When walking down the driveway to get my newspaper last Thursday morning, I came across a fire cracker shell that had obviously fallen in my yard. I decided to use this as inspiration for my daily line weaving activity. I created a new pattern as well as a sample page to share with you today.

Normally I would just put together the worksheet, a how-to video, and a sample page to post on my blog. However this time I decided to skip the video and share a few clips from my sketch pad instead. I thought you might find my creative process for developing this pattern interesting.

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Taking a Peek Inside My Brain

Here’s the process I used to come up with a new pattern. It’s the same way I create line-weave patterns most of the time.

I flip to a fresh page in my sketch book and in the corner I write/draw the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about my inspiration prompt. For this one I simply wrote out a few words about our current holiday – Independence Day and doodled out a couple of firecrackers.

Once the prompt goes from my head to the paper I have a good “jumping off” place. Having drawn a doodle to get me started the next thing I do is simplify the doodles into one shape so it has as few lines as possible.

With this pattern I started with a simple set of shapes (box, line, simple star) that resembled a fire cracker. You can see what I’m talking about if you look at my design page.  So…..

Here’s the full page from my sketchbook showing how i get thoughts on paper and then doodles to a pattern design. If you click on this small clip of the page it will open up to a larger picture.

Click pic to see full size Design Sheet

By following the little arrows you can see that once I have scribbled this very basic shape or set of shapes I look for ways to duplicate it and attach it to another just like it. Sometimes this is a mirror image or several such shapes placed in a circle, or maybe inside a grid. For this fire cracker shape it just seemed natural to place another one in the row and connect them using the wick.

If my pattern isn’t leading to a motif type design, I then look at how to stack the design and close up any open areas so I have new inner or outer shapes to play with. For this one I simply closed up the “crackers” by adding a couple of curved lines and then created a star like embellishment using the sparkle in the wick.

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This seemed to be a good place to end the pattern because at this point it can easily be duplicated and used in many a drawing. But before finalizing it I decided to try making some other star embellishments. Finally I gave it a name and that’s how “CrackerPop” was born. However it’s not the end of my story.

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Taking it for a Spin

After creating a new pattern the next thing I do is take it out on my “sketch pad playground” and see what I can do with it. Opening up a new page I draw the design several times. If it lends itself to curves, then I also draw it in circles and such.

Once I have several sets of the design drawn out then I start adding lines and simple patterns inside the various inner shapes of the pattern. I dig out my pencil and lay down some graphite shadings and highlights too. I’m basically just experimenting and playing around with the pattern to find fun ways to recreate it in my drawing projects. And sometimes I scribble out notes along the way as you can see here.

Below is the playground sheet I did for CrackerPop and again – you can see the larger/clearer view of this page from my sketchbook if you click on the thumbnail clip here:

Click Pic to see the full playground sheet

If I’m really lucky I even discover another pattern along the way. This is one of those times when I was lucky and a new pattern emerged. I scribbled it out on the bottom right corner of the playground. 🙂

Sample Drawing Project

Then when I’ve had enough playtime I flip to a new page and create a drawing using my new pattern design as the primary one on the page. Here too I usually do something that has to do with my original prompt. So here’s the sample project I did for CrackerPop.

I titled it “For Which It Stands”.

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And that, my dear blog friends- is how my wee brain thinks when I’m creating a new pattern using a simple prompt.

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Here now is the pattern worksheet for CrackerPop. I hope you enjoy using it as much as I plan to!

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I’ll share the pattern worksheet for the new pattern (shown in the corner) later in the week. I just need a bit of time to put it together and do up a sample project too.

Happy Independence Day Weekend America!
~ Cindy