Here's my pinterest board, at this point I didn't have much idea of what I wanted to do, but then the patterns with people swimming were very attractive to me. 

I also like a lot the patterns with animals and thought of combining them into one. I had my first diving experience this year, and it was to see Manta Rays. 

I started with the loose sketches, those were great for the divers, but I wasn't very impressed with the mantas and decided to draw them again, this time not from a photo but from the videos of my diving trip. I drew them on my sketchbook first and then traced them on Procreate.

That way I was able to capture different movements and shapes mantas have when swimming.

 

For the first pattern, I used the shapes of the first sketched mantas, in a way the lack of details wasn't that obvious. I didn't have a color palette in mind, so I experimented with different combinations. I liked the joint markers as bubbles.

Before the final, I used the more detailed mantas and added the fish.

And this is the final pattern, less busy and with all the elements I liked from the previous attempts.

I'm thinking of using the pattern for a Hawaiian shirt. Once I have it, I'll make sure to share it too. (Instead of the chair).

My husband only wanted the mantas... So I made this for him:

I really enjoyed the class, it helped me a lot to feel less nervous about human shapes, experiment with sketches, and be more creative. Thanks, Ellie!