Summerhouseart on Society 6 – Summerhouse Art

Triangle Treat-mosaic-prints by Summerhouseart on Society 6 — To see this product on Society 6 just click the image

My last post was about a couple of rather colorful mosaic studies made with broken dishes, one in small squares and the other in triangular shapes. These days we look at everything we do and wonder where else we can take that design. With all the print on demand opportunities you have a huge number of products you can put that artwork on.

We’ve both become interested in fabric and surface design and have been teaching ourselves how to take an idea and make it an all over pattern. So the mosaics presented an opportunity for experimentation. It was one thing to just take the original and make a print of it. Which I think worked out rather nicely…

Square On mosaic-prints by Summerhouseart on Society 6 — Click the image to go to Society 6

But to create more with it, especially to create an all over pattern required days and days of trying things out, experimenting, and repeated trips to youtube tutorials as we refreshed our memories on the steps to take. Then back to Photoshop and Illustrator.

The triangles were actually quite successful as an all over design. We took out the grout digitally, of course, and basically blew the triangles further apart, did a bit of rearranging and created a quite seamless surface pattern with it. It looked quite wonderful on some of the Society 6 products like leggings

Triangle Treat-mosaic-leggings by Summerhouse Art — see this on Society 6 by clicking the image

or a phone case…

Triangle Treat-mosaic-cases by Summerhouseart on Society 6 — click the image to see this on our shop on Society 6

and even entire comforters.

Triangle Treat-mosaic-comforters by Summerhouse Art — click the image to see this on our shop on Society 6

In fact, in the future we may even venture into fabric design with it.

The squares were a bit more difficult and in the end we decided to go with just more or less tiling the pattern, which is basically taking the square and repeating it over and over as it was. This too, looks quite good on a variety of products. Society 6 also allows you to scale the pattern so that you can have it larger on some things, like a tee

Square On-mosaic-all-over-print-shirts — click the image to see this on our shop on Society 6

or travel mug,

Square On-mosaic-metal-travel-mugs by Summerhouseart.com — click the image to see this on our shop on Society 6

or even smaller as an all over design on a duvet,

or a rug or shower curtain. But we’re not done yet and are coming up with even more products on other sites. We’ll have those up soon. It’s proving to be fun and challenging all at the same time. What more can you ask?

(BTW, if you’d like to make a comment, just click on the title. It’ll take you to comments….and we do appreciate comments )

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You just never know where a few scraps of stained glass will lead to… Blue and Orange stained glass abstract, Helen Bushell, summerhouseart.com

I’m one of those people who never throws much out. As artists, we can see potential in old chipped dishes, old furniture, old scraps of paper and magazines, and even old scraps of stained glass. Back in 2010, I’d been given lots of small stained glass scraps by someone who was cleaning out “junk”. Well, as it’s often said, one persons junk is another persons treasure. My friends know me well, and later that year, I got a couple of boxes of stained glass scraps for my birthday and I did make some mosaics with these scraps.

Abstract glass mosaic, Helen Bushell, summerhouseart.com

And then, everything sort of sat around for a bit. But I did happen to have an old illuminated sign box that I use as light table. Now the thing about colored glass, what really excites me, is what happens to all that color when light shines through it.

So a few years ago I started to have some fun applying shards of glass to glass, first old windows then those glass frames you used to be able to find where you have to sandwich the picture between two sheets of very thin glass. Now, I wasn’t interested in creating the usual stained glass where you surround the piece with leading, because what really interested me was the layering of color in the light. And I got a bit frustrated gluing glass on glass until either Will or my son Dave, walked by and said, “Well, why don’t you just glue glass to both sides of the glass?” Well, duh. And that is how I got onto gluing glass on both sides of the glass.

Also, I wasn’t interested in creating pictures with glass. What I played with was just using the scraps as they were and creating abstracts with them. Which turned out, at least to me, rather well. I loved the look and the windows have been sitting on windowsills in the house ever since I made them. Here’s another view of the glass piece at the top of the post.

Abstract Glass in Window, Helen Bushell, summerhouseart.com

Now the beauty of having a mind that’s open to possibilities is that you never know where you will end up next.

I’ve always wanted to do more with those compositions, and I looked at light boxes and all sorts of things for a while and then just sort of forgot about it all. Then a few weeks ago I was looking at prints, and print files and looking around for what I could convert into prints. And in one of those “ah hah“ moments my eye lit on the stained glass comps in the windows of the kitchen. So, together with Will, who is more of a master of photoshop than I, I played around with it and found that the glass transformed really well into abstract compositions on paper. Which we immediately ran through our new printer and loved the result.

We do have some print on demand shops, one being our shop on Society6. So today, I’m happy to show the first of these new Stained Glass Prints,

already converted into a few fun home decor products, one a pillow, and much more to come yet. Just click on the pics to go to Society 6.

BTW if you’d like to comment, and we do appreciate comments, please just click on the title to bring up the post with a spot for comments at the bottom.)

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Tag: Summerhouseart on Society 6

A Couple of Mosaic Studies Transformed

Just A Few Scraps of Stained Glass …