After finishing the Iris plate mockup I shared in the previous post, I was interested in painting small Siberian irises that were simple, yet a bit less “flat” than the previous study.

Often I find that just painting a whole bunch of little pieces in a notebook will yield a few pieces that look just the way I want them. Here is a picture of this exercise:

I then spent a ridiculously long time goofing around with photoshop trying to create a repeat pattern with these pieces. It just wasn’t coming together until I decided to just keep it simple! So, I started over and created this very simple tossed pattern which I really like.

While I was thinking of how to make a pattern with these Iris blooms, I painted other things, stripes, splotches, and some other shapes that my husband called red-eyeballs! In the end, I used none of them. I will post these later for your entertainment.

I like clean and simple motifs for my kitchen, so I created some digital mockups of items I would like to have with this pattern.

It is always exciting to see how a simple idea or doodle on a notepad can turn into a real product. At the moment, these Iris Project designs are just a fun way to incorporate daily painting into my life, to help me expand my thinking about design, and hopefully to offer something nice to look at to those who follow my work. Sometime later in the year or perhaps at the end of this project, I may select some of these to license or make into products — but not yet!