I still have Artist’s Block. But I’m not letting that stand in the way of the creative process! Take this new Bold Floral print I completed this morning. It looks like it took a lot of creativity, doesn’t it? Here’s a little secret: This one is all process. I finished up the color palette yesterday. Here’s the blog post on that: https://northstarstudio.net/artists-block/ I accomplished the palette by following a process. I chose two colors initially and created a cohesive palette based on those two colors. Nailing the color palette was a huge chunk of completing this pattern. Once the colors were in place, I could start on the layout.

For the layout, I started with some simple shapes. This pattern started out as three circles, six squares, some lines connecting them and some lines just sticking out from the set. Even though drawing shapes would have been fairly simple, my creative energy is pretty low right now. I used a template from “the Folksy Florals Templates Design Bundle” by On The Mark Designs. I found that on Design Cuts https://www.designcuts.com/product/folksy-florals-templates-design-bundle/ I like to turn to this set when I have Artist’s Block and just feel like drawing something.

My Process

With the template ready, I set up my Procreate page so that I worked on two identical templates at the same time, arranged symmetrically and centered on the page. This is following a process I developed last summer, when I had more creativity at hand. With the templates in place, I redrew the basic shapes and filled in a few leaves and stems. This was easy because I already had the colors picked out. It was a lot like coloring. I added shading and details according to a formula from the process I developed last summer.

Now I had what’s called a motif, a repeatable design suitable for surface patterns. Still following the process, I repeated the motif in a diamond pattern and flipped the center motif for variety. And then I repeated the pattern four times on the page to test the repeat to make sure that everything matches up.

Here is a time lapse video of the creative process behind this Bold Floral: