Do you love pattern design but struggle to come up with ideas? Take a look in your sketchbook for inspiration to create your own digital pattern which can be adapted for pattern design. This class will focus on taking an initial sketchbook painting or drawing, re-arranging it as necessary using Photoshop, re-inking the line drawing, and finally, creating a diamond half-drop repeat pattern. This class will also include automation processes which can be used in the future to streamline the process and make it much faster. In the wake of the Textile Designer plugin being pulled by Adobe, you will benefit from learning and putting into practice some of the steps you would have used this plug-in for.
To get started, all you need is an initial drawing from a sketchbook to work on, a good quality flatbed scanner, and some basic skills in an image editing software like Photoshop. If you don’t have a scanner, you can also photograph your sketches. The trick is to photograph them keeping your camera perfectly level and perpendicular to the art. Good lighting is also essential – I often photograph outdoors in full light. Using these measures, you won’t distort the image, and all the details will be captured faithfully.
In this course, I’m sharing everything I’ve learned about my entire process through trial and error. I’ll show you my step-by-step procedures, from tracing to cleaning up the illustration in Photoshop. Then I will explain my tricks for working with the offset filter to create a full and complex pattern, having the filter do most of the work for us.
There are a few key tricks to doing this right in Photoshop, but once you play around with the software and get the hang of it, you may just find yourself creating automated processes for all the different types of pattern repeats. It really just takes some practice. Once you get it down pat, it’s actually pretty amazing how fast and easy it can be to make a repeating pattern…careful, though! You won’t want to stop once you know how!
Once you have your repeat pattern done, you can use companies like Spoonflower or Print on Demand sites to design your own wallpaper, fabric or gift wrap, or to create custom products. Wouldn’t it be fun to make fabric and upholster a chair or make curtains with your art?
As far as prerequisite skills, I would recommend some knowledge of Photoshop with the goal of wanting to learn additional techniques. In class, we’ll talk about both design and technical aspects of creating a pattern from an initial sketchbook artwork. I will demonstrate them at a reasonable pace so that it will be easy to follow along. This course is for all levels; I recommend being acquainted with Photoshop to a certain degree. I suggest pausing and repeating sections and possibly even slowing the speed in your browser when trying to work through any difficult parts. Adobe Photoshop is recommended for this class, as that is what is being featured here, but any other paint software is suitable, so long as it has the same functionality.
