Pattern Everyday Collection

Damask 7

My last pattern for Pattern Everyday! It has been such a fun endeavor and I have learned so much! I really like this last pattern, though I realize Damask 6 was my most realistic damask pattern. This one is more simple and fresh, but I really like the sweet yellow shades. I designed this one all on my own sketching... building and adding details inside the main shape.
Thank you to all who have been looking at my patterns as I go along. I hope to keep posting what I am working on as my classes change and I continue on my graphic design quest. Have a beautiful Memorial Day Weekend... whew, I am done!

Damask 6

I know I am getting farther away from damask here, but I really liked the stripe and diagonal that I came up with. Using damask-esque (work with me!) motifs, I joined some into this floral inspired design. I used a dark ground with yellow motif to really allow the pattern to stand out. Very elegant and modern.

Damask 5

There is going to be a big push for me to finish 7 total damask patterns before Saturday... my project is due Saturday night (so I can't do a pattern on Sunday...) and my sister is getting married on Saturday. So needless to say... I have do do 2 today and 2 tomorrow to finish!!

This pattern I have increased the size and complexity of the central motif. It is starting to look more like a traditional damask. I did some experimentation and I am really excited about the last one that appears as a diamond. I love the green texture and would love to see this on curtains!

This took approximately 30 minutes in Ai.

Damask 4

For today I have made a black and white damask based on a sketch that I scanned into Ai. I wanted to give it a hand-painted look so I used some brush strokes in Ai to loosen up the image. I like the black and white pattern... but here I have shown you the pattern with a blue background. There are many options with this one and I think it turned out really pretty! This took me about 40 minutes. Thanks for looking!

Damask 3

This pattern is my first experiment in damask with my own drawing. I sketched an image (albeit simple) and scanned it into Ai. I traced in pen tool and did a half-drop repeat. It is not very elaborate, but it has a prettiness and elegance to it. I played around with a few colors before deciding on the warm peach and yellow. I really like the way the pattern lends itself to graphic bold color as well as pastel textures.

Damask 2

I am really enjoying myself, I have to admit. Damasks are beautiful and I am having so much fun learning how to craft them! I am still using the templates to trace in Ai, but today I used those templates, reshaped and merged them into shapes more original and more me. I also went for a stripe in this for a modern touch. I also added the white outline in different stroke sizes for interest. I spent about 30 minutes in Ai for this pattern.

Damask 1

Welcome to my last week of Pattern Everyday! I am so excited to do the patterns this week because I have always wanted to learn how to do a damask pattern and I've never had the guts to try them. They can be very complicated and the pattern seems really difficult to pull off. I have started the week using some damask motif templates to practice getting the shapes right. I used the pen tool to trace some motifs in Ai, and then I arranged these 3 separate motifs into the pattern. I feel the pattern worked pretty well, although figuring out the math of the repeat was difficult, so I really did it by feel instead of math (so you can see some slight discrepancies in space and line.) I'm off to a good start and can only improve from here! This pattern took 60 minutes.

Patterned Ground 7: Semi Circle Graphic

This is a stretch for a nature theme, but hey. For my last patterned ground design I used a semi-circle (loosely inspired by waves) and added some white circles on top to give it a modern, fresh feel. I decided for this day to do several different colors instead of adding new pattern ideas. I think they are pretty and would be useful in many applications. I used Ai and it took about 60 minutes. Now let's get ready for week 4.

Patterned Ground 6: Deep Floral

Trying to increase my complexity again!! Flowers on top of flowers. Playing with opacity and color to build a textured pattern... I was hoping to get a more masculine/feminine mixture of color, still using my love of floral design. I used Ai and it took about 35 minutes to finish this pattern.

Patterned Ground 5: Grass

I have taken today to work on a texture background in Ps! Yay, me. I brought in a grass photo and did an offset filter to repeat the grass texture without a seam. In order to make it a patterned ground, however, I had to have another image on top. I used another pattern from a previous day to save some time because my goal was the texture repeat. It took about 50 minutes. I would love to practice this more and I hope to do leaves and more complicated shapes in repeat.

Patterned Ground 4: Allover Floral

Trying a little more complexity (without spending hours and hours) in this patterned ground tonight. I am becoming more efficient in the repeat and the technical placement of the pattern, and still trying to play around with color and new shape. I want to get back to having a sketch before I begin, and I hope I'll be able to have time to do that in the coming week.
I spent about an hour on this one... Ai. A modified ogee pattern in the back of some floral and leaf images I quickly sketched with the pen tool. Thanks for looking!

Patterned Ground 3: Orange Border

Today I am playing around with a gingham of sorts. I was trying to go for a basket weave, but I didn't quite make it there. I used Ai again (I know I may have let you down) but what can I say! It took 60 minutes to produce these repeats... I had to play around with it a bit to get it exactly right. I like the brightness of this pattern and can see it on some pretty summer napkins. To be honest, I am trying to go in a different color direction than I usually use in order to experiment and go out of my safety zone. I most wanted grey and pink or green, but I went the other way. I produced two different patterns from this idea. What do you think??

Patterned Ground 2: Purple Floral Polka-Dots

I spent a lot of time trying to create something in Ps tonight for you, for me, to prove I am getting there. Spent 30-40 minutes before I realized I'd been drawing on my background layer which prevents me from moving it separate from my intended background layer... sigh. Lesson learned.

So Ai again. Since the Ps thing didn't work tonight, I decided to play with purple, a color I do not usually use. Trying some pretty combinations of colors and I decided on what you see before you. I'm having good fun and really like to experiment without using a sketch. I think I just like to get to work without spending any time doing the prep. work. I do need to work on this, however, and my goal tomorrow is to sketch and use Ps. I have more time tomorrow and would like to see what I can come up with.

Good night all. Thanks for all of your support! Don't forget to critique. Don't be worried giving advice, saying what you don't like about scale, pattern, palette, anything at all. I can only learn from your perspectives.

Patterned Ground 1: Scattered Leaves

I am really happy with this pattern! I used the twig pattern from my monotone week to create a pretty, light patterned ground. I added the leaf motif on the top and used a block repeat, rotating every other leaf to give it some movement. I accomplished this in Ai in about 30 minutes.
And of course, I couldn't stop there. I began to build off of this pattern and create a few more images.
In the second pattern, the background is the block repeated leaf motif and then I used a more random, scattered pattern of the same leaf using the brown instead of green. These types of patterns take a bit of time for me because there is a lot of trial and error to the placement of these images. And then once I am satisfied, I usually have to add another image to make it more natural. And then once I am satisfied again, I then have to move and copy all the images off the edge of the art board to make a successful repeat.
The third pattern is just the scattered leaf pattern in a repeat without the background... to make sure it worked. I could have added another ground in this one, but I chose to show you the success of my repeat (and to prove to myself I could do it!)
I would like to see this on some hand towels. Can anyone print my design on hand towels? Maybe I need to do some more screen printing.

Line 7: Plaid Floral

Okay, this was kind of a quick one. I am half way done with my Pattern Everyday Project after today and it feels pretty good. This has been a lot more work than I thought, but very rewarding. I have already pushed through a lot of design snags, found more inspiration, and didn't miss one day! I feel like a small pattern today was a little reward. :)
I used Ai and made a pretty little black/gray plaid for my flowers to sit on. I still have to figure out an easy way to define pattern for motifs that go off the artboard. Here I just used a clipping mask to define the pattern as I see on the screen. I like the pretty, traditional pattern with a pop of color. Great vintage apron design, I think.

Line 6: Lightning

Keeping with the theme of weather, I have used lightning as my inspiration today. We had a nice little storm last night and I prepared a graphic stripe from it! I am in Ai again. Trying a few things before they work (deciding against having a completely repeating one bolt of lighting into several bolts patterned next to each other) and working through the frustrating slowdown of the program because I thought a rasterized stroke would look cool. I'm not doing that again unless there are no alternatives. Because of the few road blocks I had, this pattern took me about 90 minutes. I did get some variety in the patterns though. I like the pattern on its side... it looks more energetic and powerful.

Line 5: Rainbow Experiment

I had a little help with this one... I was out of inspiration and my kids help me with something they thought of with stripes in nature. Of course, RAINBOWS! Very wonderful idea, don't you think? I used Ai to define this diagonal stripe pattern, and then I did a little more work to play with the idea, and really figure out how to best use the function. I was able to make some plaids, which are definitely not lines, or stripes, but are built from them. I also included the basic diagonal line so you can see where it started. I actually made a box 1inch big to repeat this pattern to the diagonal. It was a great experiment with color, opacity, and adjusting the rotation and movement of the lines. Which one is your favorite? Using rainbows as my inspiration brings many different moods in the patterns I made. Very powerful lesson here!
Thanks for your comments!

Line 4: Grassy Stripe

A simple stripe, you say? Oh, yes. Thank you!! I did the photoshop stripe "define pattern" and I conquered it. I wanted the stripe to be random, and interestingly enough, the way to my eye that looks more random is to insert one repeat within the initial image instead of having every line different, and than repeating the whole random block. The repeat worked well, and now I can use this pattern for any future design projects I want! I learned several things along they way, so I hope to revisit this tool on the weekend for pattern 6 or 7, with a little more flair.

This took me approximately 35 minutes... I think I would have been very more efficient in Ai, but that isn't always the point, is it? I like all the greens in this pattern and can picture many applications for this!

Line 3: Rock Stripe

Here I go with some rocks! I would love to see this as an all-over pattern, but I am doing stripes this week, so I figured out a way to make it work. Using a sketch, I used the pen tool to create the graphic rock shapes. I played around a lot with color, finally deciding on a relaxing palette inspired by the colors of water and sand. It took be about 45 minutes.

I am struggling with thinking of an application for this pattern in the fabric world...maybe a tablecloth? I can imagine this on paperware like napkins and plates for a cute beach party.

Line 2: Petal Stripe, Brights

I thought I had so much time tonight! It turns out all of my new creative journeys into blending and color palettes used too much time which decreased my attention to detail in this pattern. I have run out of time to fix the changes in the pattern repeat, but I think it gives a funky feel to the image.

I used a petal as inspiration for the lines in this pattern. I have been quite liberal with my description of the petal so far as to say it doesn't resemble a petal anymore! It was fun to create and I hope to come back to this and clean it up a bit after this month is over.

This is a cool pattern for curtains in a young teenager's room, or perhaps on an umbrella!!

Line 1: Orange Stem Stripe

Oh, a refreshing beginning to week two: Lines. Using nature as my inspiration, I sketched a simple line drawing using a stem of leaves alternating with a solid line. It was simple, but I wanted to see how I could improve my skill and create a pattern with Ai that actually worked without a lot of hassle... and I did it! It took a few tries, but I think I know now what I was doing wrong. I am also improving the organization of my Ai document, though you can't see that so you'll have to take my word for it. This took approximately 1.2 hours from beginning of sketch to finished product.

I would love to see this printed on a linen or fabric with a lot of texture. Great pillows for your garden nook. Or cute even on a garden apron! The possibilities are endless.