Hello, hello my creative friends!
If you have been following me on Instagram or Facebook, you’ve probably seen that I’ve been posting a different pattern every day.
That is because I am taking part in a challenge called “30 patterns in 30 days” run by Mable Tan.
I must admit it’s been difficult at times because I’m settling down after my international move from the UK to Sicily; at one point my furniture and stuff arrived and I ended up making the pattern in the morning (I’m a morning person) and unpacking in the afternoon! However I really want to keep going to the end.
I’m not normally big on challenges, I started a 100 day challenge once and gave up at day 5! But I can see the benefits of this challenge and here are some of them:
1. After the whole moving house and subsequent holiday I was finding it a little hard to get back into a creative routine. The 30-day challenge is helping me focus on creating every day and, besides that, is pushing me to create patterns from themes that I would have never considered before.
2. It’s helping me find my signature style. If you are an artist you know it takes time to develop a signature style, in fact our style is always evolving. However, by creating tons of artwork we can see that some preferences start to emerge. For example, I usually find it impossible to call a pattern finished unless I add a background texture of some sort. I’ve also started using a consistent color palette and my patterns are starting to look more cohesive. I’m still not sure about the black outlines I’ve been using on my motifs, I might try some patterns without and see if I like it more…
3. I’m finding it easier to move around Adobe Illustrator. I remember more shortcuts and I have put into practice a few techniques I hadn’t used much before. I’m also getting better at drawing directly in Adobe Illustrator with the Blob Brush Tool.
4. I’m learning to work faster. I know we should enjoy the process of pattern making, but I think it’s also an advantage to be able to work faster especially if one day I’ll be working to deadlines or clients requests…
5. I realized I really like creating patterns for children. I don’t have kids myself, but maybe because I’m a child at heart, I really enjoy creating patterns that would be great for wallpaper and soft furnishing in children’s room and also for prints and stickers…
Below are the patterns I have created so far (from day 1 to 17), I’m just over halfway through the challenge and thoroughly enjoying it!
What about you? Have you ever taken part in a challenge? What have you learned from the experience? Did you enjoy it? Or did you just gave up because of limited time or boredom?
Let me know in the comments below.
Till next time
Create and be happy!