Design a butterfly for World Lupus Day 2016

Well it's that time of year again, time to get out your butterfly designs or maybe create a new one just for the occasion. World Lupus Day is held every year on May 10th and for the last three years I have organised a Butterfly Showcase here on my blog and Pinterest to commemorate this occasion and build awareness towards the disease. My aim is to create a gallery of butterfly designs to mark the day so it will be colourful and joyful even if we are celebrating a life threatening disease like Lupus. I will be making a small donation to Lupus UK for every design published. Although it is not compulsory if you feel you want to make a small donation along with your design please send the funds through my PayPal account, dawnclarkson@libero.it. I will sum all the donations to my own (you will receive a personal receipt) and publish the final receipt from Lupus UK here on my blog.

© Jo Chorny #peaceofpaper

© Mary Pearson

Why the butterfly? Lupus, or SLE is a chronic condition where the immune system attacks the body and can cause a multitude of complaints. One of the many symptoms of Lupus can be a malar rash on the cheeks which has the form of a butterfly. Many organisations use the butterfly as a symbol in their logo. You can easily show your support and help increase Lupus awareness by joining in on my Butterflies for Lupus Showcase 2016. 

Harlequin UK

What you need to do.
You can participate by sending me a sketch, illustration, painting, pattern, paper or textile collage or basically anything that you have personally created using butterflies as a theme. There will be two different showcases, one for children up to 16 years old, and one for all the rest. The final artwork should be square if not it may need to be cropped.
Send me a 600 x 600 pixel jpg, 72dpi and rgb, of your final design.
Name your file, BFL_yourname.jpg (for example, BFL_dawnclarkson.jpg).  Children's drawings, BFL_child'sname_age.jpg (for example, BFL_dawn_10.jpg). Please do not give a title to your piece.
You will be allowed ONE link to a blog or website and the order of the showcase will be as I receive the files.

There will be a series of blog posts featuring the designs received. On May 10th I will launch a board on Pinterest which will include all the designs.
The deadline is Friday 6th May so I will have the weekend to prepare the images and promote the event.
Please send your designs to niceandfancy@libero.it

Quilt by Tula Pink. 2013

The butterfly designs you see here are taken from my Butterflies - Farfalle -  Papillon board on Pinterest, you may want to take a look and use the board for inspiration. Also it is possible to see all the designs from previous years on the following boards.

BFL-Adults and Designers 2015

BFL-Childrens 2015 

BFL-Adults and Designers 2014
BFL-Childrens 2014
BFL-All 2013  

Please feel free to promote the event on Facebook, Twitter etc... using hashtags #butterfliesforlupus #bfl2016 #mybfl and a link to this post. Help me make the day a great success, lets have fun, create some beautiful designs, and above all create awareness for Lupus sufferers worldwide.

Butterfly Airs 1977. Labels Bob Muller, Honey Dew Records.

Thanks.

Sneaky Peek - Birch wood veneer trays

Last week I spent some time photographing these beautiful trays which have my patterns on them. The trays will launch at the Hong Kong Houseware Fair on 20th - 23rd April 2015. 

Made using single sheets of Birch wood veneer (renewable forest and eco friendly!), they are also dishwasher safe, heat resistant and food contact safe. So as you can see they are an extremely high quality product and it gives me great satisfaction to have my designs on them. Please enjoy the preview I hope to be able to show you more soon.

How nice, how fancy!

A lady, who knows my weakness for anything nice and fancy, (even more so if it involves paper) brought this little beauty into the posh gift shop to show to me. It was sent to her from California and that's about all we know. 

This gorgeous little desk calendar stands up on it's own and every month a new flower appears in the jar to remind you of the date. Beautiful, the idea, the design and the execution! 

After a bit of research on the net, guess what I found. This 2015 desk calendar is designed and produced by Good Morning inc there is a whole load of interesting stuff on their website. Just how nice and fancy can you get? 

The 2014 Designer Calendar + Planners - October

Just as last year I have designed a 'piece' of MaJo's lovely freebie designer calendar. I along with many other of her designer friends were invited to participate and each create a different month for 2014. I am happy to announce that my design for October is already available for download HERE.
Luckily I was asked to create a weekly planner which could be printed up and then pinned directly on a wall or used as a desk planner. My design started out as an experiment with cut-outs and a bit of collage. I had no theme but just decided to enjoy myself. 

Although the original brief requested I be inspired by the Spring and Summer 2014 Pantone colour palette I found that the design also looked great in black and white. So this means two versions were created for downloading. You can decide to doodle and colour my black and white design with your own personal colour scheme, or just download the original coloured version. So get colouring, and get planning, now!

I liked the finished design so much that I also changed my header to match :)

No pattern, No party!

At this moment in time, due to a couple of unfortunate coincidences, my life has become a whirlwind, or as my mom says, like living in a washing machine and someone turned the cycle on to spin! Some things that are happening are enjoyable and others are a bit stressful, but all are things that I cannot control so I just have to sit them out. 

I would love to turn this trend around, however, the spin cycle may not ease off until Christmas and as usual the one thing that gets thrown by the wayside first is my pattern making! So no serious designing is going on at the moment, just a lot of doodling and jotting down of ideas, keeping things on the boil until I have more time to dedicate to patterns again. 

At first I thought 'No pattern, No party'... but I am now back to a bit of enjoyable cutting, sticking and doodling in front of the telly in the evenings, and it is not such a bad idea. This week I have been producing handcrafted envelopes known as 'Efuto' which I shall be posting off to some of my surface pattern friends. 

It is always enjoyable to create 'little' patterns and projects just to keep my creative juices flowing until better times. Here are a few close-ups of my designs without showing the whole of the envelope. I like them to be a surprise when they arrive in the post!

If you leave a comment after this post I will be drawing out one name to find a winner for an Efuto that needs a new owner! I hope to hear from you :)

An interesting article!

Today I have a fun post about an interesting article which I came across in an Italian magazine called Verde Facile. The article featured the Canadian Surface Pattern Designer Elizabeth Olwen. Some of you may remember that Elizabeth was a guest on my blog in one of the Dream Designs features, you can read my post from far away September 2012 here. 

Verde Facile has written a lovely feature and dedicated six pages to Elizabeth and her work. They had the idea to make some seed envelopes to cut out and keep so her patterns are in full evidence with a half page for each design.

The article is also well written and very inviting, so inviting in fact that I cut out a couple of envelopes myself and made them up! Elizabeth's patterns are described by Verde Facile as delicate and beautiful, and we can't argue with that!

Read news of Elizabeth's successes and licensing deals, catch up with her portfolio, and, find out where you can buy her fabulous designs at www.elizabetholwen.com

Welcome back Milvia

For those of you who follow my blog regularly you will have noticed that I mention Milvia from time to time. Milvia is an Italian painter and artist who enjoyed fame in the late 50’s and 60’s. Her illustrations and patterns were produced on fabric in Italy and in the U.S., even Liberty London became one of her clients. There was never enough written about Milvia when her career was at it’s height and this fact has created a certain illusive atmosphere about her being. This lack of information has also created curiosity and regard towards her work. For quite some time I didn’t know anything about Milvia’s real identity but I was attracted to her quirky illustrations, her talent, and her style. Basically I was a great fan of the illusive Milvia. 

Then about 8 months ago things changed, I was contacted by Milvia’s daughter. Just one meeting lead to the creation of the Milvia project. I have been working with Milvia and her daughter for more than 6 months. The project begins with cataloguing Milvia’s work from the 60’s onwards and ends with the work being digitalized and made available for licensing. I am responsible for the licensing and promotional side of the project and Milvia’s daughter in turn for the archives and restoration of the works. I can’t tell you all our plans but we are working on many aspects and markets, I hope very soon you will be seeing more and more of Milvia and her fabulous work. 

The real news is that Milvia never really went away, I have been privileged to see her studio at her home in Florence. The studio has always been there for her work and as ‘real’ artists do she has continued to lead the life of a creative. After raising a family and following her husband all over the world in his career she has always found time to work and experiment. For those of you who have not read between the lines this means that there are many unpublished designs waiting to be discovered and I hope to lend a hand in making this happen. 

So now it is time to really begin the Milvia adventure. Work has gone on for months behind the lines and it is now time to share some of it with the public. Milvia’s website will go live on 5th June 2014, which is of course today! Please visit us at www.milvia.eu I think you will all be interested in our unique proposals. Obviously there is limited information available on the website and for anyone with serious intentions just contact me at dawnclarkson@milvia.eu and I will be delighted to help.

In addition you will find Milvia on Pinterest, http://www.pinterest.com/milviahome/
and Twitter  https://twitter.com/MilviaHome
More news of Milvia will be published regularly in press releases and obviously here on my little blog.

Thank you for reading.
Dawn Clarkson

World Lupus Day 2014 - Acknowledgments

The collection of butterfly designs to celebrate World Lupus Day was a great success this year. I received 99 beautiful butterflies from all over the world, from as far away as Chile, Canada and Australia and by people with ages ranging from 3 to 80! Personally I had to do a lot of work to prepare everything but it all went well, my blog received well over 650 hits in 3 days (300 on 10th May) and the event generated hundreds of Tweets related to World Lupus Day.

Some of the 99 butterfly designs received for World Lupus Day

Tweets mentioning the event and a personal Thank you from Lupus UK!

In general a big thank you goes to everyone who sent me a design, however just a few people need to be mentioned as they played a particular part in helping to make the event a success. 

Thomas Fummo who encouraged his adult English class to draw butterflies instead of perfecting their grammar.
The 4 and 5 year olds from the Scuola Materna dell'Istituto Calasanzio dei Padri Scolopi di Empoli, Florence.
The 7 and 8 year olds, class 2A, from the Scuola Alessandro Manzoni, Moncalieri, Turin.
SKI TEAM Jouvenceaux.
My mother Ann Clarkson who is not very good with paints but fabulous with a needle and thread.
All my professional surface pattern friends who found the time in their busy schedule to do a special design for this initiative.
My thanks also go to a very special lady called Milvia who was without doubt the most famous person to produce a design for the butterfly gallery.

We must not forget why I began this project, mainly to increase Lupus awareness, which is an illness close to my heart but also to make a small donation to LUPUS UK. By donating 1 euro for every design received I was able to give a total of 99 euros, or 80 UK pounds, or 135 U.S. dollars. 

Details of my donation

Although the event has now finished if anyone feels inspired to draw and send me a butterfly design I will continue to accept them throughout 2014. They will be added to the following Pinterest boards... Children, Adults and Designers. 
I think I have said enough for now, I just need to add that I enjoyed myself very much and it gave me great pleasure to receive so many fabulous creations. Next year is going to be bigger and better, I do hope you will take part. 
THANK YOU

World Lupus Day 2014 - Butterfly Showcase 3

Welcome to the third and final showcase which includes designs from adults and professional designers. It is another long post so get yourself a nice cup of tea, relax and enjoy! Just a reminder that we are here to celebrate World Lupus Day and for every design that you see here today I will be making a small donation to LUPUS UK. Please take a moment to read about Lupus and increase your awareness of the disease. If you missed out on the children's showcases earlier just continue to scroll down after this post is finished... I can assure you it is well worth the effort.

© Dawn Clarkson 2014

© Thomas Fummo 2014

© Anneline Sophia 2014

© Sonal Nathwani 2014

© Shelly Penko 2014

© Jan Shepherd 2014

© Annette Plummer 2014

© Salvina Lo Monaco 2014

© Isabella Schirripa 2014

© Ann Clarkson 2014

© Tokzhan Ibragimora 2014

© Antonio Bosio 2014

© Frances Boyd 2014

© Bethania Lima 2014

© Camilla Torna 2014

© Ellie Fidler 2014

© Julia Grifol 2014

© Rosalba Lauda 2014

© Laura Settimo 2014

© Sergio Sbicego 2014

© Carrie Tasman 2014

© Krishna Shyam Sundar 2014

© Maike Thoma 2014

© Mary Tanana 2014

© Beatrice Zamariola 2014

© Claudia De Guglielmo 2014

© MaryJane Mitchell 2014

© Melissa Watts 2014

© Rebecca Stoner 2014

© Rosie Martinez-Dekker 2014

© Rosie Simons 2014

© Silvia Sesia 2014

Last but definitley not least... a special treat, a super 'original' design from Milvia!

© Milvia 2014

All the designs from this post can be seen HERE on Pinterest, and a reminder that the children's showcase can also be seen on Pinterest HERE. You can also just continue to scroll down and see the previous two posts below if you like.
I do hope that you have enjoyed the lovely butterfly designs on show today. I am amazed to say that I had a total of 99 designs sent to me. A big thank you to everyone who participated and helped to make the day so special for me. If you should feel inspired by these posts and you would like to send me a butterfly design I will include it on one of the Butterflies for Lupus boards on Pinterest.
Next week I will be posting news of today's showcases and of what the initiative has achieved, until then, xx