Black and White Patterns

For the last few days I've been making patterns for the fun of it. And it really is so much fun! These were all done on black paper with watercolor and my own simple stamps. There's definitely a snow theme. It snowed a lot this weekend and inspired me, I guess.

I've been thinking for a while about how much I love making grids, patterns, and decorative artwork. So I've been reading about pattern and surface design and wound up buying these two books: Repeat After Me, and Pattern Design and Beyond by Claudia Brown & Jessie Whipple Vickery.  I've only read the first book so far. It's about how to design a repeating pattern in Photoshop or Illustrator. The second book is about the business of pattern design.

Obviously, you can do all of your work creating the images on the computer, but you can also start with handmade artwork and scan it into the computer. I'm going to try and turn these samples I made into repeats as soon as I have the chance. I'll let you know how it turns out!