if you flip it upside down, it doubles as a bikini top?
I'm a man, what can I say. All thoughts lead back to....
