It’s a few days into February now, and I’m just now getting around to gathering my thoughts on the January daily pattern challenge. Overall, I think January was a success for me, and I enjoyed the process much more than I did in December. I loved carving the stamps, and I loved the immediacy of filling an entire sketchbook page with a pattern. I also liked that everything I made was repeatable, and that I could start again with a different stamp pad if I didn’t like the first color I chose. The daily art habit became much more a part of my life, and was something I did nearly every day without question, which was one of my major goals in participating in a daily challenge.

The pattern above was one of my favorites. I was super excited to have created a stamp that I could flip around and have it repeat. I didn’t try anything like this again later in the month, but I’m excited to try it again sometime. Also, these were by far my favorite stamp pads, and I just love the color combination (also love these two colors with dark blue).

For the pattern on the left I started with a geometric design, and then kept carving away lines as I stamped. I think it’s pretty subtle, but I like that if you look at it for a few seconds you start to see that the pattern gets more detailed at the bottom of the print. The pattern on the right side was created on January 31st, from five different stamps I had created earlier in the month. I think the simple color palette makes the stamps look a little more cohesive. It was fun to revisit some of the stamps on the last day.

What’s next? Honestly, I don’t know. On the first day of February I was really excited to start the daily challenge again, and had the idea that I’d make micro patterns in a sketchbook at lunchtime, but after three days I really wasn’t enjoying the tools I was using, or the patterns I was making, and I started to feel a little burned out at the thought of making a pattern every day. This tells me I probably need to switch it up. I have a giant list of techniques I’d like to try, so I think that’s a good place to start. For now, I’m taking a few days off from daily art making. I’ve been reading blogs, taking walks, watching Downton Abbey, and watching some history lectures from an online course I’m taking.

Check out #patternadayfeb to see Instagram patterns by other artists. Anika made a lovely bird pattern today.