If you’ve ever felt stuck in a creative rut or you just want to grab your iPad and draw *something* but don’t know where to start, then this class is for you!

We all want to get ourselves into that sweet spot of just picking up our iPad and drawing every day, but the obstacle of having to think of something to draw can be enough to stop us before we even get started.

The good thing is that the creative exercises in this class don’t actually require you to do any drawing, apart from one little circle!

But what if I’m not a geometric pattern artist?

Don’t worry, I’m not either!!

Think of a watercolour fine artist who paints beautifully detailed landscapes. They will still have a messy watercolour sketchbook that they play in, experimenting with washes, colours and brush strokes when they need some time off from their 9 to 5 art. That doesn’t mean they are stepping away from their signature style and pivoting to become an abstract artist on the days that they doodle in their sketchbook. On the contrary, they are actually refining and enhancing their techniques and feeding their inner creative! So don’t worry if these patterns don’t look anything like your normal style. You can delete them all afterwards and you will still have benefitted from what you learned along the way!

There’s something quite comforting about geometric patterns in that they have a set of mathematical principles or rules. Rules or boundaries are often thought of as enemies to creativity, but in my experience the opposite holds true. Think of how a limited colour palette forces you to think outside the box and actually pushes you to be more creative in how you use the colours.

The rules of a geometric pattern eliminate the daunting prospect of a blank canvas. You just need to start with a simple shape and then you get to experiment with ways to move it and place it around the canvas.

What will I learn?

I’m going to show you how you can make a whole series of different patterns in Procreate, all starting with one circle. We’ll tackle 7 pattern styles all together and although I’ve suggested one per day to help kickstart a new creative habit, you can (and should!) adapt the pace to whatever suits you. You might be the kind of person who needs to really immerse themselves fully in something, barely coming up for air, in order to get back in to it, or you might need to start with baby steps of just a few minutes every day to recommit to a habit. Either way, please just take the daily schedule as a suggestion and go with what feel right!

In terms of the key skills you’ll learn in this class, they can be broken down into tangible/physical skills and then creative mindset skills or ways of thinking.

The tangible skills you’ll learn are:

Using circles to create mathematical geometric patterns in Procreate. We’ll be relying on a bit of maths for this, but I promise it’s simple maths with easy numbers and nothing we can’t use a calculator for. If maths isn’t your thing though, don’t worry. You can ignore the in depth explanations and simply use the same numbers that I use, which will always be visible on screen and/or mentioned for you to copy.
You’ll learn ways to use the snapping and magnetics in Procreate in order to achieve precision that you might not have thought was possible before.
We’ll also be exploring blend modes to look for some unexpected results with some of the patterns we make.
How to build and test a repeating pattern in Procreate. I’m going to start right from the beginning, so if you’ve never made a repeating pattern in Procreate before, you’ll learn how to build a repeating tile and then put it in to repeat and the checks you need to perform to make sure it’s repeating properly.
How to choose the right interpolation method for the design you want to make. There are a choice of 3 interpolation methods for a reason! They all have their strengths and weaknesses and you’ll learn how to choose the right one for whatever pattern you’re making.

The creative skills you’ll learn are:

I’ll be sharing a ideas/pointers throughout to the class for ways you could use the patterns concepts as part of other illustrations to make them your own.
We’ll look at ways to explore and generate new colour palettes to use in your regular art practice.
By comparing the same patterns made in slightly different ways you'll get to explore which looks you prefer and narrow down your own signature style.
As we work through the class we’ll pause to ask ourselves plenty of “what if” questions where you'll get to explore what happens when you change just a few variables to come up with an entirely new pattern.

Why should I take this class?

You should take this class first and foremost because it’s fun! These aren’t necessarily patterns that you would make to sell or add to your portfolio. (Although there’s nothing stopping you from doing that!) The point of working through these patterns in Procreate is that it will unlock lots of ways to use these techniques in your own regular art style.

This class is aimed at all skill levels from intermediate upwards. If you’re familiar with the Procreate interface and the basic gestures then you’re good to go! All you need to get started is your iPad and Procreate 5.3.13 or later. If you have an Apple Pencil then use that too, but you could totally take this class without one as it’s pretty easy to draw a circle with your finger!!

Melanie Garber

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