The Process of Designing...and Figuring Out How to Use Adobe Illustrator..

I still don't know how I actually come up with ideas for patterns, but I sure know that I love doing it.  Some days designing just "happens" a lot easier than other days, maybe someday I'll figure out the internal switch that controls it all!  I tend to work in creative spurts, and while taking the e-course "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design", that certainly was the case.  I literally cranked out so many ideas in the first 1 1/2 weeks to last me a few months of fiddling around and developing them.

I doodled these little florals below.  Music is a really important catalyst in my designing process, and I find that I concentrate best when listening to classical music.  Is it the "Mozart Effect"??  No idea!  But I know that it makes me sit still and really get lost in what I'm doing.

I was really intrigued that I came up with these little floral/Dr. Seuss-y funny shapes, around the center flower.  The idea for those came from a lampwork/Venetian style glass necklace that I had been playing with earlier.

(necklace designed by Jasmine Keane)

I redrew the motifs in Adobe Illustrator, which I have really become comfortable using over the past few months.  After arranging them on a page, I initially had issues figuring out how to add color to them.

Black and white? No problem!

I reversed out the page. White outline with dark background? No problem!

Multi-Colored outlines with background color? No problem!

Okay, cool...I've managed to get the motifs with an outline color and solid fill.......but??? I had trouble actually coloring the individual sections.  That's because I really didn't know what I was doing in Adobe Illustrator, you have to think completely different when using it.  You really have to have an idea of what you want your end result to look like, more or less.  I was already familiar with using layers, and after reading some of the tutorials, I finally did it, after a lot of talking to myself.  I do that lately ;)

Et voila!

After finalizing the main pattern, I designed the two matching border pieces....

And......meet Boho Carnival.

I arranged them all on a page with the colorway that I used.  Fun stuff, no?  A tremendous, wonderful learning process, no doubt about it.  I am really fortunate that I can figure out how to use software fairly easily.  It's almost like two different processes. 1.  Doodling, getting the ideas out on paper (yes, the BEST way is just to sketch the old fashioned way, paper and pen!!) 2. Reconstructing those sketches/idea digitally, so that they convey your original vision.  And....oh yeah, making them "repeat", so when tiled there is a seamless pattern is quite the task as well.

I learned tons about using Adobe Illustrator through tutorials on Lynda.com. They charge a monthly fee, but you have access to learning virtually ANY software lessons, they seem to have them all. Check them out!

Oh, and if you want to Pinterest any of my artwork or photography, please attach a link to this blog and give me credit. If you don't, I will find you and hurt you ;)