From Screen to Sand: artist collaboration on Geometry House’s New Beach Towels
Turning digital illustrations to an art licensing collaboration. A simple step-by-step look into how I transformed my Procreate drawings into a repeating pattern that is now available on Geometry beach towels!
My 5 steps in creating a summer pattern for Geometry beach towels
1: Brainstorm ideas for motifs. When I first started this design, I created a list of all the things that came to mind when I thought of summer. Some of the images that immediately popped into my brain included: beach, sand, surf, ice cream, sand castles, tropical, island, dolphins, sharks (I am obsessed, Shark Week is my favorite), sea shells, seahorse, palm trees, and on and on.
2: Sketch. I actually usually sketch in 2 stages. But if I have a clear idea or something I want to get down on “paper” I’ll do that right away. Starting with a blank Procreate document on my IPad pro, I began to create little thumbnail sketches of the above brainstormed ideas. These are far from what the final illustrations will look like, it’s more so to get those initial ideas out of my head before they dissapear.
3: Gather inspo & reference photos. I’ll often use reference photos when I’m sketching! If I can take my own photos that’s always preferred, but there are a few free use websites where you can find images for things you might not be able to take photos of yourself!
4: Final line art. I work almost exclusively in vector artwork and use Adobe Illustrator to create my patterns. So…in order to take artwork from hand drawn to digital in a way that maintains that organic feel, I use a pretty large artboard size in Procreate. I’ve found 25”x25” to work for most of my designs. I’ll bring in a photo of my original sketches to that larger artboard, and use the Apple Pencil to trace over.
5: Creating the repeating pattern. As I mentioned earlier, Adobe Illustrator is where I create most of my patterns…like 99%. That program allows me to easily resize and recolor artwork later on — which is a huge advantage if the designs need to be adjected for different products. To begin: I’ll export my Procreate files from the iPad as a high quality PDF (although sometimes I will export as a PSD file if it’s a little more complex). Next, I’ll being the file into Illustrator and use the image trace tool to turn those sketches into vector illustrations. I will then arrange the illustrations in a way that the design repeats perfectly from top to bottom and left to right.
So, can this design be licensed elsewhere?
The short answer is, YES! Just not for beach towels or tea towels. I highly value the businesses I collaborate with, and don’t license the same pattern to another company within the same industry. This gives my partners the chance to have designs that can’t be found anywhere else and inspires more community over competition! If you have a brand or business and are interested in licensing these, or any of my other patterns – shoot my an email at rosa@rosavdesign.com
