Reflective Patterns

June 26, 2016

Some folks love either designing in repeat or putting designs into repeat, but I must admit it's not my favorite task. I'm much more of a free flow kind of person. But here is one easy way I can create a quick and interesting repeating pattern, that's different from the traditional square or half drop repeat. And if you are interested, you can watch a 15 minute video of me sketching what is to later become this beautiful decorative pattern.

WATCH HERE>

It's pretty amazing how simple it is and it's fun too! It took me under an hour to create this pattern from start to finish. Of course I did a tiny bit of cleanup and if I were to do multiple colors, it would take longer, but after I did a live trace in Illustrator, I left the variations of gray because I liked the "antiqued" look that it created and that saved time.

Go to my Product Samples tab to see more reflective patterns that I have designed to be used as tablecloths.

So to start, fill a page in your sketchbook with a design—of anything! The key is to have shapes running off the edges and corners so that they will join when flipped horizontally and vertically. Keep this in mind as you are drawing and try to envision what will happen when they are reversed and joined. It makes for less clean up down the road.

Next bring your sketch into Photoshop and flip and copy the image both horizontally and vertically on the top, bottom and sides. You may need to fill in and do slight adjustments at this point if there are any gaps or strange seams (see image below left).

That's it. You have yourself a cool reflective pattern that you can play with. Have fun!

Putting Inspiration To Work

January 27, 2016

I often visit libraries and used bookstores in search of new inspiration. I found a few great books recently and wanted to share how I get inspired by imagery and designs, and then capture various motifs to make my own. I found this book on Erté by Charles Spencer at the Russian Hill Bookstore and found that it contained a huge amount of inspiration.

While flipping through it, I sat with my sketchbook and noted little details that spoke to me and my aesthetic. Once I have a selection of motifs I like to take a page from my sketchbook like the one here, into Photoshop and start playing with various items to see what I can come up with. I sometimes use individual motifs or combine a few—the possibilities are endless.

Can you tell which ones I used to make the patterns below? With color and scale changes, rotating, reflecting and putting my own spin on things, the designs now feel like mine but I know Erté was my inspiration and that's I nice thought. Because I did these designs in the same hand and used a complimentary color palette, they also feel like they could work as part of a collection.

I hope you have fun finding your own inspiration and putting it to work.

Sky's the Limit

September 27, 2015

I once saw an HP ad that said "don't let your babies grow up to be jpegs." This is exactly the thought I have when I look at the gazillion photos stored in my computer. I have always tried to use my photos in a useful and creative way. These sky images were taken last week, all on the same night within a 20 minute timeframe.

I love how a pixelated, repeating pattern can be created and the fun is when you look at it up close and realize that each tiny square is a different sky.

You can also click here, here and here to see more of my photography pattern collages.

Do you like reading about colorful things?

All artwork, images and designs on this website are the sole property of Katja Ollendorff unless otherwise noted.

© 2020 Katja Ollendorff. All rights reserved.