Reflective Patterns

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.

Original scan

Clean up any gaps

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! 

Flip horizontally and then vertically

Overwhelmed by Offers ?

Are you overwhelmed by all the offers, courses, classes, DIY, Must-Do's! out there? I sure am. I have a hard enough time trying to get one thing in front of me done, without getting distracted by ads that scream "Skills You Need to Have ", "You've Got to See This", "You Must Try This!", "Learn How To Make Your Life Exactly What You Want It To Be With Zero Effort And Make A Million Dollars Doing It." Although many of the courses teach valuable lessons, most of them come at a high price. 

As a creative person, I'm always up for learning more. I love tutorials, marketing classes, instructional videos. However, I don't like spending money on every single thing I come across. I've found some great free PS tutorials through this site PHLEARN like these here. There are many ways to do the same thing, but I love finding a way that's more efficient. Even if something doesn't pertain exactly to textile design, you can still learn tips and tricks that are transferable. 

Here are a few I found pretty interesting. Do you have any favorite free tutorial sites?

http://phlearn.com/how-to-use-step-and-repeat-in-photoshop

http://phlearn.com/how-to-color-an-illustration-in-photoshop

http://phlearn.com/apply-wallpaper-to-walls-in-photoshop

http://phlearn.com/use-refine-edge-tool-photoshop