Patterned Still Life Painting: Decorative Surfaces & Rhythm

1. Intro: I'm really excited about this class because I love pattern. I always have. In fact, my first Instagram handle, if you've been following me while might remember was pattern obsession before I changed it to Suzanne Allard Design. So this one feels especially fun for me. In this class, we're going to paint a pattern still life, but not in a decorative or realistic way. Pattern here isn't about filling space or copying motifs. It's a design tool that we use to create rhythm, movement, visual interest while keeping the painting loose and flat and expressive. Our project for this class is a pattern forward still light painting where objects are simplified in the bold shapes. At least one, well, many surfaces will have intentional pattern, and flatness is going to be prioritized over depth or realism. But you'll be making decisions by responding visually as you paint rather than following a strict plan, which is how I love to work. Pattern shows up throughout the still life unleash series, this is the only class where pattern is the main focus. We're going to look at how repetition activates space, how busy areas interact with quiet ones, how pattern can bring life to a painting without overwhelming it. This class is playful but also very intentional. Pattern becomes another shape decision. You know, it can be imperfect, expressive, and even a little messy. We're not copying motifs. We'll use restrain so that the painting feels lively and not busy if you love pattern, but aren't always sure how much is too much or how to balance it with Cal Marius this class will help. I'll talk through all those decisions in real time as I paint, when to repeat, when to interrupt, when to stop. The goal here is not a polished or perfect painting. Success here is learning how to use pattern with confidence and loosely as both in a delightful way and as a design concept and understanding how rhythm and restraint and choice all work together. Before you jump into this class, I do recommend taking my class module, designing still life, freedom, confidence, and choice because it walks you through the design mindset behind this entire series. And I think you'll get much more out of this class if you start there. If you're new here, I'm Suzanne Allard, and I didn't start painting until my early 50s. And I really learned pretty much everything from online classes like this. Today, I licensed my art. I sell originals and prints, and I love teaching because we all have a creative part of us that just sometimes needs the right approach to get out. Um, be sure to download the class resources. You'll find reference photos, a cheat sheet of tips just on this type of painting, and a supply list, and those will help you get the most out of the class. So I'm ready to get started. How about you? 2. Supplies: Okay, let's talk about supplies for this Still Life Unleashed series of classes. I in general, when it comes to supplies, I definitely have a problem. I am addicted to art supplies. So bear that in mind. You know, you do not need all of these supplies. I just am an art supply junkie, and I love experimenting with things. But I did try to keep it under control, 'cause, you know, limits are good. So let's start with here, let me flip us down to this camera, and let's start with what I painted on in the class. I used these three sketchbooks and a canvas board. But, of course, you can also use paper. So I'll just quickly go through them. And by the way, I painted this cover, so it doesn't come like this. This is the Stillman and Burn. And I have all of this in the supplies list. I work really hard on my supplies list to make sure they have everything I reference. So you can let me know if I leave anything out. But I have links to everything, and I just really love the paper in this, and I like an off white paper. Just a personal preference. And then this is the Moleskin Art Journal the Large. It's probably two thirds full. This is, let's see, one of the paintings that we're going to do in the class. Yeah, that's one. That's one I did outside of class. This is one of the class paintings. I love this sketchbook, as well, moleskin. And then the third one we use is the fabriano. This is called I think that's in the back of Ansia. Yeah, Vensia. And it's just a little bit larger. The paper is also a nice thickness, and it is, like, a more white color, but it, you know, takes pretty much everything I do to it. So I give you a sneak peek ala This was a class painting. That was a warm up to a class painting. Well, really the I can't remember which one. I love doing those fruit ones. Okay. So those are the sketchbooks I used, and I would say they are three of my favorite brands. Down because they're so heavy. I also use the canvas panel in one of the classes, and I love these as well. I provided a link for them. They frame up just like paper wood, you know, in a frame, but they're already treated and they have, you know, some substance to them. And they're more expensive than paper, of course, but not. Ridiculous. And they're just easier to handle for me than a big canvas. If I'm on the easel, then I use a canvas, usually, or one of those panels. For paper, I would say a watercolor or mixed media paper, definitely something heavier, 140 pound or more. And the Europe, you guys call that 300 GSM. I would prime the paper, and I also prime my sketchbook pages, and I'll show you how I do that, or I'll show you what I use because the reason and I do have a YouTube on why I do this kind of in more depth, but the bottom line is that paper like this is, you know, especially watercolor paper is meant to absorb the paint, right? Makes sense. And if you're going to use watercolors on it, that's great. You get that bleed effect and so forth. Or even if you're going to use Acrylic with a watery wash, then you're going to get that bleed effect. So it really depends on what you want. If you're using a more watery consistency in this class and you want to have um, that washy look, then don't prime the watercolor paper. But if you're going to work the way I did in the class, which is Acrylic and kind of juicy paint, you want it to sit on top, not get absorbed in. Does that make sense? So we prime the surface with something, and you can use I use them interchangeably, depending on what I want. I use a fluid map medium if I just want to kind of have a more slick surface, and if I want that kind of crunchy, toothy feel, I use gesso, and you just brush it on and let it dry. And that's enough. That way, when you paint, your paint won't get sucked up by the paper. Before I learned to do this, I was trying to paint with Acrylic, and, you know, you'd paint, and the kind of paint would disappear and then paint another layer and disappear. And you waste a lot of paint that. Again, if you're gonna do the wash heathing where you want the bleed and so forth, then you would not prime the paper. And the same thing applies to the sketchbooks. So I usually prime them with the MT medium or the gesso for the same reasons. Okay, so that's surfaces. For palette, I either use, you know, a piece of plexi. I think I have an old piece of Plexiglass here. I usually use palette paper. I just like to be able to use it easily quickly. And then sometimes you get some nice pieces to use for collage, or some people use them as inspiration for abstract paintings. But that's disposable palette. Basically, you tear off the sheet and throw it out. For brushes in this series of classes, I used my Suzanne Allard design juicy brushstroke series, and they are they just came out. Um and I think I only used I might have used one more smaller brush. So but any flat, if you wanted to get the same effects, a flat number six, and maybe for the occasional detail of flat number four, and maybe sometimes a Filbert, and that's what this shape is here, and it's kind of rounded at the top. But I would say any good quality brush, what I would be careful of is just don't get anything that's too smushy, like, super, super soft. You're not going to have maybe the effect and control that you want. And on the other hand, don't get anything too stiff. Like for this. Anyway, or just understand that brushes will change the effect. So there's no wrong brush. But if you're trying to get certain effects, learning what they do, like, these Princeton catalysts are really, really stiff. And so you're gonna get a different effect. You're gonna more, like, push the paint, and it's kind of better for oils. So just understand if you're getting if you're not getting the result you want, might be the brushes. Of course, it might be the paint, too. Speaking of paint, I use in this Still Life Unleashed series, basically two types of paint. I use the Acro gouache and my favorite brands are the Hbain. That's what these two are and the Turner. And I put them both in a palette the same way I do the acrylics, which I'll show you in a second. And then the acrylics I'm using are the Nova Color. These are the paints that are available only via their website. They don't sell in stores and they're artist quality paints for a student grade price, but they really only a good deal in the US because the shipping is too much to make it worth getting out of the country is what people tell me. Anyway, I have a Suzanne Allard design bundle with them. You do not need to buy Nova Colors. You do not need to buy the Turner or the Hbin. You can use what you have. Just try to buy the best quality that you can afford. I would rather have you have fewer colors and a better quality. So if you'll see I use a limited palette of the acrylics, which is what's often called the split primary palette, which is really just two yellows, two reds and two blues. But within each of those, you have a warm yellow and a cool yellow, a warm red and a cool red, and a warm blue and a cool blue. So really that and maybe a few really fun colors like fluorescent magenda, which I'm obsessed with. And maybe, you know, you can make almost every color from that split primary palette. So I would rather see you get a good brand and just get those six colors plus white and then get some cheap brand and get a bunch of colors. You'll learn so much more about color and you'll like the result of your paintings better because the cheaper paints don't have much pigment in them. They have a lot of fillers, so you just you're not getting that, you know, kind of rich look that you probably want. Alright, so that's paint. For sketching, I sketch my compositions in usually three or so different ways, always very casually. And in the designing Still Life class, I talk about how you can use really anything. You can use a pencil. You can use a colored pencil. You can use sometimes I like to use this fun fluorescent pink solid marker by sakura. Or one of these pencils by Well, this I would use for actually something that's going to show because they're pricey, these luminant carinash luminants. And I've got all that in the supply list. But I often will just take a little bit of paint, water down on my brush and sketch with that. So I also love sketching with neoclor crayons. And, you know, these are the neocolor twos, so that means that they are water soluble. So if I sketch with one of these, I can it'll dissolve with the paint that goes on it. It doesn't really show, and I kind of like when some of it does show. So that's those are the different sketching tools that I use. All right. And let me show you the paint, and then I'll show you a couple of sort of paint related, I guess, things. So quickly, I put my for me, success in painting means I can just get my stuff out and start painting. I don't have to squeeze a lot and work a lot. It just helps me to be more on the go. So for the acrolGuah and you could actually use these containers for either Acrylic, there's no rhyme or reason to why I just I'm using them this way. But I put the acro gouache in these containers and then I can kind of see the split primary there a little bit. The warm yellow, cool yellow, warm red, cool red. And some blues. There's a couple of other things like an opera pink, which is another color that I buy because you can't make it. So these guys, I keep them with wrapped in a wet paper towel like you just saw me take off in the fridge, and they have lasted months, months, months, months. It's amazing. Sometimes the silicone rubbery cover is a little tricky to get back on, especially 'cause I probably have some paint in there, but that's it. That's how easy it is to get them out, start painting and put them back. And then I if I find that they're drying too fast, I will add sometimes a slow dry medium by liquitex. And so they're just it's so convenient. They're ready to go. And same with my novas. I have a small one and a big one of these. Is my wet paper towel. And, um, it took a while to find the right container to do what I wanted, but I did. And, yeah. So again, you know, now, if I notice, like, that one looks a little dry when I'm painting, I will use my I think it was originally a makeup like a face hydrating spray. But I use it this way. You know, I don't like them too, you know, over the watery, but if they need a spray, then I'll do that. But again, I bet you I've had this in the fridge for six months. And that incredible. So it's a great way to save save paint and make them convenient. And it's fun because you can mix some of the colors that you really like right in the little wells. Okay. Last thing I want to show you, I think some people ask, let me get my sketchbook. You know, how do you keep the pages from sticking if sometimes like this one, we paint in the class. I love how this turned out. But, well, the acrylics not too bad, but sometimes they will stick. Let me see if I can get one to stick. Oh, you hear that? That was a sticky sound. And so I will use this fixative Um, if I want to use something non toxic in the house, like in the winter, this is the Dega spectra fix. It's completely natural. I can do it right now. No issues. If I want to use something, this one's a little pricey. So if I want to just do it outside in the garage, I use my Okay, I think we're okay. If I okay, using, you know, going out in the garage, I can use the crylon workable fixative, which does not smell good, but in the garage, it's fine. But I don't and it doesn't linger too much on the sketchbook pages, 'cause I don't want my sketchbooks to smell. Well, I don't mind if they smell good. But I don't want them to smell bad. Alright, I think I've covered everything, and we are gonna have so much fun in this class. I can't wait to get started with you. 3. Gathering Inspiration: Okay, let's get inspired. I love pattern. I'm obsessed with it. In fact, my first handle on Instagram was pattern obsession. I just I don't know what it does for me. Maybe it's from growing up in South America with the beautiful patterns and fabrics. I'm not sure, but I am obsessed. If anything, I have to work on not overdoing it. So we'll work on that together. So I wanted to just start with a few that I have in my sketchbooks. That we can look at. And this little I just I don't even know if you can see the texture that I achieved on this blue with I think it was just a little bit of lighter crayon, but I had painted. That's another reason I like to pre paint my pages something with something that gives you texture on them is some of that shows through. And so I have pattern in the wall here. And then I remember I did this and it was too much. So I painted over it and it left a really nice subtle painting or print there. And it's just so fun to do pattern because there's so many inspiring places to find it. And, you know, pattern is part of the design. It's it's in our design decision. So we now we have to make sure the painting works before we put pattern in. It won't carry up painting, but here are a couple other examples. I did put these in another one Yeah, I have another one that I put in class documents for inspiration and then I've got the inspiration photos in there too. You see how we don't use it everywhere, and it can create rhythm, which is what moves your eye around a painting it's great for helping with rhythm. Anything that you move around, color, um, shape, texture pattern that helps move the person around. In this case, this was a spread. But that's what we're going for. Using pattern is a design element and not overdoing it, building our shapes first. Let's look at the pictures I've selected for the class download. Here's a bouquet that I made. I really love the stripe and the vase and I love this sort of fat chunky, you know, you can, so maybe we'll put that in there. This is a picture from everywhere I travel. I take pictures of vessels and just pattern, anything that I think, you know, I might want to use someday. This was in Portugal in a store and I just like these shapes. This was Pixa Bay. I love primitive patterns. Then one of the masters of pattern when I was in Paris at the anger Museum, I got to see two original Mattis. He's probably well, one of my favorite artists. And look at all the pattern in this, here, here, here, here, and really even those stripes are a pattern. So he's just kind of inspires me in general for color and pattern. This was in Paris in a little coffee shop. And this vase caught my eye, and, you know, there's a pattern on it, but the shape also and this little guy as well. This was another shop in Paris. So I just take pictures all the time. People people are probably like, why is she taking pictures of all of our items? Why don't she just buy something? And then I put this together just playing with some pattern things that I had painted as a background, a few kind of still life elements. And then this is the painting. This is another painting I did with pattern. That's the one that's here. Then this is a Pintres photo because look at it. I mean, my gosh, it's got great vessels with different patterns on them. I mean, you can do a lot with this photo. And then I threw this in there because I just love this fabric, mole fabric from South America. And I don't know if we use it or not, but it just, you know, you never know. That's what I do is kind of collect some things, think about it, and then just start painting and we'll see where it goes. 4. Background Sketch: Okay. So the first decision I usually make is unless I've already pre painted, is what color is my underpainting going to be or am I going to have one? In this one it was this turquoise. You can see behind. And in these, I did a lot of pink. I think I made the shapes in pink, it looks like, and then different shades of pink and then kind of sketched it in hot pink and went over that. So I think it'd be kind of fun to incorporate some of this. So let's do kind of a mixed pink background and the challenges that you have to do. Well, you have to watch if you use a lot of fluorescent, it is too hard to look at. It hurts the eyes until you cover it up. So that's challenging. I'll tone it down and then we'll see what comes forward and I'm using my little aqrlGuah palette for this painting. So I'm going to mix some. I've got that. There's different names for it. They have opera rose. I mean, opera red. Well, there's an opera rose. This is a luminous rose. Some of them are less than others, but I can just tone it down. So first, I'm going to go through and do that without making too much of a fuss and kind of mixing it right here on the page. So I'm going to get a larger brush. Any brush will do. You could even use a like a craft brush for this kind of thing 'cause we're just getting it on there. See what I mean by ouch. So sometimes I'll just tone it down immediately with some of this beige. We use a little water and throw in a little bit of gesso. Gesso acts as a white. So we're actually even in the underpainting, starting with a little bit of rhythm because I'm going to make sure that the same bits, some of the same bits are over on this side in different places. So I'm just dipping into my beige, my pink need a little more gesso. This is my Skillman Stillman and burn sketchbook. I really love these sketchbooks. It's the Gama series, which they kind of name them Gamma, Beta, something like that for different colors and textures of paper. And even though here I am painting over the whole thing, I like an off white paper. So see how I'm just making sure there's a little bit of balance and rhythm even in this. Even though most of it will get covered up. This also is a nice warm up. It just sort of allows you to play loosely, I mean, because it does not matter. You can literally can't make a mistake on this. I mean, I guess you could have really intense color on one side and really pale color on the other, but that wouldn't be a mistake. That would just be something that, you know, influenced your painting or you could end up covering it up. And it doesn't have to be ha covered. Sometimes some textures nice. I'm using a little water. The more water you use, the longer it'll take to dry, so just keep that in mind. Here, I'll use other side of my brush to hold it down. I've just got cardboard, like, stock or card stock in here to, um, protect the other pages in my sketchbook. Okay. Here's something fun you can do. Scratch into it a little bit. Never know. So we might leave some of that showing through. Okay, we're gonna let that dry. And for brushes, I'm using my brush set. The juicy strokes brush set. And once this is dry, we will get our main shapes in. These are so fun. All right. So the way I did this spread, it's like two separate but magi paintings, color and rhythm wise. But I'm thinking here, maybe I'll just make one whole composition, and I really love this. So I think I want to sketch that in first. I will make it off center on purpose. Then we'll just pick out some shapes in here and add to that and get the structure of this yeah. And pattern comes after that. So um, since I've got a underpainting in pink, I don't want to sketch in pink. Let's see. You can do red, real work. I'll water it down. You can water it down a lot. You can use a crayon, what else could you use? A marker. I sketch on all kinds of things. I love how fat those little vases something like that. Then these um you don't realize when you do a bouquet how big, look at that size of that flower. It's almost the size of this bouquet, which would mean I've already made the bouquet too big. I can't make it because I don't want to make the flower this big, but I continue to be amazed by that when I really just look at that. We'll make it big because I love a big bloom. It's just giving me an idea and smaller one here. Got some leaves going different ways here. Another one there. Maybe I don't want to poke this little guy to dominate too much. Just putting that Yeah, I probably did make the vase too big. But we will let me show you how I can's take some of that out. Make it smaller, just so I remember. We'll see if I remember. Hm. Alright, let's find another shape. This is pretty cool. This could be like I love that, too. Hmm. I think that might have to go here, at least part of it. When I do, 'cause we might do some sort of tablecloth pattern, so I'm just gonna make a couple of marks there. Alright. Let's see. Oh. Remember that. That's fun. I'm trying to decide what size to make it and whether to put it here. Let's make it like this tall. It's kind of more like this. It can be anything we want it to be, but I'm I like the shape of it, so I'm trying to keep with it. Okay. This. Okay, let's see here. Looking for another vessel. Yeah, I could use my paintings as inspiration, but I don't know. Sometimes I do. Let's go back to this. Oh, I know. Wait. Do I have my blue bottle? No, but I love putting this in, so I'll find it and add it into the class documents. So it's just a tall, you know, water bottle, wine bottle type thing. And I'm intentionally having these be behind each other, in front of each other, that sort of thing. Alright, so that's four vessels, I don't want an even number. So let's put a little one in front. That shape is fun. But I think I want more of a Oh, where was that? I have one more picture I haven't looked at yet. Yeah. Let's see. Maybe just that shape there. M kind of put it small here. I want it behind that one, I think. Better color that in or I'm gonna forget what I've got here. Behind this one, but in front of that one. So this is like a visual note. I'm giving myself. Okay. All right, so we have a sketch and we'll be able to do pattern on these some of these vessels and also on our wall and maybe in some tablecloth. I think I want to them shorten this vase here and make it smaller, so I see that better. That we have some tablecloth down here. Alright. All our sketch is done, it's almost dry. We'll just give it another minute, and we'll start painting. 5. Painting Main Shapes: So I just wanted to show that we are when I did the design, I have everything at a different level and different size. So, I don't have it going straight across. I have this tall one, this little one. This one's about that high, high that high, none of them are at the same exact height. And, you know, we may I may put a floral going up. Who knows? Or some leaves. But just from a design point of view, it's more interesting, right to have variety. All right. Color wise, I really like this color palette here. So I think I'm going to start with this being that kind of deep red. And I don't use colors straight out of the tube because I always mix them with something. So I'm just mixing this red with a few other things until I like it. I put in some kind of a cory color. I still kind of dull looking. I will say painting against this pink background does tend to make things look dull. So I know that and I just kind of bear that in mind. Here's our scratches showing through. And you don't have to start with any particular shape. I just felt like starting with this one. But I think I'll go in and do this one next because I do love cutting in around objects, and that's easier done. Well, that means that you paint the things forward first, and this one is behind. Okay. This, I think, should be a nice ultramarine blue. I love ultramarine blue with a little bit of white, and we'll probably do some stripes in it, like in the picture. It's a little toning it down with a tab with a little bit of yellow ochre. I'm holding my brush loosely. And I'm actually standing. You could sit for this painting. It's not that big. But I'm kind of into standing these days. Alright, let's leave that. I kind of like some of that. Do you see how I left bits of the background? It's kind of fun. I think for the flowers, um, I grab a Philbert and maybe take some white with the beige and sometimes I play with letting, you know, this background color be part of the flower. So let's just see where that goes. I always have to try to not make the flowers too round, too perfectly round and overworked. That's always a challenge. I'm going to put the center more up there, pointing kind of this way. And maybe orange here. A nice warm orange. This center can be there. It helps to kind of ground the flour if I grab the center, and then we can take some of this red. It's for rhythm, right, and make centers. There's some nice bits of the pink showing through there. So this is our first pass. I'm not gonna do too much until we kind of see where we are. What color should I make this one? Maybe maybe a lavender. I've still got yellow on my brush, so it's a warm lavender. And heading a little white here just so we have a sense of structure to the flower. Maybe a little magenta in the center. This is a sideways view. Now I'm going to make some green I still have the lavender. Basically, I don't wash my brush a lot if I start feeling like a color is not going the way I want it to or mixing compliments too much. They can tone down things nicely, but they can also flatten and kill colors. All right. I'm getting some leaves in there, but like the bits of pink showing through there. Let's keep that simple for now. Let's see there. I grabbed orange too much orange by accident. I wanted that a bit darker. Alright, so that's there. Let's color let's I was going to say color in, but we're Color it in with paint. I want to make this a almost white color then we'll come back and put stripes in it or something. I put a tiny bit of my off white. For some variety. Well, those marks are cool. Makes it look like pottery, doesn't it? That's why I love using a big brush and not painting. In fact, I want to be careful here. I want to keep some of that pink there. Varying my color a little bit, throwing a little green in there, gives it that sort of and my brush is a little dry and sort of scumbling here, which is giving me that nice pottery look and I don't want to go in and mess that up. Well, I have this nice color. I'll see if we can put a little bit there. Okay. I end up making this fatter than I want. So I think I'm gonna bring it down more like I'm just kind of making a sketch more like that. And there will be some space there. So I just have to decide the color. What color? What color? Who? Dark glass. Is that too light? That's too bright. Okay, so we'll knock it back a little bit with some green and throw a little orange in there, just maybe it'll look like glass. You really letting the brush and the paint do the work for this stage, and then we'll let the pattern do some work. Okay. I had to make my um, top of the bottle center. It's going off the page. It's fine. I don't need to make it. Have it make perfect sense, right? I'm cutting out the shape of this one in front of it. There we go. Yeah, okay, that's good. Maybe a little more like this. It's pretty. Where else am I gonna put a little turquoise? We can always put it in the pattern, and we will. That'll be fun. Okay, now I can take this little guy here, which he's kind of a lavender blue and make him a little fatter 'cause he's not running into that bottle anymore. Does that make sense? I didn't want this ending with that, but it's not anymore 'cause I made that bottle smaller. So now I'm gonna take that more like this. I took it. Putting a little background back in. I didn't want to be that wide. That way, I know where I am when I paint. Okay. That shape is good. This is good. Yeah. Okay. So background color. Maybe a yellow. Yeah, I think that'd be pretty. Let's get the background in and then we'll let things dry. Kind of a warm sort of softer yellow too too bright. No. Your background doesn't have to all be the exact same color. In fact, it's kind of nice to mix it up. You'll see a lot of artists do that. Yeah, especially where you can help it contrast with things like this is a light colored vase, so I could make the background a little darker there to help it show up better. I'm not covering all of it because I like our pink. I just realized, you know, you do this underpainting stuff, and then if you cover up too much of it, you kind of lose some of the magic. So that's taken me, you know, that's been a process. And not just the background, but some of your shapes. So be thoughtful, not anal, but thoughtful about what you want to cover up and what you want to leave out. Like, as I'm painting around this, you know, maybe I leave a bit of the pink there and I can use this negative space to paint maybe leave that there. That little triangle. Who knows? It might be something distracting, but I can always cover it up later. Oh, I forgot what tablecloths gonna start there. Oh, that colors so pretty. This is reminding me, like a little French cafe scene. Now we have our tablecloth, which could just be pink. Yeah, why not? So I'm just gonna put it in a little more intentionally. Maybe it's a pinky yellow. Kind of like what we had in the background. We'll see how that looks. And yeah, then I can fix. Oh, I've got some vase there that I can play with. See how things started to shape. And here's a little background. I'm gonna cut that shape a little bit. Things started to get shape when I start putting that tablecloth in kind of fun. Yeah, this is looking good. I'm debating, so, you know, I was like, Oh, I need to go back and put some red there for that vase, but there's something kind of fun about that the way that looks there. So I don't know. Might leave it. The other thing I'm thinking about is see my tablecloth ends right here. And do I want that or do I want a little bit more here? Let me just try to visualize that. I don't know. Well, we can this is dry. We can put it in. Let's try putting it in after this stress so it doesn't smudge. And also walking away, 'cause I might decide, No, don't do that. I mean, I can always just paint turquoise back over, but I feel like we need to set the bottle back a little bit, which would mean a little tablecloth. Then these two are forward. These two are back a little, and we have kind of a nice balance of that here, but we'll let it dry first. 6. Designing Pattern: Okay. So, you know, this is a pretty little spread painting, but it will come to life when we use pattern. And it's just so much fun. And I really love this kind of wall pattern that I made there. So I think I want to do the same thing. Yep. I'm going to sketch it out with one of my No color crayons. And So let's just do it. There's no rhyme or reason to starting Well, it might be too big. Yeah, there's no rhyme or reason to starting with the um the wall behind it. You know, I think I just start where I'm most excited about. So, me, that's drying now. So let's see here. I'm not trying to make this exact. You have to be careful with pattern if you can get perfectionistic or, you know, anything like that because you can get drawn in by trying to create the perfect symmetrical pattern. And I mean, unless you really enjoy doing that, this kind of painting is not about the perfect pattern. It's just about creating that liveliness and sort of element of excitement that Pattern provides. Whoops, it's way over. And actually, it can be more wonky. Alright. I just wanted to kind of see what that looks like. I like that. And I actually really like these little white flowers in here instead of a stripe. So maybe I'll do that. It's I like kind of coloring them in sometimes with a crayon just to get an idea of the whole composition. And sometimes I've left them. I'm just like, Oh, that worked with the crayon. I don't need to go over it with paint or marker or whatever you've got. Color pencil works, too. Just a suggestion of it over there. And it is a suggestion. You know, there's you don't have to spell everything out in a painting. We can have um The idea of something. So people know that it's a pattern. Let me do some stripes here. This is an orange crayon. It gives me an idea that I can see, do I like that orange there, and maybe it goes this way down here. I can come in there with paint. Already, it's getting a little more alive. Let's look for some pattern inspiration on our pictures. Maybe for this one. Well, that's a pretty wall pattern that Mattis did. Ooh. I like that from the Paris pick. So and I think it'd be pretty in the blue, too. So, let's see. We'll do a loose version of that. Basically, it goes like this. And then comes around and goes like that again. Ooh, isn't that fun? Do I want to do more of it? I'm just sitting there going, Do I want to cover it or just do that one bit? I don't know yet, so I'm gonna leave it. Pattern doesn't need to be on everything, course and shouldn't maybe we won't even do anything on this one, but this I want to do something on. And I want variety. So maybe this one would be something really small. Like, maybe even just some spots like that. And red would be a good color because it would give us rhythm here. So this will just I can either just do them in crayon like this. Or I can come back and do some and paint or not. That crayon, I need a better point on it. There we go. You get this nice texture effect with the crayon. Which you know you may or may not like, but it's an option. Okay. So now I'm looking over the whole thing. Tablecloth. What, if anything, do we do there? So here I did these little, let's look at the painting. So I like this would be good because we don't have anything tiny. So we could do the tiny here. And we can still find some places to do tiny. We could actually do this kind of thing up this part of the vase. That would be pretty and do these tiny little Flo del looking things here. Well, I think that's a good plan. So just as a note, and I think blue would be nice. So we're just gonna make little couple little Florida les. This is, like, a visual note that that's what we're doing here. Okay, so that's that. We've got this. Alright, let's do some of this and paint. We planned the shapes first, and now we're planning the patterns to paint some of these small flatworks like, the size four or around. Depends on kind of the look you want. 7. Painting Pattern: I really like these flowers. I might not want to paint them in. Hmm. Kind of like how they look. Alright, well, since I'm not sure what's laid on them and come in here and do the orange stripe on this. I kind of an orangy red, just so we can bring in some of that red. Maybe a little. We'll vary the orange, maybe lighten it at some. A little right there. I like having the crayon marks show through, too sometimes. Um, let's just make these. I like the mark sometimes the flat brush makes when you go this way, like I just did sideways like this. You would think you could just go like that, which is a different mark, but there's something cool that happens there. Well I have the orange on my brush when I add a little yellow and just give another highlight to this flower. This little second coat bit. Maybe it's the sun hitting it a little bit. And I was thinking do I want orange anywhere else? Well, in case we decide to leave these flowers, I could see what happens if we just put some little centers in there. I'm using the corner of the flat. I don't need to make them all uniform. Um, Hmm, that's kind of fun. Might have to leave those cream flowers. Let's see. I don't I think green picking up the green in the leaves, how long this pattern would make for a nice rhythm there. So let's take out some of my orange, but not all of it and make a green. So let me get my little. Sometimes it's hard to see a color, and that's too dark on the palette, so I mix it and put it on the it's just what I'm looking for. I'm kind of looking I kind of like this shade that came here, so I'm going in for something like that. It is it is a background, so I don't want it to be too, you know, in your face. And Yeah, that's cooler, and cool colors recede, so we'll push it back with a little cool color. I'm not gonna paint it really precisely. I kind of like those crayon marks showing. And this, also, if I adjust the color as I go, it doesn't matter. And I don't even need to cover the whole background. So there's little bits of that showing We're suggesting the pattern, you know? This one is pretty clear, but we don't have to paint it precisely. Um, some places I'm letting my brush dry. So it's kind of scumbly. I like that scumble effect, especially on the background. HarcoGuah can dry out pretty fast, so in a way, it makes you work quickly. It's drying out on me, and I wanted that dry effect, so I didn't want to put too much water in, but gonna have to. Add some a different effect. Okay, we would have another one starting there. Okay. I'll bring a little bit of that colour just for balance here. This is fun. I'm looking it over. I think I do want these um, little red things to be more tying that in. It's just a little, I don't know, preference. So that they pop a little more, at least some of them and tie in with that. It's fun. I varied the color a little bit. You like doing that? Okay, so let's do our blue thingamajigi here. Well, I think that's better done with a flat. Going back to the ultramarine blue with a little bit of white. You see the texture, remember when we use the back of the brush into the background. There's a little bit of line here and a little bit of that here and here, it's really I'll show you a close set, but I don't know if you can see it. I like it. 8. Painting More Pattern: Two I'm not gonna cover some of that scratchy stuff I like. Okay. Yeah, I don't think we need any more of that there. It's really bright. So now I'm feeling like I need some I know we have some blue that's gonna go in the tablecloth, so that might be enough. Alright, well, we have it. I'm just feeling like this is too bright, but we'll let it dry and see. Can always tone it down a little bit. I'm gonna get the round brush to do the little Florida Lee, and it's very very, um, casual mark, very, uh, painterly and not trying to be precise here. We're just suggesting this. I'm not lining them up or anything like that. It's really fun, isn't it? To just make these marks and see it come to life. When I hear it's lighter, I add more white. Just because no reason. Variety. It's drying out a little bit. This we can add water. I don't need to scumble this. Alright, I still feel like I need a little of that blue on this end. So I'm just gonna come over here and do a little sort of out maybe an edge. That's fine. Okay. Now, we talked about doing something here. But let's look and see if we are going to have too much if we do that. Well, it is a pattern class, so I think I want to. Maybe come up here with this yellowy orange color and make a like a leafy thing, sort of like this one. I could either just do the leaves or I could do these. Mm. I'm kind of thinking just little small leaf things so we don't overdo it. The great thing is like I showed you in that one example, if a patterns too much, you just paint over it. And then you have in this example, and then you have that happy accident of it's still there, but it's just tone down a lot. Okay, so I think I just want to do some smallish branchy things and turn them around. I need a little more pain. I just want them going in different directions. They don't need to be precise or matchy. Maybe one's coming out of there. And this way. Hmm. Alright, so I think I'm gonna stand up and get a better view. I think I feel like they're too big, but I can fix that with some cutting in, which I love to do with the red. And also, I'm gonna cut in on that when it's dry and just settle it down. Because it's blue on the red is really jumping out. So I want to tone it down. And what else am I thinking as I look at this? But like there's a lot of excitement here and it's a little imbalanced and quieter here. That really happened when I did that. If I tone this down, that might help. Let's just wait and do that and then see what we think. The other thing is, I keep looking at this going, this will be a fun place for a viny type of plant. Maybe I should just go ahead and do that. Why not? What color would I want it to be? Well, if I did it in red, that helps the excitement factor. I like it. I'm thinking about, do I want it to flow over more? And I'm also thinking about not to try not to make it too, um, tight or fuzzy. Hmm. Well, you know, since I have the red out, I can come in here and make the stuff a little go ahead and cut in on some of this. I don't want to cover up some of the juicy bits in the background of this vase 'cause there's some nice scratchy marks. But I just want to make this smaller and more less of a thing. Yeah, remember we were talking about this pink section. Well, now might as well. Come in and it was kind of cool the way it was, but here we are. And Okay. Well, um, gosh, cut in on this. Make this a lot smaller. It's mostly dry. Let's see. It's gonna need two coats probably. I actually love the process of um modifying, you know, so as you go along in the painting and you make changes, I think that's that old saying, or I don't know how old it is, but that artists create problems and solve them. Okay. I think that I might make that leaf solid, some of these bits. Me that one solid and maybe one more. Alright, now we're gonna live it, right? 9. Final Details: Alright, so I want to play some more with some ideas. Um, let's get this small flat brush. I want to I want to bring some things together. I want to do some details. So I'm gonna take some of this turquoise that we made here, and I am gonna do those flowers. And You can see how imprecise I'm making them. I'm gonna bury the color a little bit. My brushes was wet from cleaning it, so the paint is a bit watery. So I may have to do two coats. Let me dry it out. That will give some nice variety, just adding some water. Okay. So the other thing I was thinking about is some kind of, like, see how here, what I did was I came and painted the background, and it was like a happy accident. I left some of the white behind it of the paper, and I like that. So now I'm wondering, I want to do something like that here, but I could either just paint a little bit of white around, which is kind of what I'm leaning toward, or I could paint white and leave the yellow bits. So neither one is right or wrong. It's just kind of what I'm feeling like I want to do. And when I say them both. I kind of like them both. So let's do the white around the shape a little bit. I don't want it to be super opaque, so I'm gonna add water. I use a side of my flat brush, and we'll see it, I think. I could also use a marker. I could use a white No Color cram as well. This kind of gives the effect of cutting in, too. It's one of the few times where I use my brush hold my brush like this rather than like a magic wand. When I'm painting most of this, I do this, which allows you to be a little looser. I remember, like, on some of these, I'll redo something three or four times before I'm happy with it. Just adding a little more mp. Just wondering if I want to do something like that. Yeah, I like that. Um, Alright. And I was thinking about something here. I couldn't help myself. I mean, we're basically Devon, but, you know, how I like to play. And I play until I'm like, Okay, that was the bit of magic I wanted. That helped. I like that brighter yellow there. And I am feeling like this blue is still too loud. So let's see if we take some off light teeny bit of orange because orange is a complement of blue, so it'll knock it back. But I really want basically, I'm making a glaze. So I'm trying to Really water it down. Yeah. Then I can go back over with the red. Alright. Let's see. Maybe some little we don't have a lot of tiny things, so let's put a little bit of some tiny bits in here. And I think it would be fun to come in with a white cram on these. Let me get my, um, white cream or a very light one. Let's see what we've got here. Yeah, let's try this one. Maybe not on all the petals, but just some of them. Waiting for that to dry. And I'm gonna tone down this white a little bit. It's in some places a little too white for me. Jumps out too much. So bring it down on a hoch or two with the off white. Take another sweep of that there. Okay, that's dry. Um, well, I'll let it dry a little more. And then I think I'm gonna do, like, some texture in these with the crayon. It's probably Yeah, it's not visible enough. I mean, I can kind of see it 'cause I'm moving sideways, and I can see, like, a glimmer. But let's see. We could do something a little less subtle. What's great about the neo coolor crayons is if you use the number two ones, they are water soluble. So if you don't like what you just did, you just take a wet paper towel. Okay, let's do a little pattern here and if we don't like it, we'll make it subtle. If we don't like it, we can always, you know, take the wet paper towel, get rid of it if we think it's too much. Or if we think it doesn't add, sometimes you do something and it doesn't add, and it detracts. And then you can get rid of it. I like the texture in this bottle, so I don't want to put anything too, you know, strong. Maybe take another crayon and do some patterning here. I'm just wanting a little more texture. I'm just playing. Alright, let's do this. And then I think we are going to be done with this one. It's fun when you watch someone paint because all you see is the finished product, and you don't know the different adjustments they went through and the different, you know, how many times they repainted the background or changed something. I always enjoy that. And when if you call something a mistake, it's just I don't know, for me, it's like an opportunity for more texture or to grow, learn something different. I mean, you can definitely overwork, and this is looking like it could be. But I think the cutting in helps keep it fresh, 'cause now I've got these interesting shapes coming, and now we've got this kind of wash on there. So it's just making for some interesting bits. I'll put some of this darker paint here and there. Particularly down at the bottom, even though we're not really concentrating on form in this class. These are flat shapes. But sometimes it's nice to put a little suggestion of something down there for a shadow. You can mix it up. Okay, I think this one is ready to sign, but where? I generally like to sign with something I've been using in the painting like a crayon or a color of paint. I think I'll just wait till let's try and do a little there. See if there are any other areas I want to play with. I was fun. I think we're done. I hope you enjoyed that. It was fun to, you know, put our shapes together and then build up pattern from there, push things back, bring them forward, look for balance and rhythm. And I'm pretty happy with it. 10. Wrap Up: Hope you really enjoyed painting this pattern still life and exploring how pattern can bring energy and personality into your work. In this class, we focused on using pattern as a design tool, using repetition to create movement, balancing busy areas with quiet ones, and letting patterns support the painting instead of overwhelming it. It's kind of a challenge, right? What I love about this approach is how it helps you to see pattern as a choice, another design choice. This carries into everything you paint, whether you're working from a reference, imagination or a mix of both. So be sure to come back to the cheat sheet as you continue exploring this idea. And I also have some additional resources for you. I have a Facebook only student group, and the link to join that should be in your welcome email. If you don't have it, you can always email me at heart at suzanne.com, and I'm happy to send it to you. You can also find me on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook for more earning and inspiration. I do send out a monthly, bi monthly email newsletter called Your Creative Adventure, where I share creative insights, inspirations, studio happenings. But most of all, I'm just glad you painted along with me. I really love working this way, letting Pattern be expressive and imperfect and full of life. And I hope you did, too. I will see you in the next class.