Southwell Carving

A Monthly Pattern | July 2026

This month I’ve recreated a design found carved into a wooden screen at Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire. I visited a few months ago and gathered lots of inspiration from around the building. I went there on a mission to find the stained glass design included by Owen Jones in his Handbook of Decoration, and I did find it (and made a video in the process).

The minster is most famous for its lifelike leaf decorations carved into the stonework of the medieval chapter house, and I have included photos from around the cathedral in a gallery below.

This carving though was found in a screen that separates the choir stalls from the aisle. I liked the strong geometric structure combined with leafy and botanic elements and thought that after last month’s pattern also being a six-fold design with botanic curls, this would be a good follow-on project, plus it gives me the chance to do something different when painting; namely reproducing the 3d elements in watercolour by adding layers of colour.

You’ll find downloads below for the underlying structure of this design which you can use as a starting point, plus the full outline as a traceable or print and paint file. For Pattern Lovers this month, you’ll find two videos; one for constructing the design, the second for painting.

I hope you enjoy painting this one!

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Tagged 3D Patterns Biomorphic Patterns Hexagonal Patterns

Six Pointed Decorative Stars

A Monthly Pattern | June 2026

This pattern is one of a number that feature what I think of as a circle of squares. You get different types of pattern depending on how many squares you include in your design, and you could adapt the instructions for this pattern to make other circles with different numbers of squares depending on how many segments you divide your initial circle into.

This six pointed star and the biomorphic decorations came from a pattern resource book I’ve referred to a few times. It’s Franz Sales Meyer’s ‘A Handbook of Ornament’ and it’s available at the Internet Archive. This design is on page 255, plate 156.

Following the reference back one stage further, Meyer refers to this as a pattern documented by Emile Prisse d’Avennes as an 18th Century ceiling painting. Looking for this pattern in Emile Prisse D’Avennes’ work led me to spend a good few hours looking through his documentation of the art of Cairo and though I didn’t find this particular pattern, I was incredibly inspired by the precision and attention to detail in the lithographies he produced. (You’ll need an account to ‘borrow’ this book from the internet archive library.)

Members should find downloadable outlines for the structure of this pattern (as drawn in video 1 this month), and a full outline with all the detail for tracing or print and painting.

This month I’ve split the project into 3 videos. The first is how to draw the underlying structure and pencil in the biomorphic designs. The second shares the process for inking the outline from your sketch. The third is painting this project in watercolour.

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Tagged Biomorphic Patterns Hexagonal Patterns Islamic Geometric Patterns

Woven Octagonal Stars

A Monthly Pattern | May 2026

This month’s pattern is a repeating pattern of eight pointed stars, decorated to look like two interwoven squares.

The inspiration for this pattern was this page of parquet flooring designs from Franz Sales Meyer’s Handbook of Ornament:

All of these would make a great starting point for a pattern and it would be an interesting exercise to draft them all. I particularly like No. 8, perhaps that could be a future month’s pattern! No. 10 has similarities with January 2025‘s hexagonal border so you could use that construction as a starting point if you were interested in trying it.

Outlines for this pattern are available for all members below and your drawing and painting video tutorials, along with all the supplies I’ve used for this project, can be found in the Pattern Lovers members section.

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Tagged Square Grid Patterns Tiling Patterns

Italian Floor Tiling

A Monthly Pattern | April 2026

This pattern is one of two in F. M. Hessemer’s 1842 pattern resource which includes designs from Italy and from the Islamic world. This is attributed to a pattern of tiles a church floor from Florence, so I’ve painted it using the same palette of colours as used in the book which resemble different colours of marble tiles and used the qualities of watercolour to bring out that sense of them being stone. (I do like the colour illustrations in this book)

I do love analysing and recreating patterns and this one was no different! It may be more straightforward in terms of being made up of simpler shapes than recent patterns in the library, but it’s very rewarding to draw and paint.

If you’re a Community tier member, check below for your monthly downloadable files so that you can paint this pattern.

For Pattern Makers, you’ll find two videos this month; a ‘drawing’ video where I share the process of making the pattern using ruler, pencil and compasses. The second video is a painting video where I share my watercolour process. You’ll also see my supply list for this project including all the colours I used.

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Tagged Square Grid Patterns Tiling Patterns

Tiling Patterns Inspired by MC Escher

A Monthly Pattern | March 2026

For this month’s videos (and there are three!) I’ve ben working on some patterns inspired by dutch artist M.C. Escher. He was very interested in tiling patterns and turned his tiles into birds, beasts and people.

In the first video for Pattern Lovers this month, I share my deconstruction of one of Escher’s famous patterns – of reptiles covering a page. I show how you can take a regular shape and turn it into an irregular one that still tiles and fills a plane without gaps.

The second video shares two patterns I’ve made using this technique: one the image of birds that you can see in the preview images, and another of daffodils.

The third video is the process of painting those birds, which I did in this case using Neocolour ii water soluble crayons on watercolour paper.

If you’re a Community tier member, check below for your monthly downloadable files. You’ll find a basic hexagon you can use as a starting point, traceable outlines of the bird and flower motifs I created in the second video and a whole page of repeating birds made as a print and paint download.

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Tagged Hexagonal Patterns Tiling Patterns

Lindisfarne Maze Pattern

A Monthly Pattern | February 2026

This month I’ve been looking at Celtic patterns again. There’s a whole class of patterns I’ve not drawn before and those are key patterns. Often these take the form of triangular shapes that interlock, but some key patterns have a diamond form, and this is one of them.

In the video this month I mention watching a video about key patterns where it’s mentioned that these diamond shaped patterns are a sub-category of key patterns and the artist in the video (Michael Carrol) chooses to refer to them as maze patterns – which makes a lot of sense to me!

This pattern comes from the Lindisfarne Gospels (Visit this link to see a full scan of the gospels from the British Library, and put image 429 in the box at the top to go direct to the page where you’ll find this pattern). It features four times in rectangular panels on the page known as f 210v.

Actually, this pattern is found in three of the four panels, and the lower left is slightly different – but it’s like a game of ‘spot the difference’ working that out!

If you’re a Community tier member, check below for your monthly downloadable files to print and paint this pattern. You’ll find the full pattern outline there, plus a version with just the grid lines so that you can make your own take of this pattern.

For Pattern Makers, you’ll find two videos this month. I decided to split the process into a ‘drawing’ video where I share the process of making the pattern using ruler, pencil and compasses. The second video is a painting video where I share my watercolour process. You’ll also find my supply list.

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Tagged Celtic Patterns

Field of Trefoil Knots

A Monthly Pattern | January 2026

This month I’ve been playing with trefoil knots – or triquetra knots. This pattern was inspired by a page of diaper patterns made using interlocking circles in “The Anatomy of Pattern” by Lewis F Day. A diaper pattern is a name for patterns that are generally used as backgrounds for making plain areas more interesting. They’re often small and simple and repeatable.

If you’re a Community tier member, check below for your monthly downloadable files so that you can paint this pattern. You’ll also find a link to the forum where you can share your work with us, ask any questions and get support.

For Pattern Makers, you’ll find this month’s video. It’s one video for both drawing and painting this month. I decided to paint with acrylic ink rather than watercolour for a change, though the techniques you’d use are virtually identical. The difference (as you’ll see from my video!) is that once it’s down it’s permanent – so I couldn’t lift out a mistaken drop that fell in the wrong place!! You’ll also see my supply list for this project including all the colours I used.

There is no pattern makers live session this month. If you’re a subscriber to the pattern makers tier, you’ll have had an email from me explaining that I’m pausing this tier for now and your subscriptions have been altered accordingly.

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Tagged Isometric Patterns

Five Pointed Stars

A Monthly Pattern | December 2025

This month’s pattern is a five pointed star that you can choose to cut out and make into 3d ornaments. There are two versions I show you in the video, a simple small decorative star and a larger hanging ornament.

If you’re a Community tier member, check below for your downloadable files. You’ll find one file with a simple small star in it. You could choose to print this out at different sizes (depending on your printer settings) to get a variety of sizes. The second file has two larger stars with tabs marked on that you can join back-to-back to make a 3d ornament. Simply cut all around the outside lines, score the inner ones, form the stars into folds using the scoring lines. Add glue to the tabs, then fold them inwards and use them to stick your two stars together.

There are ‘print and paint’ options, with very feint grey lines that you can print onto watercolour or mixed media paper from your home printer and start painting straight away. These are A4 and letter sized files so choose the one that matches your paper. The other download option is a traceable file. This is the same image but with a black outline. These you can print out and trace to your final paper. You’ll also find a link to the forum where you can share your work with us, ask any questions and get support.

For Pattern Lovers, you’ll find the making video for this month’s project including drawing instructions for the five pointed star.

In the video I mentioned Samira Mian’s video on dividing a circle into five and you can find that on her wonderful YouTube channel.

For Pattern Makers, I recorded a live making session on Saturday 20th December at 7pm UK time. The recording of this session is below in the Pattern Maker Section.

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Addon Project - Folding Star Decorations

Learn to make folding paper star decorations. In the video tutorial, I share how to draw the templates for these paper stars and how to cut, score and glue them to make the completed stars. You’ll also get templates for printing the star shapes, one a plain outline, and the other featuring this red decorative pattern.

This project was a pattern makers extra and was recorded live on zoom on 20th December 2025.

As the pattern makers tier is no longer active, you can purchase the hour long tutorial recording and the templates for this project as a one-off purchase of £5 by following the link below. You’ll need a free or pattern lovers membership to make the purchase and to view the project.

If you’ve already purchased it, the link will take you straight to the project page.

Tagged 3D Patterns

Stained Glass Roundel

A Monthly Pattern | November 2025

I came across this stained glass pattern while going through the Grammar of Ornament, in a section entitles ‘Mediaeval’ and with clips of panels from stained glass windows from around Europe. This panel caught my eye and I decided to try and find out more about it.

The caption on the page said it came from St Thomas, Strasbourg. A search for images of the stained glass from that church brought me to a site called the Rose Window, featuring a database of stained glass window photos – and yes, this Church features. You can find what I think is the panel in window N3 on this site. Though the photos are a little grainy, it looks to me as though the patterns are slightly different between this and the illustrated version.

A wee note on the wikipedia page for this Church mentions that original stained glass featuring saints was destroyed – and on first reading, I thought that might have meant that this is what replaced it, but it seems that the saints were on the lower windows, and the botanical designs are the higher ones.

This was the only illustration from that church in the reference that I used, but I can see from the photos I found that each window has multiple designs and I’d love to spend some more time investigating them!

A few years ago I helped a craftsman restore a stained glass window pane and I can appreciate how much work goes into creating these. It was fun to have a go at making stained glass, but I did get lots of cuts due to my inexperience!

If you’re a Community tier member, check below for your monthly downloadable files so that you can paint this pattern. The ‘print and paint’ options, with feint grey lines, show the outline of each shape so that you can add your own flourishes. The traceable files have a few extra guiding lines – but still just show the big shapes. These you can print out and trace to your final paper or sketchbook. Either use carbon paper to transfer or scribble all over the back of your printout with a soft pencil and use that to transfer the line. You’ll also find a link to the forum where you can share your work with us, ask any questions and get support.

For Pattern Makers, you’ll find two videos: One drawing video and one painting. You’ll also see my supply list for this project including all the colours I used.

For Pattern Lovers, the live zoom will take place on Saturday 29th November. If you’re not able to join live, revisit a couple of days aftwerwards to find the recording of this session. In the live video this month, I plan to use another geometric and botanical stained glass panel as inspiration for a drawing.

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Tagged Biomorphic Patterns Circular Patterns

Guilloche Border

A Monthly Pattern | October 2025

October’s pattern is a woven guilloche border. The one I’ve illustrated above has three rows of interlocking circles but you can find examples with single rows, double rows … as many rows as you’d like!

I’ve included a couple of reference images below. The first is from the wikipedia page on guilloche and is the base of a column in Athens.

The other is a page of guilloche border designs that I came across on Pinterest but the source link was broken so I’ve done some reverse image looking up and found it referenced in a summary of an architectural decor book by Jules Bourgoin. I looked for references in September when researching this pattern and I’m pretty sure I found a better link to the book, but now that link seems to be broken too – if I find it again and it’s working, I’ll add it here!

If you’re a Community tier member, check below for your monthly downloadable files so that you can paint this pattern. There are ‘print and paint’ and ‘traceable’ options. Print and paint files have very feint grey lines that you can print onto watercolour or mixed media paper from your home printer and start painting straight away. Traceable files have a black outline that’s better for tracing using carbon paper, pencil transfer or a light box. You’ll also find a link to the forum where you can share your work, ask any questions and get support.

For Pattern Lovers, you’ll find two full video tutorials; one on drawing the pattern, the other painting it using watercolour and marker pen. You’ll also see my supply list for this project including all the colours I used.

For Pattern Makers, this month’s live zoom session will be on Saturday 25th October at 7pm UK time. Do join me to draw a five-strand version of this this pattern. If you want to draw along, have some paper, pencil, ruler, compasses and an eraser to hand. If we have time, I’ll begin the process of painting too so will have some watercolours, paper, water and brushes on hand. After the live session, I’ll upload the recording below and some extra downloads for the pattern variations.