The Akar Dani Series

There's a house somewhere in our neighbourhood that used to have a beautifully lush Akar Dani plant cascading over their back wall. I used to walk past it in the mornings, and every time I did, I felt happy. The vibrant fuschia and pale pink colours of the flowers lifted my spirits, and it inspired me to create the Akar Dani series, a collection of abstract pieces centred around the colour palette of the Akar Dani flowers; a range of vibrant pinks and deep emerald greens. 

Akar Dani flowers

Akar Dani flowers

It was also an opportunity for me to play around with a newly acquired set of Procreate gouache brushes from one of my favourite illustrators, Lisa Glanz. 

"Brush Strokes #1" - The first piece in the series. If the heavens cracked open and rained Akar Dani flowers, this is how I imagine it would look like. 

“Brush Strokes #1”

“Brush Strokes #1”

"Brush Strokes #2" - A variation on the same theme, but I wanted it to look a bit more gloopy and drippy; a bit like raindrops racing down a window pane. 

“Brush Strokes #2”

“Brush Strokes #2”

"Stripes" - Like a lot of people, I love me some good stripes! I initially painted stripes of equal width, thinking that the colours would be enough to lend it character. It still felt boring, though, and I started playing around with different widths until I decided to just let the lines go all over the place, and create wonky, lopsided stripes. I added random textures and patterns here and there - I wanted it to be a fun piece; something chaotic and colourful, something that would brighten up your mood. 

“Stripes”

“Stripes”

"Fish/Lilypads" - I enjoyed making "Brush Strokes #2" and I wanted to create another piece in the same vein, but one that felt a bit calmer and more deliberate. As I was painting this, I thought it looked like a school of (green) fish swimming through the (green) ocean, and went along with that image in my mind. After it was completed though, it looked more like lily pads. 

“Fish/Lilypads”

“Fish/Lilypads”

"Sidewalk" - By this time I was done playing around with random brush strokes, but I was still obsessed with the Akar Dani colour palette. I wanted to create something slightly more “structured”, but still organic and abstract. I was inspired by the pavement tiles near the neighbourhood shops. Like “Stripes”, this piece started out somewhat geometrically correct, but morphed into organic shapes and a riot of colours and patterns. 

“Sidewalk”

"Sidewalk" was supposed to be the last piece in this series… until one morning, I noticed a blank white wall where the luscious Akar Dani plant used to be. The owners of the house had pruned it, cut it down, with nary a trace to be seen or found. I was sad to see it gone; it used to brighten up my mornings so. I decided then that I needed to create another piece, one that actually featured the flower in some form. For some reason I wanted it to be a repeat pattern. The result was not one - but two patterns in a Damask style. I couldn’t decide between the two, so I kept both, and named them, imaginatively, “Akar Dani I”, and “Akar Dani II”

“Akar Dani I”

“Akar Dani I”

“Akar Dani II”

“Akar Dani II”

Unlike “Sidewalk”, these two patterns were really the final pieces in the series. I’d had my fun with the theme, and it was time for me to move on and explore other themes, other colours, and other tools. Once this lockdown is lifted and more businesses are allowed to operate again, I’d like to make these into art prints - I think they’d look nice. 

Until next time, stay safe! 

-A-

Wallpaper Wednesday: Gong Xi, Gong Xi

Is it already February?!? Gosh how quickly time does fly... which means... time to refresh your wallpaper!

This month I have a little bonus: you get two free wallpapers! Since Chinese New Year is just around the corner, I thought it’d be nice to have a little theme going on. The first wallpaper, “Gong Xi”, is a repeat pattern featuring traditional Chinese knots. The second option, “Peonies”, still sticks to the overall theme, but would also suit those who don’t celebrate Chinese New Year, or just prefer floral designs in general. 

I’ve made the calendar version available in both wallpapers (desktop and laptop versions), so really, you have four options! 

Gong Xi Peonies_All Devices w Title.jpg
Gong Xi Peonies_All Devices2 w Title.jpg
Gong Xi Peonies_All Devices3 w Title.jpg
Gong Xi Peonies_iPhones.jpg
Gong Xi Peonies_iPads.jpg

It’s still a crazy and scary (not to mention depressing) world out there, and this year’s CNY celebration will be pretty low key, I’m sure. A new wallpaper won’t replace a reunion dinner, but if it can brighten up your day for even a few moments, then why not?

The files can be downloaded below.

Enjoy!

-A-

As always, the wallpapers are meant for personal use only. 

 

Wallpaper Wednesday: Seven, Eight, Lay Them Straight

Happy new year!

I hope the first few days of 2021 have treated you well - or at least marginally better than the train wreck that was 2020. How was your new year’s eve? Ours was spent quietly at home, doing nothing much. I think I was reading in bed when the clock struck midnight, and everyone else in the house was fast asleep. We went on a short staycation in the city over the new year’s weekend, but apart from that, it’s been pretty much like any other day in this pandemic-stricken world of ours.

This time last year, I’d dived into a 30-day pattern challenge, with all the gusto and optimism a (normal) new year typically brings. No such resolutions or challenges this year. It isn’t that I’ve lost all hope, or that I’m walking around shrouded in a dark melancholic veil of doom and gloom (although there are those moments...); I’m just being realistic about the amount of time I will have this year. With the pandemic (still) wreaking havoc over our daily lives, who knows what the year will be like. We’ll just have to take it one day at at time. 

So enough with being sombre... let’s add some colour to our lives! Since it’s a new year and all, it’s a good time to refresh our device wallpapers and screensavers, don’t you think?

SevenEight_All Devices.jpg
SevenEight_iPhone.jpg
SevenEight_iPad.jpg

This month’s wallpaper freebie is one of my favourite patterns from last year’s 30-Day Challenge - SevenEightLayThemStraight. What I like most about it is the colour palette. The muted blues work well with the pastel grey, yellows and peach, and it just makes me feel... calm. I also like how the lines are wonky and uneven but neatly arranged - perhaps a metaphor for this new year? If 2020 was the year that upended our lives and left all its pieces in a jumbled heap on the floor, perhaps this year we’ll be able to pick everything up, little by little, and slowly arrange it in a way that makes sense to us. 

We can only hope. 

Oh, and I’ve added a little bonus this year - a monthly calendar! The desktop and laptop wallpapers now come in two versions: with or without the current month calendar. Hope you like it!

As always, these wallpapers are for private use only.

Enjoy!

-A-

Introducing: Wallpaper Wednesday

If you like to change up your tech wallpapers and screensavers every so often, and if you like some of my patterns and artwork, then you may like…

Wallpaper Wednesdays!

On the first Wednesday of every month, one of my designs will be available as a free downloadable for you to use as a wallpaper or screensaver for your phone, iPad/tablet, laptop, and/or desktop. (For personal use only)

To kick things off, let me introduce…

Vitamin C!

Vitamin C_All devices_1200.jpg
Vitamin C_iPhone_1200.jpg
Vitamin C_iPad_1200.jpg

This pattern began as a random watercolour doodle in my sketchbook a couple of years ago. I had just gotten my hands on a set of Dr Ph Martins liquid watercolours, and I was trying them out. The doodles stayed in my sketchbook until recently, when I felt a bit uninspired and started leafing through my old sketchbooks. I found the sketch, and decided to practice making a seamless repeat pattern in Photoshop.

Orange Slices Sketch.jpg

Vitamin C is a fresh, fruity, and sunny pattern, which will brighten up a gloomy day (we’ve been having a lot of those lately).

I hope you like it, and I hope it’ll make you smile :-)

Enjoy!

The #30DayChallenge

Helloooooo there! Long time no write! We’re a month into the new year… how has 2020 treated you so far? I know we’ve had quite a bit of sad and scary news in the past few weeks, but I hope that at the same time you’ve had some positive starts - or at the very least, something exciting and wonderful to look forward to at some point in this year.

Like a lot of other people, I approached 2020 with a list of goals for myself. It’s a pretty short list - I’m trying to be realistic - and one of my goals is to have a portfolio of pattern designs by the end of the year. If not a complete portfolio, at least one pattern collection (ie 8-12 patterns designed around a central theme). I would have to choose the ones I feel are my best designs, and to do that, I’d have to design many, many patterns (at least a hundred). Which means this year will be a year for me to practise, practise, practise.

That was when, just a few days before the start of the year, I set myself a challenge: to design one repeat pattern a day, every day, in the month of January, and post it on Instagram. The #30DayChallenge. Yes, January has 31 days, but I thought a nice round number like 30 would look and sound nicer, and I could give myself a day off on the 31st.

Why did I do it?

I wanted to do the challenge to force myself to practise regularly, and I was hoping that the daily deadlines would instil some form of discipline and establish an efficient workflow in my day-to-day routine. I also wanted all 30 patterns to be seamless repeat patterns, as I wanted to train myself to use Illustrator (and other tools) quickly and efficiently.

So how did I fare?

Well firstly, I managed to complete all 30 days (yayyy!). I honestly thought that I would end up skipping a few days, perhaps due to sick days, toddler/family emergencies, and the most likely hurdle: general laziness. Thankfully life was kind and didn’t throw me any curveballs, and I managed to keep my lazy bones in check.

The more important question is, what did I learn from this exercise?

1. Don’t overthink it. Just do.

I realised very early in the challenge that whenever I have even an inkling of an idea, I shouldn’t mull over it for too long. Just run with it. It doesn’t matter that the idea may not yet be fully developed; just start sketching. The pattern will develop along the way. It will take form as I’m sketching out the motifs, and more so after I digitise the sketch and work on it in Illustrator (or Photoshop, or Procreate). Sometimes the sketch won’t turn out the way I imagined it would (I’m looking at you, goat-rabbit-donkey monstrosity in Day 4:“Hippity Hop”), but go along with it anyway. In the context of this exercise, it’s the process that matters.

Day 4: “Hippity Hop”. The dark grey goat-rabbit-donkey is staring straight at me, accusingly.

Day 4: “Hippity Hop”. The dark grey goat-rabbit-donkey is staring straight at me, accusingly.

2. Ideas will morph and evolve.

Some days I had a very clear idea of how I wanted my pattern to look like, and I managed to achieve it (Day 1: “Houses” and Day 30: “Dance”). Other days, I knew exactly what I wanted to sketch, or what I was inspired by, but absolutely no idea where I was going with it. I would play around with the motifs until something clicked (Day 6: “Strings” and Day 15: “Anyam”). Then there were days when try as I might, I just couldn’t translate the vision I had in my mind to the end design (Day 2: “Ombak” and Day 17: “Bougainvillae”). The best and most rewarding instance however, was when one source of inspiration led to several designs. Towards the end of the month, I was inspired by a metal filigree art piece I’d seen hanging on a wall in a hotel. I started doodling filigree patterns, and this resulted in not one, but five consecutive tiled filigree designs, each one “evolving” into the next iteration. (Day 26: “Filigree”, Day 27: “Tiles”, Day 28: “Spring”, Day 29: “Kerawang”, and Day 30: “Dance”). I’d seemingly entered into a filigree/kerawang phase of sorts; one I would happily revisit.

Beginner’s Luck? My very first pattern of the challenge, “Houses” turned out just as I had envisioned it. It took until the very last day of the challenge for this to happen again.

Beginner’s Luck? My very first pattern of the challenge, “Houses” turned out just as I had envisioned it. It took until the very last day of the challenge for this to happen again.

I hit a stumbling block on the second day; this was not the pattern I had in mind. I wasn’t happy with it, but I posted it anyway.

I hit a stumbling block on the second day; this was not the pattern I had in mind. I wasn’t happy with it, but I posted it anyway.

3. Inspiration is everywhere.

Daily deadlines meant that I didn’t have the time to “look for inspiration”. I needed to use whatever I had at the time, and it could come from anywhere. It could be something I’d read (Day 1: “Houses” and Day 13: “Crossword”), or a song I’d been listening to (Day 3: “Better In Colour”). It could come from experiences (Day 2: “Ombak” and Day 4: “Hippity Hop”), or from random things I notice in places I happen to be at (Day 6: “Strings”, Day 16: “SevenEight Lay Them Straight”, and Day 24: “Cozy”). There was a day where I “cheated”, and browsed through my old sketchbooks to look for old sketches that I could use (Day 21: “EllieFunt”).

There were days when I wasn’t inspired by anything specific, but I just felt like making marks on paper, or doodling lines and shapes (Day 7: “Kusut” and Day 10: “Check Check Chequer”).

This scene inspired Day 4: “Hippity Hop”.

This scene inspired Day 4: “Hippity Hop”.

Day 7: “Kusut”. This wasn’t inspired by anything in particular; I just felt like doodling circles and lines.

Day 7: “Kusut”. This wasn’t inspired by anything in particular; I just felt like doodling circles and lines.

4. Every pattern has a story.

Each time I posted a pattern on my Instagram account, I tried to write something about it; usually what inspired it, or something about the design process. I learnt that having a story - and sharing it - made a design more interesting (to me, at least). It gives meaning to what I create, and to those who view it.

5. Developing a personal style requires more practice.

I knew that I would have to create far more than 30 patterns for a personal style to emerge, but I was still hoping that I could see a modicum of identity peeking through. That hasn’t happened yet, as far as I can see, and that’s fine. It just means I need to design more and more patterns, and I see nothing wrong with that.

So what’s next?

Will I attempt another #30DayChallenge, or something similar? I thoroughly enjoyed the excercise, so I think I will, but perhaps not too soon. For now I need to do some housekeeping (hello, 196 unread emails!), and work on some other areas I’d like to improve. I’ll slowly put the patterns up on products in my Society6 shop, and I’m planning to make some available as free downloadable wallpaper/screensavers. So watch out for that!

If you followed me on my #30DayChallenge, thank you! I hope you enjoyed my patterns. If you have any favourites, do let me know. It’d be nice to see what everyone’s opinions and tastes are like.

If you haven’t seen it yet and your curiosity is piqued, all 30 patterns are on my Instagram page, @almaheradesigns. Or you can click on the link at the top of my site. Do let me know what you think.

Until next time, toodles!

-A-