If you’ve been following me on Facebook or Instagram, you know that I’ve been hard at work on a new book titled Color Theory with Pencils & Mandalas.  I’ve had more than a few folks ask questions along the lines of, “Davina, why are you diving into coloring books suddenly?” 

Well, the simple answer is: I’ve been making coloring pages for my classes and workshops for many-many years and a coloring book is just a natural next step to support my “Think Like A Designer” series of workshops.

Just a little background about me. In college, I trained as an illustrator as part of my fashion design program. During my undergraduate studies for costume design, I was drawing daily for a wide variety of classes from basic life drawing to theatrical illustration. 

When I published my first few books, they were filled with black and white, hand-drawn illustrations ready to be colored by the reader.  Experimenting with color on paper with pencils is far less expensive than investing in fabrics to make costumes.

The mission of Color Theory is to serve as a workbook that first presents the basic principles of color harmony, then provides the reader with many lovely drawings to experiment with different color combinations.  We chose to focus on using colored pencils because they are the media best suited for the book’s paper.

Black and White Illustrations are Colorable

My first book, Costuming from the Hip begin life in 1993 as a series of workshop handouts. I had the vision to marry my “trade” of costume/fashion design and my passion for belly dance.  I decided to take my handouts, notes, sketches, and costume strategies, and compile them into one general survey of belly dance costume construction technique.

At workshops in person, I would encourage dancers to color directly into the book, or photocopy some of the pages, like this image of pants, and color them with pencils. During the workshops, I handed out additional print-outs and we worked together in real time to build new designs from the basic shapes in the book.

I wrote and illustrated an entire series of books for my workshops, and there are several currently in print including Costuming from the Hip, From Turban to Toe Ring, Bedlah, Baubles and Beads, and Skirting the Issues/Pants for the Dance.  You can find all of these books and more in my shop and on Amazon.com.

Serina – A Dancer to Color

In 2010, shortly after we switched from an older, news-letter website to the new blog-style format, I decided to start sharing my workshop handout information in the form of blogs.  One of my best-reviewed workshops is entitled, “Think Like a Designer: Croquis.”   During that workshop, I stepped my attendees through the process of making a custom croquis from an 8″ by 10″ photo of themselves.  This was followed by a demonstration of how they could use that croquis as a design tool for their next costume.

Belly dancer Serina was my example of how to go from “Croquis to Costume.”  So I decided to share her on my “new” blog as a coloring/paper doll page.  If you are interested in downloading a copy of the Serena pages to color, head here to read the post.

Belly Dance Costumes to Color 

In 2011, we underwent a top-to-toe rebranding of our books, upgrading their covers to color and having them perfect bound.  At the same time, we also underwent a website redesign to coincide with the roll-out of our new covers.  For my existing subscribers and those new to my website, I put together a set of coloring book pages to color.  Many of the dancers featured in these coloring pages are my friends in dance from throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.  Sometimes, people send me an email with their finished designs and I will occasionally spot one of my dancers all colored up on social media.  If you don’t have a copy of this printable, all you have to do is join my mailing list at the top of the column on the right and sign up!

Johara Paper Doll to Color

During the holiday season of 2016, I put together a new belly dance paper doll set called Johara as my thank you for all my readers.  I made for her a wardrobe of designs that are ready for print out and bring to life with some colored pencil work! Interested in giving it a go? Read the original post to download the .pdf.

I received such wonderful feedback that I’ll definitely be making another paper doll for this holiday season too!  If you are interested in getting some practice in the coloring department, print out some of these pages and have a go.

Just remember – there is more than ONE way to design the RIGHT way!  So feel free to experiment and play with color, and if you’re feeling adventurous, take a black pen and even enhance the designs with surface patterns, additional accessories, or even by drawing some totally new outfits!  The only limit is your imagination so always remember to think like a designer!

Happy Dance & Costume,
Dawn Devine ~ Davina
Tuesday, November 14, 2017

ps – If you DO decide to print out some costumes and color them in, I would love to see them!  Come join our community on FaceBook at Studio Davina!

Dance is Music Made Visible

This is my favorite dance quote of all time. These words, spoken by the great ballet dancer and choreographer George Balanchine. He was a creative genius and very quotable dance artist. But of all his most quotable quotes, this is the one resonates most with me.  For years, I’ve kept a post-it with this quote on the edge of my computer to remind me of why I dance. When I hear the music and it’s good, I just can’t help myself, I just start moving.

This fall, I decided to go on a hunt for a coffee mug with this quote.  I shopped online, I shopped in stores, and I didn’t find it. I dreamed a dream of the perfect cup.  So, one evening when I was talking to some friends, (over coffee, of course,) and I mentioned my struggle to find my perfect mug.  After a giggle, and a dramatic clearing of the throat, I was reminded that I had made my own custom coffee cups in the past using Zazzle.

Making Your Own Mug

Zazzle is a one-off site used by small businesses to create print on demand products.  There are many different sites that provide these services, but I randomly picked Zazzle years ago to make my marketing items.  Last year, I designed and made a mug to celebrate the creation of the book “Zills: Music on Your Fingertips.”

My mission with the creation of this mug was not to make any cash, but rather, serve as a commemoration a tangible lasting memory of the celebration.  (If you want to see how I use this mug, keep reading.)  I have a Zazzle “store” but I’m not expecting to create a profit.  Print on demand coffee cups and bags are quite expensive, and I decided when I did the setup to set it at the smallest “profit” margin, I think it’s 50 cents.  What does this mean? Even if you bought this cup, I won’t see any cash until I meet some impossible sales minimum.  I honestly just design these cups to serve as a keepsake for my projects like this “Cloth of Egypt” mug that features the front and back covers of the book.

Use Canva to Design the Mug Graphic

Once reminded that I can make a mug about anything, I decided to turn the great Balanchine’s words into a motivational mug.  How did I do it?  I made my graphic using the free graphic layout website, Canva.  Here’s a screen grab from my initial layout.  The “free” version of Canva gives you access to a big selection of fonts and I went through the ones they offered to find a nice script font.  This is very easy to use, drag and drop software that can give you great results.

After much noodling around, and using some of my own font collection, I finally landed on a look that I like.  I have a paid account on Canva, so I can upload my own fonts, and I choose to use my favorite handwriting font, Boundless, that happens to have a D that looks a bit like my own handwriting.  When you design your own, you can choose to personalize things. Ultimately, I choose a dark interior to resist coffee stains and placed the quote on both sides so I can see when I’m sipping my beverage with either my right or left hand.

 

And it’s done!  It took me about 30 minutes to go from concept to upload on Zazzle.  Just know that if you set up a Zazzle account it can take up to 24 hours for your item to show up in your collection.  Once it appears, you and your posse can order your item!  I just ordered my mug and I look forward to it taking its spot in my cup rotation!

I mentioned I would share how I’m using my Zill book cup. Well, I never actually used it for drinking coffee or tea.  Instead, it wound up in my sewing studio, pressed into service as a makeup brush holder.  So when I’m getting ready for an event, I get to see my cup! I’m looking forward to having this new wonderful quote mug sitting on my desk, and perhaps I’ll even buy one for my besties in dance.  The holidays are coming up!

Off to work on the final edits of the Mandala Coloring book!  
Have a GREAT day!
Dawn Devine ~ Davina
Monday, November 13, 2017