Week 67: Adobe Illustrator

Quatrefoil 2 © Karen Thiessen, 2013

My show went up a month ago and it wasn't until two days after the opening did I realize how incredibly hard I had been working for eight months straight. It didn't feel like hard work when the work was flowing out of me. On the Monday after the opening I felt zonked. The next week I felt the same. Then I had an adverse reaction to a chemical that knocked me off my feet for two weeks. There went the month of May with me tired and wobbly. Yesterday I finally started feeling more like my usual self.

So, with all that fatigue, I took a break from my Adobe Illustrator practice and I switched up my studio routine. I cleaned and tidied the studio, and purged lots of paper and textiles. I fed my sketchbook and played with some mark making. Yesterday I tackled my office with its mounds of paper: notes and lists on small pieces of paper. I responded to old emails, and completed necessary business tasks that I had been putting off. While I was on a roll, I also practiced Adobe Illustrator for the first time since May 3. It was good to be away from it and equally good to be back.

I kept it simple. I took the Quatrefoil pattern that I designed in August 2012, altered the scale and removed all the colour. 

Quatrefoil © Karen Thiessen, 2012

The design above is a bit too bold for my liking, but the simplified version, Quatrefoil 2, was so lovely that I printed the pattern on the backs of my new business cards.

Business card with Quatrefoil 2 pattern on back © Karen Thiessen, 2013

The pattern makes my business cards feel special to hold. I can't stop looking at them.