My Sales in September & Shop News!

Hi everyone, I wanted to do a little monthly updates post so I can share some of the things that have sold this month, as well as my shop news! This month I was pretty productive, I made a ton of new designs, lots of new collections for my Zazzle shop (Christmas designs!!), and updated lots of old products on both RedBubble and Zazzle. RedBubble has some new products coming soon, so I've been working on making sure those designs are ready to go when the new stuff launches! I've also been doing a lot of work on improving this blog, started up a twitter, keeping up my Instagram... its been productive for sure!

Shelley was kind enough to put together an interview with me about my art business this month over at her blog Shells Zazzle Journal! click here to visit her blog and read the interview :)

I added a new design this month, my red poppy pattern, which was selected as one of the featured designs for September in the RedBubble group Flower Art (Flower Works II!). Click here to visit the group and to see all the wonderful floral designs.

Another thing I decided to do on a whim was start up my Society6 shop again!

I was torn about Society6 for a while, but I think that their products look really good and after seeing customer photos of the products, I decided that I want to start selling my work there again. What really sold me was the curtains and the floor pillows, which they didn't have when I joined back in 2014. In fact I may have signed up purely to decorate my whole apartment - their products look really good. I've been having fun designing things and its neat to see how different the marketplace and artist base is there compared to my other print on demand shop websites.

Find my shop here: https://society6.com/tanyalegere

Look at these curtains from my shop!! I love that they have curtains!

And the floor pillows! They come in round and square and I want many of them.

I'll update my Society6 shop with all of my designs eventually - it will take a while but I'll be happy to get all caught up and get this shop up and running! By the way, the designs featured in the S6 shots above are new and I will be updating Zazzle and Redbubble with them as well :) I've been designing faster than I can update my shops this month, which is a welcome change for me.

Green & Gold Tangles Pattern

I went to a beautiful cottage during the month of September, and had no internet for the whole time I was there. I did bring my laptop however, so I took this rare opportunity of no distractions to really focus on creating new artwork. One of my favourite designs that I made was a garden tangles theme pattern. I created it as a line exploration and added in flowers and swirls, and tried a bunch of different colour palettes with it. I tried gold and dark red, silver, white and green, black and grey, rose gold (which I also love and have added to my shops as well!) ... but my favourite by far is gold and a dark emerald green! Here is the finished pattern.



One thing I love about making patterns like this is how relaxing it is to just do a doodle with no end in mind! :) The gold and green really helps give it a decorative and ornate look. I added it to home decor, device cases and accessories in my shops... here are a few of my favourites!

"All that is Gold" tangles pillow at RedBubble! This pattern is repeatable so it looks

great on home decor and all over prints.

New Autumn Leaves Pattern

Happy First Day of Autumn!! :)

This week I added a new pattern to my Zazzle and Redbubble shops - My fall colours leaves pattern. This earthy and bright colour palette is inspired by the changing colours on the trees in the fall months. Here in Canada, the trees are changing already and the mix between trees that are still green, and the ones that have turned fully red are beautiful.

This pattern of leaves in all shapes in sizes is coloured in red, orange, brown and green watercolour textures. I arranged them in a way so that they can repeat endlessly, and so that the pattern looks good upside down or right side up, making it great for textiles. I've added it to home decor, accessories, and even created a thanksgiving stationery collection with it! Here are some featured products from the collection.

Zazzle Apple Watch Bands Feature

I was so excited to hear last week that Zazzle has introduced Apple Watch Bands to their product lineup! They actually added quite a few new products last week in anticipation for the Holiday Season - including puzzles, notebooks and iPhone 8 & X cases... though the Apple Watch bands are one of the ones I am most excited about. There aren't many places that offer customized Apple Watch bands, so Apple Watch owners will be pretty happy about these.

Not only do these look great, they are also durable and made with quality leather and have a traditional metal watch buckle. These are hand crafted by the maker In a Flash in Charlottesville, Virginia USA. In a Flash is known for providing long lasting printed and UV-cured custom designed on various items such as iPad smart covers, cases, wearables & more, so its only natural that they added Apple Watch bands to their lineup. 

New ArtOfWhere Winter Leggings at my Shop!

Although I have so many other patterns and artwork to add to my shop, I jumped ahead of myself the other night and was inspired to created ANOTHER pattern... and loved it so much that I had to add it to my shop right away! I got into the winter spirit and decided to make a Fair Isle Winter Theme Sweater Pattern.

10 Purrrfect Cat Lover Gift Ideas

Sometimes it can be difficult to give the perfect gift, but it doesn't have to be - especially if you are choosing one for a cat lover! Yes, the ultimate best gift is obviously more cats... but I have cat themed gifts and thats probably as close as its gonna get. ;) Take a peek at these cat gifts that are sure to be loved by the feline fan on your list.

Cat scratch leggings -  These would be great for halloween!

Everyday is #caturday tank top, great for selfies with the cat

List of Art Prompt & Daily Drawing Communities

Sometimes I have been in a creative mood but have no idea what I should draw... other times I've had full out art blocks where I just don't have the will to create. One thing that has helped me through both of these things are art prompts - or daily drawing communities.

These are communities that give a topic each day or week, and you make a drawing based on the topic provided.

Why are art prompts and daily drawing groups so great to participate in?

1. Creativity. Drawing as often possible really helps build your skills, but it can sometimes be challenging to find a topic. These groups give you the topic - taking the idea work away and letting you focus on just drawing. 
2. Comfort Zones!! We get comfortable and stick with what we know. The second reason I love prompts & challenges is because the topics might take you out of your comfort zone and get you to try something you would have never drawn otherwise. You might even find a new topic that you absolutely love and want to explore further! 
3. Communication and sharing. Most of these art prompt / daily drawing groups have a community where you can share your artwork. As you interact with other artists online you can gain valuable feedback that you wouldn't get if your art was just sitting in your sketchbook. Sharing your art with others and being part of a community can help motivate you to continue on in your challenge. Plus interacting with people on a daily basis about your artwork will help you build the confidence and skills you need to promote and sell your own artwork, too. 

In all, these groups and challenges can be a really positive experience! I've compiled a list of some of the ones I have found, and often follow.

New Red Poppy Design

Today I'm sharing a new pattern, my Red Poppy Pattern! This pattern is something I've been meaning to finish for a long long time. I drew the lineart about 8 months ago (I know. Extreme procrastination!!) and recently re-discovered it as I started a new drawing. I decided to mix it up a bit with this one and digitally painted it in photoshop, rather than making it a vector and adding in my watercolour textures after. It was really refreshing to go back to my photoshop roots and play around with the brushes, effects & layers. I'm really happy with how it turned out!

New Month, New Blog Improvements

Hello everyone! After coming back to my blog I realized it needed to be spruced up a bit. You will notice I have added a few changes, and will be making more as I notice things that can be improved.

Focus of my blog

My blog previously was dedicated to trying all the new print on demand websites and finding which one worked best for me. After testing them over a couple of years I have settled on three favourites: Zazzle, DesignByHumans and RedBubble. I will be shifting my focus to be more art based and will be sharing my designs from my shops - including new collections, gift ideas & tips and tricks with new products. I will still occasionally review and visit new PODs (I won't be able to resist a good new POD!) - but this blog will be more art based.

Lots of you are artists yourselves and as you know, we are always learning :) I want to continue sharing tips, tricks and freebies for designers such as Photoshop & illustrator tutorials, mockups, new programs I try and overall - just design and POD related things that I find useful and other designers might like to know too.

I've been posting twice a week and would like to keep that going with a post every Wednesday & Friday. The days may change as I figure out which ones work best, but there will always be a post twice a week :)