Patterns in My Art and in Procreate

Gypsy Rose Lee – Jacki Kellum Procreate Painting

I have been interested in adding patterns to my art for many years. While living in Madison, MS, I began a series of watercolor patterns, but the process was slow and tedious. Unfortunately, the patterns I initially created were almost destroyed. by a housefire:

I drew a preliminary sketch for a pattern about 20 years ago. My house fire almost destroyed this idea.

Jacki Kellum Dragonfly and Daylily Patterns Traditionally created in Watercolor

After my house burned, I moved to New Jersey, and I began illustrating a picture book I had written. The patterns project hit the back burner, but after I began working in Procreate, I began an effort to redraw my dragonfly pattern on my iPad:

The beginning of the Procreate drawing of the dragonfly pattern

After I began the Procreate dragonfly project, I decided I needed to master Procreate. In Procreate, I only needed to create one dragonfly, and I could copy and paste it in other appropriate places. That helped me cut out much of the time involved in pattern-making.

Yesterday, I discovered a set of Procreate pattern brushes created by Bardot Brushes:

One of the benefits of buying Bardot Brush sets is that Lisa Bardot includes an invaluable User Guide with each set of brushes.

Image Credit: Bardot Brush Guide

While I intend to create most of my patterns in Procreate, the Bardot Brush set Imperfect Patterns will still be invaluable. In fact, I may be able to use elements of the Bardot Brush set to develop my personalized set of patterns.