The cloud breaks + shop promotion

Most of these cushions/throw pillows are from photos I took in LA 2008, some combined with older patterns from my archives. They really express what living in Venice felt like to me creatively, it was a whole new world of colour and light and pattern. Memories of that sunlight and Ocean living really perked me up this week when we were mired under low grey cloud and cold fog for 8 days.  
Somewhat bad timing because the front Cherry Blossom, Prunus Cerasifera 'Nigra', had opened during the previous week and was doing it's best to cheer up the view in the absence of sunshine (taken when things lightened up enough to actually get a photo)...

The Forsythia can always be relied upon to brighten even the darkest day...

Luckily the cloud and fog have lifted this weekend and we finally had a sunset...

Today I finally got my fix of some much needed sunshine and Cherry Blossom in the garden. Hard to photograph though because the sun returned with it's near constant companion these days - strong wind! It's been so hard to photograph anything in the garden in the last 3 years because it is nearly always jiving around like 50's teenager...

In a very brief moment of stillness and extremely bright sun I spotted this little ladybird exploring the flowers of Pieris 'Debutante' which have been really abundant this year. It's a very compact little Pieris and it's leaves keep a fairly consistent green in all seasons, good for small spaces and places where you don't want any unexpected colour clashes from changing leaf colour...

And finally the deeper toned flowers of the larger and more seasonally varied Pieris 'Mountain Flame'...

Pale Cherry Blossom

Every year is different when it comes to the Cherry Blossom. This year the dark leaved cherries seem to be coming out at the same time as their leaves, long before the more floriferous pink ones which open up before their green leaves arrive.

I'm always happy when they stagger their opening times like that so that when one passes there is still the joy of more to come. Ours are still at the early stages of opening but the one above had the advantage of a few extra degrees of heat in the City so it was fully open and begging me to let it pose for the camera yesterday.

Update: This photo now available as a Giclée Print here, printed on archival paper using Epson K3 archival inks.

Free Worldwide shipping & $5 off today

No need for a code, just go straight to my Society 6 Page. Includes laptop skins, ipad cases, shower curtains, art prints and more.

California Colours

A little mix here of older college patterns with newer California pieces based on photos I took when my lovely wee Brother treated me to a trip back to LA  in 2008 to visit all the places we lived and hung out at. That place really did have the biggest influence on me colour wise, year round sunshine was not something I was used to in Scotland and although yellow had been my favourite colour as a child (taken over by aquas and most greeny blues by my mid teens) it was a primary yellow, daffodil yellow. I'm sure the other yellows were around but I hadn't noticed them.

Moving to LA opened my eyes to a whole new world of yellows. They seemed to change constantly depending where you were and I think I was as much influenced by the feeling of them as their actual colour. I don't know if there really were sharp the yellows by the ocean in Venice where there was no smog, but it certainly felt that way in comparison to the tainted yellows of Downtown LA and the warm and ever changing orangey yellows of the hot desert areas outside LA. And of course there were those Pacific sunsets.

The pieces above from the California collection (top row 1-3, 2nd row 3,) represent that Oceanside feeling of heading down to Venice beach and seeing how everything looked crisper, with the blues and yellows heightened by the cool clean breeze coming off the Ocean, always so refreshing in the heatwave that was the 80s.

FREE worldwide shipping and $5 off items in my S6 shop until March 9, 2014 at Midnight Pacific Time! 
Use this link: http://society6.com/callycreates?promo=8ff1b1 
*excludes Framed Art Prints, Stretched Canvases and Throw Pillows with insert.

New Clocks and free shipping weekend

I totally forgot to update that my designs on Society 6 are now available as clocks. Each clock has the option for black, white or natural frame colour, and for black or white hands. And there's free worldwide shipping if you use this link until Sunday at Midnight Pacific Time.
*Offer excludes Framed Art Prints, Stretched Canvases and Throw Pillows with insert.

I think this is going to involve some updating because a lot my my pattern make it hard to read the clock, so I rummaged through my old sketchbooks for some pieces that would better suit a round face and decided this Fjorn pattern (above) was perfect for the job, with a few edits to make it more circular. I love it in clock format, but it also looks good on the other products too. It is also comes in a red on white option.

Now I'd better get back to updating the clock section for all my previous designs to they will work better. I'm thinking single colours may be the way to go initially.

Free shipping weekend includes new designs

Another Free Shipping weekend on Cally Creates products* including these new fishing net iphone cases and skins when you use this link - offer expires January 12, 2014 at Midnight Pacific Time. *Offer excludes Framed Art Prints, Stretched Canvases and Throw Pillows with insert.

I was yearning for a beach visit but in lieu of that I started looking through old photos and thought these would make nice cards, prints and phone skins. Sadly they aren't large enough to make bigger items but they satisfied my beachy cravings.

More free shipping on Society 6

Another free shipping deal on most Cally Creates Society 6 products including iPhone/iPad skins and cases, from now through Monday (cyber Monday for those of you that call it that).

New sizes/style of Cally Creates bags

Over at Society 6 my they have introduced a new style of Tote bag, and the option of larger sizes so my designs are now printed right to the edges, so much nicer! If you are tempted to buy one this is a good time as there is free shipping on them (and on several other of my products) through Sunday the 27th of October.

Free shipping on my designs this weekend

I just noticed that there is Free Worldwide Shipping on Cally Creates products in my Society 6 shop this weekend. With this heatwave making Scotland hotter than LA this month it seemed fitting to highlight my LA inspired Amorph range which was very much based on the vibrancy and colour of living near the beach in California in the 80s. The intensity of the light in Venice totally changed the way I worked with colour. This design is available as prints, cards, cushions, cases & skins for various phones/iPods/iPads/laptops.

Nearly all my Society 6 work is based on my old college sketchbooks and designs from the late 80s and early 90s. It's nice to see them released back into the wild after being in captivity for 25+ years and it's a way of keeping my hand in so I don't completely lose all my computer skills (M.E. is really messing with my memory for such things, I couldn't even remember how to cut and paste last week).

Here are a few more designs that are more reminiscent of the colours of a Scottish Summer where the beach colours are less intense but they have a fresh quality that reflects the  clean air and blue skies we get. I'm fairly sure I was also influenced by old tiles for the Carina pattern. 1.Carina (blue) 2.Tilly (blue grey) 3.Carina (grey)
 

Some old photo's for Liz

Magnolia flower and Bali when she was younger

East and West coasts of Scotland

A couple of college pieces: 1992 and a screenprint from 1990(or '91?)

Book jacket cover design which I messed up, but it made it look like this mashed up fishing net in Dunbar

Different kind of light I notice with camera in hand.

I was looking through some of my old photos and put a few together for you Liz. You've had too many words to take in this week - I thought some images might be in order.

After the Storm came the snow

Snow last December.

Thursday's storm was pretty full on and the house felt a bit like a cardboard box because we could see the walls wobbling in and out with the gusts. The joys of mobile homes, but we were luck not to be one of the 50,000 people who lost their electricity supply. Apparently more stormy weather is due in a few days but for now things are calm and I awoke to a beautiful inch or two of snow. It's not deep but I suspect it is quite wet snow because it manage to crumple my Skimmia Japonica, which was only just recovering from last year's snow damage. Other than that most things have been pruned or supported so as to resist all but the heaviest of snows

Inspired by the black trees in snow I put together a little selection of black and white niceness, a fantasy Christmas wishlist:



1. Duncan Shott Magnetic Cloud Keyholder £20
2. Sagemcom Sixty Retro Style Digital Cordless Telephone approx £90
3 & 4. Sanna Annuka for Marimekko
5. Nordic Knit Booties (can't find a source for these)
6. One of my own cushion covers approx £17.

My Halloween - food, face, flowers - 2011

Much belated, a few snippets from my Halloween Dinner party:
1. Autumn Squash and a lovely Black Bear brooch from Adadine (guilt gift from Mr P).
2. Facepaint always makes me happy.
3. Oxalis plant in a ceramic raku fired bowl I made in the early 90's.
4. Japanese snacks in a small ceramic tealight holder.

Product love - Apple

One of my early textile designs recoloured in Photoshop on a Mac around 1991 or '92,
with a Cally-fied Apple logo on top to show that Apple made it all possible.

Update 6th October: I was really sad to hear that Steve Jobs died yesterday. Hopefully my original post below says something about the impact he had on my life and work. He will be missed.

I was sad to hear about Steve Jobs resigning his post as CEO of Apple last week.
I feel a bit anxious at the thought of him stepping back and how that might change things at Apple, though he is not leaving the company, just that role and the involvement it required. With PMS raining down on me like a storm it's no wonder I got a bit weapy as I watched You Tube footage of him giving a commencement speech to the graduates of Stanford University in 2005. I'm such a Nerd, I'd have loved a speech like that at College instead of the stuff I often struggled not to sleep through.

He is definitely someone who has literally had a big impact on the quality of my daily life for more than 20yrs. His visions, brought to life, made my work not just possible, but pleasurable and my old Macs are still Iconic objects in my house.

The only Mac I owned but haven't kept is the PowerMac 7500, designed during Steve Jobs absence from Apple and definitely not an icon of it's time the way the other's have been. Thankfully he came back and before long the Mac Cube, then iMac and then iBook were born and computer design has never been the same since.

I've never had a Mac die on me, ever, or get a virus, so they were great value for money even though they were often twice the price of others. They all still work and were only upgraded because they were getting too old to work efficiently with modern software and internet developments. The 7500 was given away after my Cube came but the others live on and have all retained some value as still valid useable Macs or collectors items.


5 Mac's we've each had or shared since 1996. Spot the one that didn't have Steve Jobs involved?

I've added things I was typically working on on each Mac and it's interesting that the newer the Mac the more I work with old designs and pieces from my early college days. At the moment I'm slowly updating 1000's of my old textiles designs and patterns to jpgs and getting them into some sort of order to actually get some of them printed. I'd never dream of doing that without Apple and Adobe on my side.

Apple Mac Love Affair - the early days:
1984: Macintosh 128k
Played with in Macy's
1985: Macintosh 128k
Did my first Graphic drawing on one, was hooked
89-94: Mac LC & Quadra
Colleges, so I'm guessing based on dates and looks
94-96: Mac Quadra, Mac Classic & Mac Colour Classic
All at work or work placements.

My Own and Mr P's Mac's:
1996: Mac Colour Classic
Shared - Ex work freebie soon replaced by the workhorse that follows
1997: Power Mac 7500
Shared - End of line sale - for our Graphics business, lumpy but efficient
2002: Power Mac G4 Cube
Mine - Refurbished ex-display bargain, rekindled my true love of Apple
2007: iBook G4
Mr P's - but I was never off it, what a glossy white delight
2011: MacBook Pro
Mine - Unbelievable Birthday Present, Thank you Bro, thank you forever

I had my first play on a Mac in Macy's in 1984 but never saw one again until the next year when and American came to stay with us and brought his new Macintosh 128k with him (he carried it as hand luggage). It was great, so dinky for a desktop computer at a time when IBM PC's where huge. And it had the mouse, (remember, that thing that IBM said no-one would ever use). I drew a picture of a camel and a palm tree beside of a pyramid (auto filled with brick pattern - mind blowing technology at the time). My first digital image, I loved it. I still have it actually, in a folder somewhere, it looks like it was done on an Etch-a-Sketch but for the times it was astonishing that you could do graphics on a home computer.

When I went to various Colleges they were all to do Art so Mac's were pretty much standard throughout and were in colour by then. It cemented my loyalty to the Mac and introduced me to another love, Adobe, initially through Photoshop, then Illustrator and finally InDesign. It's a shame Apple and Adobe have fallen out, I feel like a parent watching their kids fighting and knowing that the family would function better if they just got along like they did when they were young. Business and ego's tend to spoil a lot of good things.

The Cube and Apple Studio Display were my most exciting purchase. More than I could afford but utterly worth it. My quality of life literally improved overnight. Quiet drive, fast and space saving. They needed 80% less desk space and every inch counted when I worked from home in a tiny flat. As a delightful bonus it came with the new kid on the block, iTunes, and we all know where that has taken us. I couldn't have loved 2 inanimate things more.


My old flat in Edinburgh in 2002, with Apple Display and Cube (peaking in on left edge)

In the past it was mainly people doing creative jobs that used Macs because they were so geared to visual and audio performance and software, but thanks to iPods iPhones and iPads more people are seeing the benefits of beautifully designed things. I am concerned by the frequent and obsessive upgrading which seems incredibly expensive and wasteful but I suppose that's just endemic (right word?) Western Culture these days. I never upgrade until I really truly need to because I can no longer use my existing software.

Anyway, the change in people's buying patterns for phones and music has clearly tempted some to change their computers too (Yay and Welcome!) and I noticed on Friday that the stats page on Blogger was showing something I'd not seen before, Mac OS users being greater than Windows users with 50% of blog visits coming from Macs. Steve Jobs, you are vindicated, good design does matter, people will pay more for the effort to develop it and was/is worth pursuing.



It shows also that Firefox is tied with Internet Explorer. I'm surpriseed so many still use IE but I suppose people like what they know and often use what is pre-installed (hence the Safari users, sorry Apple, Firefox beats Safari hands down for me). I highly recommend you try Firefox if you haven't already. Imagine if people had refused to use Google because it wasn't a Microsoft product?

I have used other PCs in various jobs and they only confirmed for me that the extra cost of my Macs over the years was totally justified and that I never, ever want to use Windows or Internet Explorer if I can possibly avoid it. At Ikea I got my Department buy a Mac (until then I was taking all my work home to do on my own computer in my own time). Suddenly people went from rarely using the Dept. PC to fighting over time on the new Mac, the passion of the convert. Within a year they had to order another to meet demand and have been getting Macs ever since.

I know that Windows has incorporated lots of Mac OS stuff these days and is no longer visually hard to bear, but I still prefer Apple's commitment to looking forwards instead of playing catch-up. I hope they can keep doing that now that Steve Jobs isn't fully involved. Looking after your health is important and hopefully taking a step back will mean he and his forward thinking brain and instincts will be around to keep an eye on Apple's direction for a long time to come.

My work + olympic pool

2008 Olympic Swimming Pool designed by the China State Construction Engineering Corporation jointly with Australia's PTW Architects and Ove Arup Pty Ltd (more images)


3 layered papercuts 1991 based on The 4 Day Sketchbook, 1991

The roof and walls of the new Olympic pool reminds me of much of my work, and made me realise I haven't posted any of my old work since the 1st of May. So let's remedy that right now...


Drawing from The 4 Day Sketchbook, 1991


A print (recent) of a drawing from The 4 Day Sketchbook, 1991


Papercut (1992) based on a drawing from The 4 Day Sketchbook, 1991



Several papercuts, 1991-'92, layered together

If you are new to my blog you can see more of my work in this style such as this felt brooch, this & this papercut, this book, this crochet. Or see more work in general by clicking the My Work tag at the end of this post.

Loosening up

Net experiments 1990-92

I worked out some yoga adaptations to suit my health and my dodgy bones. So far so good. Aching all over from a year of tightening up, but I can feel, under the ache, a loosening up of the muscles (reason for tangled picture above) and a deepening of the breath (reason for picture below, which I've shown before but seems so appropriate just now).


Breath: ceramic tablet (intentionally broken) 1993

I've finally accepted that I simply can't bend and twist in ways that I used to, and it's ok. Even if I only manage 5% of a session it's still beneficial, and at the very least it amuses the cat. He likes it when I'm on the floor, and he can sit above me. Yes Your Feline Highness, you King of all you survey and I prostrate myself at your handsome feet.

And this...

What you don't see is the cat trying to eat these while I took the pictures. He was very persistent- those ends were not frayed till he gummed them (poor bugger only has 2 teeth so everything gets gummed, like a lizard).

My work - net experiments 1990-92

Net experiments 1990-92

This is one I showed with the cat, but it looked so nice draped over a page from the beautiful Noa Noa catalogue I couldn't resist another showing. Also a close up of the string tops, sometimes the simplest things are the best things.

My work - net experiments 1990-92

Once I they were covered in cat hair from the blanket I became less precious about some of my old net pieces...


Thanks for the encouraging words on that last post. I've been really wanting to visit you all on your blogs but things have been hectic here trying to get ready for my week away, which begins today. I'm supposed to be getting up in 3hrs, but it looks like I'm not even going to get to bed. My brother couldn't fit a tripod in his luggage so I'm ditching 1/3 of my packing to take one in mine - it's the least I can do since he's paying for my trip. I warned him that it means I'll look really scuzzy (having to leave behind nice clothes) to which he responded "that's ok, I'm used to that". Well, really! But it's true.

The weather is calming a little for travelling, what a relief. We are quite high up and don't have the protection of any high buildings or trees, and what trees there are were bending over like palm trees in a hurricane, except it was gale force sleet/hail that was hitting them. The noise was SO loud, like steel balls hitting the fragile shell of the mobile home. We're not used to this kind of weather here Last week there was an earthquake in England, big enough to be felt in Scotland. Crazy crazy weather. It can change in as little as 4 minutes, becoming a beautiful bright sunny day... then flip again just as fast.

I hope to blog a little while I'm gone, a bit of a 'guess where I am' thing, but I don't know if I'll have time to get on a computer, if I'm not on the road I'll most likely be trying to get some rest, I'm already exhausted and just trying to get ready. Fingers crossed the adrenalin gets me through. I hope you all have a brilliant week!

My work - net experiments 1990-92

One of my string net experiments 1990-92
These one was based on this papercut I showed recently

Lisa, I meant to email these to you in December for your classes. The last image is shadow.

I was really flattered when Lisa wanted to show her students some of the development of my college work that included my papercuts of 1991 that I showed last year. These string nets were part of that ongoing body of work (more about this in the comments for this post). I laid down a pile of my nets while I set up these shots and now they are all covered in black cat and dog hairs, time to find the tweezers.