Canterbury Roses

A Monthly Pattern | October 2026

This month’s pattern is one I’ve had in my ‘patterns to make’ folder for ages because it’s got an interesting underlying tiling repeat of curving triangles and hexagons, which makes for a great pattern in its own right, plus it’s got some decorative detail to make things even more interesting.

You can find references for this in a book from 1855 “A manual of surface ornament”, found here at Internet Archive.

There’s also the image below which is from the 1861 “Handbook to the cathedrals of England: Southern Division” which appears to be the same publisher (John Henry and James Parker).

The videos this month share how to draw the structure, how to add the floral pattern and then how I’ve painted the floral version you see in the photos above.

For Community members, there are two download options for this pattern: one with the floral details and one with just the structure. As usual there will be print and paint and traceable options for both.

Community Tier

Join the Free Community Tier to see this section

Pattern Lovers Tier

Join the Pattern Lovers Tier to see this section

Interlocking Cubes

A Monthly Pattern | August 2026

Join me to draw and paint this pattern based on an isometric grid.

One of the first patterns I made for my monthly membership, back before I had this platform, was the tumbling blocks pattern. Often used by quilters, this pattern gives an impression of depth by using light, medium and dark shades on the faces of the blocks. These patterns use the same method, they’re just one step more complicated.

This time I share how to draw a small scale isometric grid on which you can build up this pattern (and use as the basis for many other pattern that all use the same underlying structure.)

If you’re wanting to skip that step, then I’ve a downloadable dot grid page that you’ll find below that you can use as the first stage of this project. Join us in the second video if that’s the case!

In the second video, I show how to use the grid to trace the templates for two versions of this pattern. In the third video, I make the final painting of one of the patterns on watercolour paper.

There are printable and traceable outlines for both patterns I cover in the video tutorials if you want to get straight to painting.

Community Tier

Join the Free Community Tier to see this section

Pattern Lovers Tier

Join the Pattern Lovers Tier to see this section

Tagged Hexagonal Patterns Isometric Patterns Tiling Patterns

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!

Community Tier

Join the Free Community Tier to see this section

Pattern Lovers Tier

Join the Pattern Lovers Tier to see this section

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.

Community Tier

Join the Free Community Tier to see this section

Pattern Lovers Tier

Join the Pattern Lovers Tier to see this section

Tagged Biomorphic Patterns Hexagonal Patterns Islamic Geometric 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.

Community Tier

Join the Free Community Tier to see this section

Pattern Lovers Tier

Join the Pattern Lovers Tier to see this section

Tagged Hexagonal Patterns Tiling Patterns

Byzantine Hexagonal Weave

A Monthly Pattern | January 2025

Here’s this month’s pattern. There’s a fair bit of construction involved in this one, and I ended up getting a tad confused as I was drawing it but take it slowly and do one step at a time and you’ll get there! I say in the video that I’m sure there’s probably a simpler way of doing it, so if you have any ideas, put them down in the comments. (You could just use an isometric triangle grid as the starting point, but when I tried that, I got more confused as to which lines to ignore so found this method probably took longer but in the end came together better!)

This was a pattern that featured in my Ko-fi membership from January 2025.

Community Tier

Join the Free Community Tier to see this section

Pattern Lovers Tier

Join the Pattern Lovers Tier to see this section

Pattern Makers Tier

Join the Pattern Makers Tier

Tagged Borders Hexagonal Patterns Islamic Geometric Patterns

Vintage Snowflakes

A Monthly Pattern | December 2024

Here’s the bonus content for December and it’s a wintery design using inspiration from an 1863 book – Snowflakes: A chapter from the book of nature. The preface to the book says that the snowflakes in the illustrated pages were inspired by sketches from real snowflakes – how close that inspiration was I can’t say but there were some interesting forms that I wouldn’t have expected amongst the snowflakes depicted. You can find the book linked here.

You can follow along with the snowflakes I’ve painted, choose your own from the book or make up snowflakes using whatever inspiration you like!

There are no drawing guides for this one because each snowflake is different! However, you may like to download my isometric grid layout to place your snowflakes into.

This was a pattern that featured in my Ko-fi membership from Decebmer 2024.

Community Tier

Join the Free Community Tier to see this section

Pattern Lovers Tier

Join the Pattern Lovers Tier to see this section

Pattern Makers Tier

Join the Pattern Makers Tier

Tagged Hexagonal Patterns Tiling Patterns

Tumbling Blocks

A Monthly Pattern | June 2024

This pattern is a classic often used in making quilts. It’s built of repeating quadrilateral shapes and using light, medium and dark tones in the shapes makes for a 3D effect.