~ Yoko Ono 

Be happy,

Natalia

Hello, guys! It's a bit late, but... Happy New Year!! I'm finally going to share my word for the year with you. This is.... actually, two words - "New Experience". I want to leave all fears and doubts behind to develop new skills and knowledge, to eat new food, make new friends, and visit new places to gain many new experiences in 2018. There is a lot of stuff, so wish me luck!. 

What about you? What is your word for 2018? 

Be happy,

Natalia

Hello-hello. It's so many things I have to tell you. First, thank you for visiting my renewed creative blog, aka my online home. Yes, I want to call this blog a home. So, welcome here!

It's been many things happening in the last few months, so let me be a good hostess and make a quick tour for you because we both don't want you to lose here forever. Kidding :-) With a new fresh look my blog got some new categories. They will help you learn about the stuff-that-is-happening-here in an easier and quicker way. Here we go.

Pattern

As a passionate surface designer, I pretty much love a great patterns and nice prints. I hope so badly that you share the same love and will enjoy discovering my most recent creations under “pattern” category. There is also a nice collection in my website gallery, don't hesitate to take a look there too. If it happened that a pattern art isn't your favorite thing, just scroll down, I have some other stuff for you.

Lettering shelf

I’ve fallen in love with lettering art not a long time ago. So, let me represent a new “lettering shelf” category. (What do you think about this name? Awesome, isn't it?) Every single lettering art, created by me, goes there. By the way, one of my first hand lettering experience was my own logo.

Behind the scenes

Here is another room on my blog - Behind the scenes category. It's a place where I'm going to share with you all behind the scenes stuff. All my experiments and tries to create cool art I'm going to leave there. It's quite interesting to discover the process of creating every design and I really enjoy that you can learn it too.

#DayToDayNote

Also, I have a little corner of my blog for my special project - Day to Day Note. Daily life brings us a lot of lessons which we have to learn in order to make our life much better and happier. Every day I learn little lessons, tips & tricks, hacks and few of them write down in my #DayToDayNote list. Hope you find some of them helpful for you as well.

That's all about new updates on my art blog and my online home. Was I good hostess? Let me know it. Only with your help I can make my blog more friendly and better place.

Natalia

Our life is an incredible adventure, do you agree? It is filled with an endless amount of lessons, tips and tricks that have to be learned every single day. While we are young, we need to have courage, confidence and self-awareness to learn those lessons and apply them in our life in order to make it much better and happier.

#DayToDayNote is the list of a small lessons that come to me from great books or movies, some of them are passed from my friends, others one - from my life and work. I just want to remember these notes of life wisdom and learn them.

The #DayToDayNote list is constantly updated with new lessons, tips or hacks. And I'm happy to share it with you and hope you find some helpful for you. Stay in the loop!

#20    Sometimes all you need is the reading favorite book or eating yummy ice-cream.
#19    Never-ever refresh Facebook page before sending a huge comment on someone's wall. After refreshing the text will disappear forever.
#18    Be yourself. It's the best part.
#17    Forgiveness is one of the primary keys to happiness.
#16    Don't give up on exercises. It's hard, but it's worth that.
#15    At least once a year, go somewhere you've never been before.
#14    Practice, practice and practice. And you will get a truly magnificent masterpiece.
#13    Read every day. It clears your mind.
#12    Your health is your life. Don't forget to get an annual physical check-up.
#11    When they say it's 70% chance of rain, no doubts, take an umbrella with you.

#10    When you get a fresh nail polish… Emm, be careful with dressing up because we want a manicure last longer. Don't we?
#9    Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's an experience.
#8    If you have a cool idea in your mind, write it down immediately. Otherwise, it will fly away forever.
#7    Enjoy dancing.
#6    It's hard to figure out which bridges to cross and which to burn.

#5    Keep your desk clean and organized. It is a key to being productive.

#4    Staying hydrated is important. Try to drink enough water.

#3    Wake up earlier. You will have more time for morning exercises, family and loved ones.

#2    Smile as often as you can. Maybe it won't solve all your problems, but it will definitely make your mood better.

#1    Believe in yourself. You are your own power. 

One friend asked me a few weeks ago:

— What do you do?

— I'm graphic designer... bla-bla(short story about my current work)... I've created a personal project "Daily Crazy Pattern" around a year ago. Did you see it?

— Yeah. I saw. What is the main purpose of this activity?

I might say this question made me a bit confuse. How? How did it happen? Didn't he know the objective of the project? I kept posting lovely pattern designs regularly and wrote that I created one unique design every single day for one year. Everything was pretty clear. But... after a while I recognized — no, not clear... In fact, I never wrote about the goal I've set for "Daily Crazy Pattern" project.

Therefore, it's a perfect time to correct this little issue.

There were two main goals for this art journey:

a) I just wanted to draw some nice doodles and level up it at the same time. You know, this art skill is quite useful for my profession.

b) Create gorgeous surface pattern designs which can be placed on advertising brochure, on fabric or package.

Simply put, I was planning to create kind of online sketchbook for drawing practice.

So, with these initial thoughts I dived into "Daily Crazy Pattern" activity. One month later I understood everything happened for a reason. My daily challenge suddenly turned into a powerful tool for disciplining me, it wasn't just a draw practicing any more. It transformed into something more.

After next two months, my project became work like an art therapy. It really improved my physical, mental, and emotional well-being in those days. Did you ever notice while you were busy with creative process, you felt relaxing, your mind was opened and starting to generate new positive ideas? I called this condition "art meditation".

Somewhere on halfway to completion of my daily project I fall in love with color palettes. Again. Seriously. Became a passion fan of different color combinations. Since then every tint gets my attention and carefully stored in the huge color library. I find inspiration in nature, exactly there you can find an endless source of color references, perfect palettes and gorgeous shades. Just amazing!

Then the most interesting things began — finally I felt true creative freedom. There were no more doubts. I started developing my pattern making skills as fast as never before. I couldn't imagine my being without surface design anymore, it became a huge part of my career and daily life. Exactly at that moment I got a new cute habit — stared at every item surrounded me for looking inspiration and generating new ideas. Well, I still do it. However, if you catch me staring on your shirt or backpack, relax, I just find picture printed on it quite interesting and it inspires me for fresh creations.

After all, let me sum up — "Daily Crazy Pattern" project was planned like a tool for improving drawing skills. However, it transformed into a magnificent place for mad experiments and interesting ideas; into the huge space of true creative freedom. And it's great!

Be awesome,

Natalia

Hi, I'm Natalia - surface pattern designer and lover of awesome art. I'm starting something huge now - my design blog. It's so exciting and my hands are trembling now, while I'm typing this line (thanks Universe, nobody can't see this, it looks quite awkward :-D ).

Anyway, let's back to my blog and reasons why I create it. The main purpose I just want to share with everyone my work. Tada! So obvious! :-) Though seriously, it's really important for me to know other's opinion about my designs. It will definitely make me a better artist. Another reason is inspiration. It will be so great if some of you will find inspiration on the pages of this blog. It would be an honor for me. Also, I hope we will be able to become good friends. I'm very cheerful and kind person. I swear!

Look, I slightly took you to the last topic which I want to cover today. Promises. To give or not to give it? Ok. Let's see, I don't promise that I will post something here every single day. Yes, life is so unfair! :-) I don't guarantee that each design will be a masterpiece (like Leonardo da Vinci's art is). Anyhow, I DO promise that every picture, every design here will be made with my love and I will put a lot of effort to make this blog a cozy and lovely place of creative stuff. However, I need the help of my future readers, only with you, guys, I will grow this small (for now) blog into big, welcoming and friendly place. So, join me! It seems, it's going to be fun!

P.S.: It could be the awesome first blog post here, but it became a great welcome word to the whole world. By the way, I'm a very modest person. Did I tell you? :-)