The Original Idea

I have been thinking of a way to create a pattern using gestural strokes. Using acrylic paint I created a series of different brush patterns. More by luck than calculation the ones I liked the most were circular where the brush had been lifted off the paper at the end to leave a trail.

Which Ones To Choose?

Needing at least six designs to repeat and create the pattern, I found only five I liked. So my favourite one is duplicated to create the six. I scanned the five designs and cleaned them up in Photoshop.

Working On The Scans in Illustrator

Using the scans I needed to convert them into individual illustrations. Auto-tracing each of them in Illustrator restricting each to five colours. I then tidied up the paths to make them cleaner and removing the smaller paths.

Converting The Colours to Opacity

Each of the five auto-traced illustrations generated slightly different colours. Meaning it was necessary to convert each of the five unrelated colours to different opacities of the same colour. I could then alter each set of images by simply changing the main colour. Meaning that all the other shades would alter too.