Pattern play!
Surface pattern design has always been something I have wanted to do. When I did the 100 day projects, one year it was patterns. Another year, doing the cup series, I did a lot of patterns. It’s fun to repeat and add and repeat and add and make something interesting.
When I saw Victoria Johnson’s tiny accordion notebook of Portuguese patterns, my artist lit up. Here was someone taking inspiration from a place, not to depict things in drawings, but using colors, shapes and patterns to convey the essence of a place.
This is in line with my 2026 Creative Edge: Expression, not depiction.
It didn’t take much to convince me to take a creative leap and sign up for Victoria’s art retreat in Portugal in September. As a leader of creativity retreats in Europe since 2005, I well know the value of this kind of immersion.
So over the holiday, when looking for things to paint, the potpourri my stepdaughter Dorsey makes was an obvious choice for pattern play.
I love the color palette: golds, ambers, cranberry. I added a yellow accent to give a holiday twinkle feeling.
At yoga, someone hung a garland of dried citrus on the altar. I often practice next to it and lose myself in imagining painting the colors.
What’s around you now that you could capture the essence of and make a pattern on a page?