Pattern Play

“Call Me Fish”

I am enrolled in Shannon McNab’s - Sketch Design Repeat - “Pitch Your Portfolio” course. It’s excellent! During COVID lockdown when my Creative Director hours were scaled back I threw myself in fine-tuning. my pattern-making skills. I have well over 100 patterns and i have a list of over thirty-five themes I could explore just from art I have already made or sketches I’ve already created in my sketchbooks! It was all just sitting there, not making me any money. This course is set to change that for me. Seriously, check out the class, it is so chock-full of helpful, real, action-orientated content!

A little something about this pattern. My name before i got married was Jane Fisher Moore. My Dad nicknamed me “FIsh” - a shortened version of my middle name and for the fact that I was quite the swimmer when I was young. I’ve always been drawn to the image of fish and had lots of fun creating this pattern!

I am currently seeking licensing opportunities for my boat-load of patterns! Many of which are listed on Spoonflower.

Momma Moore's Apple Pie

This month’s theme for #PortfolioClub was to illustrate instructions or a recipe for something.

I chose to illustrate my late-mother’s recipe for her apple pie.

I used her very recognizable (to those who knew her) handwriting and included items she collected and loved: Noah’s arks, porcelain, Staffordshire dogs, sheep…

#PortfolioClub

Hello there!

Wow! It’s been a minute since I updated here! I have been focusing quite a bit on my emerging abstract work and setting up the new website. Please take a look and let me know what you think!

I have decided to give my (public) illustration life some love and have joined the #portfolioclub challenge. Illustrators from all around the world get a theme challenge on the first of the month and are to post their interpretation on the last day of the month. We can make it what we want.

cover art from Noel Daniel’s book “The Circus 1870’s - 1950’s”

This month, the theme was “Circus”. I have been enamored with the imagery of the vintage circus for years. Not a big fan of the traditional circus practices but the imagery can be inspiring. I wanted to do something that did not celebrate the values of the traditional circus so I chose a twist: The Forest Floor Circus. Would love to see an author come up with a fabulous story to go with these illustrations!

I’ve been practicing my pattern-making skills so decided to add a pattern to coordinate with the theme.

Next, to update this website - stay tuned!

Cocoa Beach

My husband and I just returned to Massachusetts after visiting my in-laws in Cocoa Beach, Fl for five days. I brought along my sketchbook and some art supplies. I managed to create ten new little studies. I was so inspired by the plant life and pallette I found there. The sun-soaked beach they live on was especially inspiring!

Summer Studio

I have moved into a studio space for the summer to explore painting abstracts in a focused and larger format. It’s a dream come true! Surrounded by wooded pathways that lead to beaver ponds and rushing brooks. Inspiration waits for me every day!

“Vernal”

Please follow my Instagram account for abstract work https://www.instagram.com/jane.m.houghton/

Abstract Thoughts

I am taking advantage of the 100 Days Project and going in a direction I have always wanted to try in a more public way: abstracts.

Please follow a new arm of my Instagram life to see the whole series: https://www.instagram.com/jane.m.houghton/

Folio Focus

I joined Rise, Design and Shine’s Folio Focus group recently. I wasn’t sure if or how it would dove-tail with the Fifty Figures project I’ve been chipping away on. I have been using it to push some ideas around with the intention of finding my digital voice. So, the results have been mixed and sometimes rushed. I have turned a corner with Illustrator and it’s all I want to do at the moment.

Theme: Boho Bugs

Theme: Celestial spirit

Theme: Hobby House

Theme: Barnyard characters on a growth chart

The Snail and the Rose Tree

I took the first Make Art That Sells - A course five years ago. One of the assignments was to make the cover art for Hans Christian Anderson's tale, 'The Snail and the Rose Tree'. Children's book illustration had been my focus since college so I figured I had this one in the bag. However, I was terribly frustrated and didn't even hand in an image that week. I was so disappointed in myself. I think I was doing a lot of comparing myself to the other student's work back then. Many were using Photoshop or Illustrator or both to make beautiful, flat, graphically stunning work and I had no idea how to use the Adobe products ... yet! Now I have embraced my style, learned Ps and Ai although I don't exclusively use them, and found my own voice. So, I went back to that assignment and redid it. I'm not sure this works as cover art but I had much more fun this time!