Another repeat pattern inspired by this Creating Repeat Patterns video on YouTube ; butterflies this time. I’m used to painting butterflies as specimens, symmetrical and flat with their textures added by painting through tissue (see Butterfly blog ) so decided to make them fly this time and keep it simple. I’m working in a green spine (Not) Saunders Waterford watercolour sketchbook, 300gsm paper. They are not cheap but as I work wet I love the heavy paper and the fact that they are bound so that every page opens out flat. I’m working with a chinese brush, and a medium sword liner for the veins

Below is the early stage of this two page spread, with the butterflies painted in in quite delicate colour, then water and richer paint mixes dropped in

Once dry I add detail fairly judiciously; I want to hang on to the delicate nature of thesubject. Below are a couple of close ups. The completed design below

Next I photograph one half and brighten it up in photo edit, below
I then take it into Procreate (http://procreate.si, a great app for drawing and painting on your iPad and iPhone; don’t be put off by the slick imagery on the website, you can do all sorts with it) and turn it into a larger repeat design by importing the image several times and plugging the gaps with extra butterflies,  as with the YouTube video. This is not a professional outcome, it’s not really what Procreate is for, and I think Photoshop or Photoshop Elements would do a much classier job, but this was just playtime, I’ll do the proper thing another day!