The March Birth Flower: Daffodil (Narcissus) Gifts

Watercolour Daffodil Pattern Print Fabric, available from Zazzle!

One of the ongoing projects that I have incorporated into my daily drawings is a monthly drawing of a flower. Each month, I draw that months respective birth flower. Its a great little project to get me thinking of different patterns & techniques I can use to make these flowers beautiful, but different every time.

March's birth flower is the Daffodil. Daffodils are beautiful flowers with long stems and leaves. They have six petals and are most commonly found in the colours yellow and white, though the centre can be found in orange or pink more rarely! The daffodil symbolizes unequaled love, rebirth, domestic happiness, respect, regard and friendship. It is the embodiment of spring and new beginnings.

Did you know? The Daffodil is often called by its other name, Narcissus. There are many speculations on how the flower got its name, but my favourite link is to the greek myth of Narcissus, the self absorbed one. Narcissus was known for his beauty, and he was very proud and very, well, narcissistic. Nemesis, the goddess who acts against those who succumb to hubris, noticed his self absorption. She led Narcissus to a pool, where he saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with it. Unable to turn away from the beauty of his own reflection, Narcissus fell in the pool and drowned. It is said that the Daffodil started growing where the young man drowned, earning its other name, Narcissus.

For this months flower I tried something different. Instead of colouring these daffodils as realistic vectors like the other months, I decided to apply my watercolour textures to them. The result is a softer, graceful effect. I have only added this pattern to fabric on zazzle, but it is ready on my Nuvango shop for purchase on device cases, pillows & shirts! :)

Daffodil pattern on the iPhone 6 case. Available in a skin or a case, and for the iPhone 3G - 6 plus.

Laptop skins! These skins are available for PC and Mac laptops, from size 13" - 17".

Samsung cases & skins. In this display is the samsung galaxy S5, but this design is also available in a whole array of samsung phones. 

First impressions on selling art on Society6

Update (September 22, 2017): Society6 has grown quite a bit since I opened my shop there. I am no longer an active user on this platform, however I will soon be going back to it to update this blog post with more recent info. Prices and royalty rates mentioned in this post might have changed and they have also added amazing new products to their lineup since I first shared this post.

Hello everyone! It is nearly halfway through the month, and since I will be busy this weekend, I have decided to share my artist's review of Society6 today. The first month of my print on demand journey I joined Zazzle, the 2nd month I joined redbubble, the 3rd month I joined Nuvango, and now with all these POD websites to compare to, I joined Society6 earlier this month as my 4th print on demand website. Now, Society6 was actually the first print on demand website I was introduced to. I kept seeing it being shared by fellow illustrators on my Facebook newsfeed, and when I looked into what it was I decided to look into print on demand websites all together. It only made sense that since it was the one that got me interested in print on demand in the first place, that I eventually go back and try it out. Here are some of the key things I have found out this month.

1. Ownership and Royalty Rates

Do you retain the rights to your artwork when you list on Society6?

First and foremost, I read the Terms of Service before using Society6. The quick and simple part of it, is that you retain all rights to your own artwork. They do not claim to own it in any way, but they reserve the right to print and sell the artwork you upload on behalf of you. They also have a strict copyright policy, forbidding you from using any intellectual property that is owned by anyone else. Anyone found infringing on these copyright laws & stealing others artwork for their monetary gain will have their accounts suspended or cancelled. I'm not sure how strict they are about this rule though, because upon a quick search of the marketplace I can find over 10 pages of pikachu art. xD

Can you set your own royalty rates?

You can set your own art print rates, which is what drives artists to this website. If you would like to put your designs on other items, the royalty rate is fixed and rather low (for example, 3.50 - 3.80 for a mobile phone case, which for the same design I get $7.00+ from nuvango, redbubble and zazzle). If you are looking to make money through art prints though, this is a good place to start.

2. The Marketplace & Community

The marketplace in Society6 is simple, clean and easy to use. What is shown in the Society6 marketplace is determined by how many "promotions" your products get! So the key thing to making your art actually show up in the marketplace is by getting a lot of promotions. Your art will show up briefly in a "recently added" section, and people MIGHT find you from there, but you cannot rely on that. You can have the most beautiful artwork in the world, and nobody will ever know it exists on Society6 if you do not share your stuff first. If you have an existing art community or social media streams outside of society6, reach out to them and share your stuff, promote their work and follow them back. If you don't reach out to anyone outside of society6, it will be tricky to actually get into the marketplace, as other society6 users can't find your work.

From what I have heard, you will get an email once your work has been selected to be featured in the marketplace. Work will be selected generally within a range of 10-20 promotions (I've seen people report different numbers, if anyone knows for sure please let me know!).

That being said, shameless promotion time! If you have a society6 page, post it below! :) Here is my page: TanyaDraws

3. Adding products 

Unlike Zazzle, redbubble and nuvango, you have to resize your image yourself before submitting it for different products on Society6. The product sizes are as follows (width by height):

Laptop & iPad skins: 4600 px by 3000 px
iPhone & iPod, skins and cases + Stationery cards: 1300 px by 2000 px
tshirts/ hoodies/tanks: 3300 px by 5100 px
Mugs: 4600px by 2000px
Throw pillows, tote bags, shower curtains & Duvet Covers: 6000px by 6000px to place one file on all of these, or 3500px by 3500px to place the file on just throw pillows  & totes

The only file type that is accepted is JPEG, in RGB format. However annoying re-saving the same picture 5 times is, it allows you to set how your image will look like on the item exactly, which is nice.

An art print I made available on society6. You can select different sizes and even frame it.

Final First Impression

I like how easy it is to browse the marketplace, and I like that you can sort artwork by colour. I thought that setting your own royalty rates on prints is a nice feature, but I don't like the low royalty rates on products. Selling on Society6 requires a lot more promotion skills than any of the other three websites that I use, so if you already have a large following and a tight knit artists community, this is a great website for you. I was unable to find a forum on Society6, so I don't think there is actually a way to chat with other artists and promote each other on site, which is a shame. I can't see myself heavily using this website like I do Zazzle and Nuvango, because the patterns I make are best as products, not prints. I also really don't have that much time to be constantly promoting my Society6 shop. However, I will definitely be uploading artwork that looks great as a print to this page, and continue to explore and learn how Society6 works throughout this month!

Do you use society6? Share your page and your thoughts on it below!

Painted Easter Eggs Design

Last week I created this easter egg design! Since the malls and chocolate shops are fully stocked with easter stuff, I felt the need to draw painted easter eggs. I especially wanted to try it because of my new found love of watercolour textures! So I made some beautiful pastel coloured watercolour textures specifically for this design. This drawing was created with the same digital vector technique I used in my past watercolour drawings. It is more complex than the other ones I have done in the past, so I had to compress each egg so that I would be able to open my file again. The simple shapes and patterns on the egg mixed with the detailed watercolour texture makes each egg look more intricate than it was to make. I am happy with how it turned out, and am now craving chocolate. BRB as I run to the store to get some chocolate eggs. ;)

Here are my favourite items for this design!

An easter egg label! The text is customizable. The return address labels from zazzle come in sheets of 30!

An easter gift bag, that matches with the return address labels. I can imagine this  cute easter egg bag stuffed with chocolates. ;)

Easter egg wrapping paper! Since my shamrock one was so successful, I decided that wrapping paper is not to be skipped. The background colour on this is customizable!

What is easter without chocolates? This box of chocolates is customized with easter decorations. Easily add a name to the front along with a greeting.

Chevron Love: Chevron Fabrics from Zazzle

When fabrics were first released in zazzle, I came out with a bunch of different chevron fabric patterns! I even made solid colours to match them as well. I realized I have never shared these sets on my blog, so now is as good a time as ever to do so. You can buy the patterns in 7 different weights and types of fabric, and the swatches start at $6.

Wine Red / Burgundy Chevron Fabric Set:


Carnation Pink Gradient Chevron Fabric Set:


Brown and Pink Gradient Chevron Fabric Set:


Deep blue and Green Gradient Chevron Fabric Set:

For more fabrics, check out my fabrics section in my shop! Click Here to see the full collection.

Watercolour Pineapple Print Collection: on Nuvango & Zazzle

My friend in British Columbia told me today that flowers are budding where he lives! And here I am, stuck in Ontario, with snow, snow, more snow, and freezing rain. The weather network has given me hope that it will be warming up soon.

In hopes that the weather man is not lying and it will indeed be warming up soon, I am featuring my Tropical watercolour pineapple print today! I created this design a while ago, but decided to spruce it up for my Nuvango shop. This design is one of my experiments with watercolours in a digital environment. I really love working in this technique, and I will definitely be producing more works like this in the future. The downside: each watercolour cutout is a digital mask, making a file so big that I can no longer open the original pineapple pattern on this laptop. Good thing I saved a single pineapple separately. ;) Along with the warm weather, I am hoping for a new laptop this year too. :P

Here are some fabulous products in this tropical pattern from my Zazzle and Nuvango shops!

Tropical Pineapple Print fabric! This fabric is proving to be pretty popular on Zazzle. This fabric features a customizable background colour. I used this bright, minty, tropical greenish blue as a sort of risky colour choice... but I liked it so much that I created a pattern in similar colours for Nuvango! 

My pattern on iPhone 6 skin! The skins at Nuvango always look so nice. I love how bright and fresh these colours look, definitely tropical! This phone skin is becoming especially popular on Polyvore... its been used in sets over 10 times now! 

Tropical Pineapple print womens tshirt! Nuvango released shirts as part of their collection on February 10th. I love how they print your design on every part of the shirt. 

Skins for the DSi, 3ds, and 3ds XL on Nuvango. Nintendo fans living in America (like me) are upset that we don't get the cool new 3DS that Asia and Europe are getting that have interchangeable designed backings. I was happy to see Nuvango has a collection of skins for DS! Gelaskins are removable, protect your device from scratches, and make your DS beautiful. Shown in this preview is a DSi, because the 3ds and 3ds XL previews on Nuvango don't seem to show the interior skin. All the skins cover the interior and exterior of the DS. I will be making one for my 3DS soon enough! :) :) 

This is so cute! The wii u controller comes in all black by default. What a nice way to make it completely unique...  and protect it from scratches at the same time! Nuvango skins fit over the back and front of the devices.