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Saturday 6 December 2014

A brand new advent guru (6) Lidija Paradinovic Nagulov

I love it when people take the trouble to comment on my posts. Mostly this happens via the Facebook pages I post it on - my own, and the ABSPD ones. But Lidija commented via the blog.

I imagine she must have found it via one of those groups but I didn't know her name. She works as 'Celandine Designs' - which name provoked an instant smile from me as it is my father's favourite wild flower. Look at her gorgeous work! So lush.

And of course, I had a nosy around on her blog and found this advice about finding your style. And she's absolutely right - we all want to do everything but equally cannot do everything. We need to make decisions - we need to define ourselves more closely.

I can answer some of the questions Lidija suggests answering: I mostly imagine my work on scarves but also wonder about wallpaper, home decor and fashion. With some of the fun things I've produced in the few days of the Faye Brown design Advent challenge, I can see some outlet for stationery.

I work with different pattern types (floral, abstract, geometrical, mostly) and might have several on a single scarf.

I truly do love my line work - it's getting stronger and more confident and faster on a daily basis. It's flexible too, as I can take it anywhere and use any moment (dentist's and doctor's waiting rooms come to mind of late). I can do it last thing at night in bed before I go to sleep; and I can do it in front of the telly when I'm being sociable with the family and don't really (personally) need to pay attention to the minutiae of 'Guardians of the Galaxy' (though Dr Who - now that's different...!). I mainly see myself using paint as texture and depth. To what level I will continue to use photographic source material (only ever from my own photographs) I'm still mulling.

I work with layering and translucencies, so my colours aren't 'saturated' but nor are they necessarily muted. I'm more naturally drawn to colour contrasts than to analogous colours.

As for who I see buying my work: older women (45+), elegant and confident, whose wardrobe staples are classic in cut and quality and tend not to be overly patterned, but which would be perfectly set off by the jewel-like signature element of one of my scarves.

But, as I say, scarves are on the back burner and I'm going to give myself the gift of a few months working on my style without too much reference to anybody else's work. After advent, that is. Today's challenge theme was a Christmas market. Here are some snippets of sketches and tomorrow, rather than doing the Winter Wonderland theme, I'm going to continue working these up and seeing where they go.




2 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for the kind mention :D I love how well you've defined your style and your ideal customer. I also love that you're exploring. I think we all keep getting better as long as we keep searching.

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  2. Hello Lidija - it was a pleasure to mention you as it was a pleasure to find your work! You're right. The journey - thank heavens - never ends. If once we reached perfection - we'd be bored! keep in touch! Catherine

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I'd love to hear what you think and what you're up to, creatively. Feel free to leave me a message. Thanks, Catherine