The Inspirations of Dawn Rosengren – Henry Glass Designer
Tell us about yourself.
Hello sweet friends! My name is Dawn Rosengren, and I am a brand new designer for Henry Glass Fabrics. I am a watercolor artist, and I paint on both canvas and paper. I have loved painting and drawing ever since I was a little girl.
My dream is to share God’s beauty through the tiny unnoticed details we see every day. We are all blessed with so many beautiful gifts all around us. I love the country, farm life and nature. I live on a small hobby farm in Huntsville, AL with my hubby, two children and many farm babies. My first collection with Henry Glass titled “You Are Loved” was partially inspired by two of our farm babies, Libby Lou the bottle baby sheep and
Annabelle the Holland lop bunny. I love painting country life and capturing sweet details with my brush, like a bird’s nest or the color of a newly opening flower. I want to live my life always finding something to be thankful for. Each day is a gift.
What inspires you?
A. Farm living, nature, wildlife, and little animals have always been my comfort and constant company. God’s creations are so detailed and beautiful that capturing animals or scenes from the country help me to experience what I see. Art is truly therapy for me. It encourages my own heart and reminds me of God’s goodness. When I need to breathe, my heart takes me back to open fields with blue skies.
I cherish a quiet, simple life with my family on our little farm, and I find comfort in nature. As an only child, I spent my childhood outdoors with animals and wildlife as my companions and best friends. I love the seasons, capturing them and feeling them through my paint brush. Beatrix Potter is my biggest inspiration. Her soft watercolor illustrations and her quiet lifestyle capture the simple beauty I want to share with my paintbrush. I hope my illustrated animal friends bring comfort to people in the same way Beatrix Potter brings comfort to me.
I am so thankful that my love for painting has flown into fabric design. I have learned so much through this process, and I know I have so much to learn still. I am not tech-savvy, but learning my way around photoshop was a necessary challenge to be able to take my photographed art and digitize it into a transferable format for fabric design. The hours my husband has spent with me editing and copying and pasting is uncountable, but the final product has made it so worth it.
I am in love with quilts. I always have been. Quilts are the essence of comfort and calm, and nothing is better than wrapping up in a loved, time-worn quilt after a long day. For as long as I can remember, I have collected floral and textured fabrics, and I am honored and so grateful to have my illustrated animal friends on fabric where they can be sewn into quilts for other people to enjoy.
Tell us about your fabric
A. In the back of my mind, my inspiration for creating fabric lines has always been children, especially those living with long-term health issues who may be spending every day in their beds. I know what that life is like, and I have lived it long. The greatest comfort I could imagine giving them would be a soft quilt filled with gentle patterns and little animals to bring life to their rooms and remind them that they are not forgotten, that they are loved.
My first fabric collection titled “You Are Loved” is filled with sheep, bunnies, cherry blossoms, cotton, and farm life. It is soft and sweet and comes with a layout for a fabric book. The colors include pinks, greens, and grays, and portrays soft farm life.
My second fabric collection is called “Little Ones”. It is filled with greens and browns and many woodland animals including baby deer, hedgehogs, an otter, chipmunks, and butterflies. It also contains pine trees and cones, and portrays my love of woodlands and wildlife. “Little Ones” also comes with a fabric book.
I love to write and illustrate. I also create many other items from my original paintings including paper prints, cards, stickers, tea towels, necklaces, calendars, etc. I hope to turn the fabric books included with both of the fabric lines into board books one day, and to write many other books about life on the farm.
What advice do you have for a new maker?
A. To those who sew and create: enjoy each moment doing what brings you joy. There is beauty in the process and in the learning. Just keep painting, just keep sewing and creating. Do what inspires you. The ability to be able to create is a gift from the Lord and a blessing to be shared with others!
Connect with Dawn
Comments are closed.