It’s come down to this – I feel I must provide evidence that my work is my own. Not AI. I don’t have anything against AI and I use CoPilot a bit. It’s my chum. But it’s also about how I can show my work is genuine and not taken from other artists. I use reference photos, I am inspired by colours from other artists, but it’s important that my work is authentic, so that I feel comfortable to allow people to sell products they make from my work, commercially.

I’m not sure how I’ll do it yet, as I don’t want to give my ideas away. However, maybe a ‘locked’ section on my website will be the easiest way to have something ready. Plus, I want to document my work so it’s not just about ‘evidence’. It’s just that, well, ‘Evidence’ sounds more exciting than ‘Document’ for a title. Right?

Actually, I don’t think I care if my ideas are shared. It’s just hard to let go of the ‘this is mine’ mentality. Plus, I’m almost 60 so ‘LET GO’.

Evidence and Documentation

I want to try and document my thought process and create deliberate designs rather than random stuff. Not that that’s a problem per se, just that it helps me with my goals and intentions. So, first up is:

Environment Series of seamless patterns

I’m working on what I love the most, first. It was actually hard to choose between Tundra, Ocean, Woodlands, Desert, Grasslands, Mountains, Forest and Rainforest. I looked at Biomes, as well as the geography of each type of environment, and what flora and fauna may exist etc. There’s so much to choose from.

Marine – Dolphin

I opted for Ocean with memories of having the privilege of watching dolphins in their natural habitat in several locations around Australia, and at marine parks. I got to swim with them on a few occasions in secluded bays. My fondest memory was having three dolphins swim up to me as my mum spoke to a marine biologist at a marine park. They clicked and whistled, allowed me to pet them, and played in front of me when I was a young girl. It’s a memory that stayed with me.

Quick scribbles

Reference photos

I bought a couple of reference images from Wildlife Reference Photos for Artists and found a few of my own. I created my hero pattern, with the dolphin as my ‘hero’.

https://wildlifereferencephotos.com/media.details.php?mediaID=6116

https://wildlifereferencephotos.com/media.details.php?mediaID=67743

I used a screenshot of dolphins which you’ll see in my Procreate timelapse video – I’m looking at my reference photos on my big monitor. Because I liked the movement depicted on the screenshot, I based my dolphin on that one. Other references I looked through free-images.com. I haven’t linked to the actual image that I based my dolphin on because the blog is no longer active – the last post was 2015 and I couldn’t find the actual image!

Supporting elements

I also wanted to make bubbles as fillers in my pattern and found this video: How To Draw A Bubble & Make Brush In Procreate – Tutorial For Beginners

I did my research, read some books and designed some seaweed, coral, starfish, an echolocation representation, and some crabs, turtle etc. When I felt I had enough elements, I went to my pattern maker tool from Happyfox Supply Co.

Tools to make my seamless pattern

https://happyfoxsupply.samcart.com/products/patterntemplatestudio

I created my pattern and downloaded it to Procreate.

I created my colour palette even though the finished product looked different in the end:

https://happyfoxsupply.samcart.com/products/signaturecolorpalette

You don’t need these tools but they save me a lot of time. They are pretty fun to play with too.

I began to design in Procreate on a canvas 12-inch by 12-inch 300 dpi. Once completed I created my pattern. After a second go, because a couple of my supporting elements were too big, I was happy and will upload it to ETSY soon.

All done…I think.