Somewhat by chance, I went to the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco for photo inspiration. Here's a selection of the many photos that I snapped on my iPhone:

Graphic Conservatory - image 1 - student project

My style inspiration board:

Graphic Conservatory - image 2 - student project

From there I sketched in my notebook while looking at the images for reference:

Graphic Conservatory - image 3 - student project

Using a mix of the blob tool and live trace, I converted the images to vector shapes:

Graphic Conservatory - image 4 - student project

I used red when I needed to separate blob-tool-created shapes, but I am digging the stark palette that showed up!

I played with more complex palettes with 10–15 colors, but kept finding myself refining to less and less. Here is my original large palette:

Graphic Conservatory - image 5 - student project

And my small 5 color palette:

Graphic Conservatory - image 6 - student project

Here are the photographs I used to make motifs with the live trace tool:

Graphic Conservatory - image 7 - student project

And the resulting motifs in color:

Graphic Conservatory - image 8 - student project

My first patterns! Just practicing making patterns repeat:

Graphic Conservatory - image 9 - student project

Graphic Conservatory - image 10 - student project

My grouped motifs:

Graphic Conservatory - image 11 - student project

This was tricky for me—Bonnie makes grouping her elements look so easy!

My first 'complex' pattern:

Graphic Conservatory - image 12 - student project

Used the 'Recolor Artwork' tool to make some variations:

Graphic Conservatory - image 13 - student project

Graphic Conservatory - image 14 - student project

Graphic Conservatory - image 15 - student project

Graphic Conservatory - image 16 - student project

I'm addicted! Swapping the colors was really fun. I even brought in my original full palette of colors while recoloring and really like some of the stuff that turned up.

I tried Bonnie's second method of making repeating patterns by making a 'bouquet' though mine is more like a scattering of elements.

Graphic Conservatory - image 17 - student project

Alexandra Moran

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