Vera Neumann Inspired Design Using Photoshop Brushes - Natural Mixed Media Painted Artwork Scarf

Although Vera Neumann is known for her iconic scarves that became hugely popular in the 60s , Vera got her start by creating housewares. Growing up, Vera was encouraged to be artistic. Her father would pay her fifty cents to fill a sketchbook! She was initially thrilled to get a job straight out of school but was shocked to learn she was expected to directly copy other designers’ work. That was against everything she believed in, and Vera promptly quit. She started working as a freelance designer for children’s fabrics and murals and then met her future husband, George Neumann. George’s family was in the textile design industry and was very impressed with Vera’s ambitions. He was instrumental in her success, and they started humbly with a small silkscreen operation in a tiny New York apartment. At that time, their first product was linen placemats!

During World War II, she had difficulty finding linen but discovered she could buy parachute silk at her local army supply store. The well-known Vera logo of a ladybug made its entrance as part of the process of silk-screening her paintings onto the scarves. The scarves were an instant success and by the 1970s, Vera’s kitchen table business had grown to a $100 million international business.

Vera is deeply respect as a talented designer, but also as one on the leading edge art licensing. She had become so successful that by 1972, her designs were sold in 20,000 stores around the world on everything from clothing to housewares. Vera was arguably the first true lifestyle brand. Her work continues to be licensed and was recently used by Anthropologie.

There's another reason Neumann's portfolio is so extensive; she consciously wanted her work to have mass market appeal. One of her famous quotes was: 'I don’t believe only the wealthy deserve good design'. It helped make her commercially successful and make her brand easily recognized. And she didn’t just stick to one ‘signature style’. She experimented with plenty of different looks and a varied subject matter. She was "comfortable" identifying as an artist, designer, and businesswoman.

I have tried to fill this course with encouragement to try new things, to experiment and to embrace the whole idea of “process”. Design development is such an important part of the process. It can be a step that is easily missed, but it can really make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful design. Learning how to pull off the design development stage is how you'll start developing all of your ideas that potentially lead you to style that is sustainable in the long run.

My hope is that after seeing my workflow and explanations, you can better grasp how to plan the art pieces you will be creating for creating scarves and other accessories. Are you prepared to create artwork and paintings that will be licensed consistently or will become best sellers in your stores? That’s completely viable once you’re able to produce artwork as outlined in this class. Developing a style is key! It has worked for me, so why not you? This is a relevant course for you to take no matter what your purpose for the artwork you create. Let’s dig in, so you can be benefitting from your knowledge now in your art practice!

Intro to Vera Neumann Inspired Design Using Photoshop Brushes

This short intro will give you an overview of the class and I will explain why Vera Neumann has been such an inspiration to me.

Lesson 1: Vera Neumann Throughout History

In this overview lesson, I will show many examples of Vera Neumann’s work over the years and tell you more about her prolific career. This will give you context and background on our project. I will explain what we will be doing in the upcoming lessons.

Lesson 2: Inspiration and Planning

Again we will be inspired by Vera, and I will begin the process of planning the composition of the artwork. I show you some of my art journal/sketchbook art and explain the look I am after.

Lesson 3: Finalizing the Sketch and Color Schemes

In this lesson, we will look at some finishing touches on our pencil sketch. I will also introduce you to Color.Adobe.com to aid in the creation of a couple of usable color schemes. In Photoshop, we will load those swatches using the Adobe Color Themes extension.

Lesson 4: Starting Initial Motif Outlines

Within this lesson, we will look at brush settings that help us emulate the textural look of the natural media brushes and markers from my initial inspiration piece. I will continue to share any other wisdom I can muster up! We will also continue to talk about the planning process.

Lesson 5: Color Fills and Building Up the Design

Building the composition is easy with the use of the techniques I will show you using different brushes. During this lesson we look at the brush controls and I will refer back to my art journal piece so you can see what we are emulating.

Lesson 6: Composition and Design Strategies

In this lesson, we will complete the design. I will speak to the use of layers to help keep things organized, and I will share many insights along the way.

Lesson 7: Merging Layers and Finishing Touches

In this lesson we will merge all the layers together and continue to touch up and perfect our final leaves and florals. Several techniques are discussed for making everything blend nicely together.

Lesson 8: Border and Final Adjustments for Mockup

Here we will experiment with the border design. I will give you several actionable ideas and we will work with layer blending modes as well. Towards the end of the lesson, we will experiment with placing our finished art on a couple of mockups. This is the fun part!

Lesson 9: Wrap Up, Wisdom and Next Steps

This video is the conclusion and wrap up of my instructional tutorial on how to produce a Vera Neuman inspired scarf. Hope you enjoyed the class! Please leave comments in the discussions area and please post your finished art here!

Concepts covered:

Concepts covered include but are not limited to hand-painted scarves, consumer licensed art, trends transcending time, influence and inspiration of other artists, Vera Neumann, licensing pioneer, history of Vera Neumann, Perry Ellis, Alexander Calder, color trends, style trends, the importance of color, mockups, marketing your art, sketching in Photoshop, color schemes, color.adobe.com, Adobe Color Themes extension, Photoshop brushes, Photoshop Layers, Photoshop layer effects, adjusting brushes in Photoshop, Kyle Webster brushes, brush settings, textural brushes in Photoshop, Photoshop mixed media, cross licensing, cheerful every day art, accessible art, Photoshop texture, Photoshop layer masks and vector masks, using natural media for collage, quick masks, Photoshop blending modes.

You will get the bonus of…

- around an hour and 10 minutes of direction from an instructor who has been in the graphic design business and education for over 40 years - knowledge of multiple ways to solve each design challenge - handouts explaining key concepts - a list of helpful online sites to further your education