Whilst in design school, having immense technological difficulties with Form Z, Auto-Cad, Photoshop and the like - I should have just gone with my gut and told my prof, Screw Off. I prefer to actually draw. It is a dying art, I maintain. Well here I am, a decade and change later, still fumbling my way through all things 'ordinateur' and making my actual living, in part, by my ability to express three dimensional ideas on PAPER. with a PENCIL. And not the stylus kind. Yes, I am perhaps on the verge of old. But if my life depended on sketching my way out of a sticky situation, and all I had at my disposal was a stub of a #2 pencil and damp cocktail napkin, I am pretty darn sure I would live to tell the tale.

a few concepts on paper for your consideration...

This FEMME umbrella with a wavy valance adorned with lace, is on my list of MUST MAKE (at some point, eventually) items. Part of being a designer is the ability to visualize. I really do see this one being a true beauty. Not if I create her, but a firm WHEN. I am just in love with this concept. Also, involved in the design process is a subconscious mulling over of how something will actually work, what would be the optimal construction?...knowing and recognizing the strengths and limitations of materials. Lace is not my normal medium, that is safe to assume. These are all the elements one inevitably encounters when a design morphs from something on paper into three dimensions. The not always knowing, yet proceeding regardless, is really the most fun part. (i.e., challenging. rewarding, sometimes nerve-wracking.)

I am still waiting for the right client for whom to pull out all the stops, as in the style of this exuberant tent! Yet despite being several years old, this little sketch has apparently managed to linger somewhere in the distant recesses of my right brain. Witness one of our newest Umbrella designs, can you detect the provenance? *Umbrellas and tents are actually really the same thing when it comes down to the Valance.

Here is another sketch evolution encompassing tents and umbrellas and lots of navy blue and white scallops. (*note: these are always drawn somewhat in a frenzy, hence the lack of full rendering. That and the fact that my Prismacolor Eggshell marker has been out of ink since 1998 and I have not purchased new color pencils since approximately the same era. Navy Blue pictured is actually the composite of 5 similar blue pencils, peacock, tourmaline, black maybe...in the effort to create something that might be mistaken for navy blue.

Another proposal for a parasol, which actually evolved into a tent design. The companion parasols were a bit more subdued. But the common thread was there weaving it all together. All full circle here, folks. Circle of life. Insert any/all appropriate relevant expressions.

Here a sketch of the proposed companion umbrella, the more subdued twin of this little tent...And speaking of companions, my little kitty boy. He tends to photo bomb, even when I am not shamelessly posing him, as was the case here.