Creating repeating patterns

To create repeating patterns at home, I used an iPhone app called Adobe Illustrator Draw which allowed me to place in images and changed them with the ability to also draw and create images on top of the imported ones.

First I imported an image of my own drawing of a repeated pattern I had already created from one square which I then printed nine to put together and create a larger square. I rotated the images every other square 180° to give the grid a different look to other grids I had made.

With this imported into Adobe Illustrator Draw I was able to draw straight onto the image in another layer to trace the lines I had created.

Once this was done I was able to add colour, this was as simple as filling in the layers with a new colour and meant it was easy to change and develop. I chose to do two tone colouring alternating each square to give the effect of an Andy Warhol painting as he used bright bold colours alternating in grid formation as well.

My inspiration for these pieces was Andy Warhol, this was because he used bright bold colours within his pieces and stuck to the same colours in different shades within each square. This gave me my idea to do the same thing with my pattern design and it made an effective final outcome which looks and relates back to Warhol’s pieces due to their similarities.

Here you can see a short video of the process in which I went through to created these pieces of repeating patterns for my wrapping paper designs.