My First Pattern

Original Design

Pattern in Photoshop

The image on the top is the original artwork done in acrylics. The second image is the pattern created in Photoshop. Before making a pattern the color needs to be reduced which can be complicated. For example there are many, many colors in the original painting. There are brush strokes in which the color may be a bit lighter or darker than the surrounding colors. Essentially, you have to try and get the image to go from millions of colors to 12 or 15. I think I ended up with 20 for this one. By reducing the color you make it easier to change the colors later on.

This is a simple square repeat pattern. The book I am using to learn these techniques is called "Adobe Photoshop for Textile Design" and was written by the same designer who teaches the class I am enrolled in at Craft.edu, Frederick Chipkin. As I said in my last post, he is a great teacher and his book is really wonderful and easy to navigate. I bought the book because his classes don't address all the various permutations involved in pattern design. The book is much more thorough.

My next project to do will be to vary the colorway.

Then on to half drop repeats. I needed a good challenge and this seems to be a good one for me right now! Today was a good day in the studio, one which I sorely needed.