Three Steps for Building Repeating Patterns
The time that I first sketched in Singapore – was the first time I had drawn in a very long time. Maybe it wasn’t quite since high school, where I took art as one of my final year subjects, but it was close! When younger I was inspired by calligraphy, illuminated manuscripts and art in general – galleries are definitely my happy place. I had botanical art on my list of ‘to dos for someday’ – not realising watercolours and sketching would be part of my life sooner rather than later.
I had always been amazed by travel sketching – reading a book about the composer Felix Mendelssohn once, I saw his amazing travel sketches and thought – what a way to capture a place! When I moved to Singapore also I began following the Urban sketchers on social media, and was similarly amazed by their skills in capturing a place and a time. And capturing it in a unique way – no two works are the same.
Joining a wonderful sketching group over a year ago was one of the most exciting things I have done since coming to Singapore. It has enabled me to develop this interest in art, and record my time and inspiration from this truly visually amazing place. I would say that sketching has the double benefit of helping you find inspiration through art and through the landscape around you. And through the sketching friends you make also.
What are the tools I use and how do I turn these into patterns? I’ll cover some of these below, and hopefully they may be useful for you too.
Starting work! Ideas from others – I’ve mentioned the group I joined above, which is really how and why I started all of this art, and where I often start with a sketch in pencil and or ink. I often use a 0.03 size pen, although you may like to try a range of sizes. (Affiliate link)* I’m slow and I rarely get to watercolours while on location, although I take this kuretake set (Affiliate link)* with me when I go! And I have a larger one (similar to this) (Affiliate link)* for working at home. but when at home I have wanted to learn more about watercolours, and have been working on this through several online courses from Domestika.
Procreate! I rarely start straight on the iPad, I normally scan in all my elements and arrange them in procreate, which is a really affordable and easy to use platform.
Repeating patterns! So here is where you can have some fun and design an endlessly repeating pattern to place on products (this is what I do, and I use printful for printing on demand). I undertook this course on Domestika and watched a lot of videos, plus this free procreate guide is incredibly handy! Stay tuned also – this is an older article I have reposted, and now I have a new video of me actually making a repeating pattern which I hope to share soon! You can join our email newsletter below so you don’t miss out when it drops!
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