How I Found Surface Pattern Design: A Journey of Discovery

The Beginning

When one door closes …

It was April 2020. I was sitting on my sofa, feeling heartbroken. After 20 years of trying to become a children’s book illustrator, I finally called it quits. I had sent five illustrations from my latest children’s book – I had worked on it for two years, mind you – to Bologna to enroll in the competition for the illustrator’s exhibition of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (which is the largest children’s book fair worldwide – so taking part in the exhibition is very prestigious), and due to the upheaval caused by Covid, my originals got lost. This was the final straw. I couldn’t do it anymore.

One doodle a day. I started this practice before I discovered surface pattern design.

… another one opens.

This was the time of the first lockdown. The weather was glorious, warm, and sunny. There were no places to be. I had been following a spiritual teacher for some years now, and she offered additional content on Instagram. With nothing better to do, I downloaded the app and discovered – drumroll, please! – Surface Pattern Design! Suddenly, surface designers showed up in my feed. Till this day, I don’t know how this happened (I had no idea there was something like an algorithm). I had always been fascinated by ornaments and patterns. I even had a sketchbook dedicated to this “genre”. But never before could I explore so many beautiful patterns so easily! And there were even courses to take!

The first step in becoming a surface pattern designer!

In October, I enrolled in https://patternanddesign.com/ by Rachelle Holowko. I can highly recommend her course. The best thing is, unlike in other courses, she teaches pattern design with Illustrator and Photoshop equally. I tried Illustrator again, but it somehow doesn’t gel with my way of thinking. I’m still using Photoshop to make my patterns.

So yes, the saying is true: when one door closes, another one opens. Have you experienced that too?

23. January 20238. November 2026

Design Your Own Mandala

It’s not hard to design a mandala.
You can use a compass and a ruler, but you don’t have to.
You can draw from the inside out, or from the outside in.
Here’s a short video of me drawing a mandala. I made a small pencil sketch first and then went over it with an acrylic marker:

In the photo, you can see a few elements you can use for a mandala. They repeat in a lovely, regular rhythm, which is why mandalas feel so calming!

That really comes into its own when you color them in.
Do you have a few colored pencils lying around? You can just as well use ballpoint pens, felt-tip pens or fountain pens. Why not give it a try right away!

I always love hearing from you in the comments!

18. December 20228. November 2026

What Is a Mandala?

The meditation images of Hinduism and Buddhism gave mandalas their name. Mandala comes from Sanskrit and means circle.

Circles appear first in nature: in the sun, the full moon, pine cones, sunflowers, ripples on water, snail shells … We humans recognize them when we come across them. The closed shape of a circle, with no beginning and no end, has a calming effect.

Circles also appear in all cultures. The rose windows of great cathedrals are one example, and so is the art of the Aboriginal peoples and Native Americans. In Japan, a circle is called “enso – everything is in it”. It takes great skill to draw a beautiful circle in a single brushstroke.

You can buy books of mandalas in every bookshop. That’s how mandalas have found their way into our everyday lives. They decorate T-shirts and yoga mats. The “Flower of Life” turns up on notebooks and wall stickers.

Mandalas are no longer reserved for monks, who spend weeks in ceremony creating a mandala out of sand, only to destroy it at the end.

Anyone can experience the calming effect and color in a template. Why not just give it a try!

A Winter's Tale Mandala — PDF download to print and color in.

22. September 20228. November 2026

My Three Best Tips for Drawing

Drawing and the Theory of the Two Brain Hemispheres

Our brain looks a bit like a walnut. It consists of two halves that are connected in the middle. Each half processes information differently.

According to a popular theory, the left hemisphere processes information analytically. It thinks logically and looks for details.

The right hemisphere sees the big picture. It thinks in connections and associations. Details escape it.

A nice way to describe this is to say that someone “can’t see the forest for the trees”. The left hemisphere catalogs the individual trees without taking in the whole picture.

What does this have to do with drawing?

We’re often tempted to lose ourselves in details. Say we want to draw a head and start shading the eye. It’s a truly beautiful eye, with lashes and a highlight and everything, but unfortunately it’s in the wrong place! Now what? Sacrifice the eye to get the proportions of the face right? Or adjust the rest of the face to fit the eye?

Who hasn’t been there?

I call it “hanging the curtains before the roof is on”.

Another common problem is that the sheet of paper is too small. You draw a figure, it’s going really well, but unfortunately there’s no room left for the head …

What’s the solution?

Hold a pencil out at arm’s length and use it to measure the length and width of your subject. This tells you whether to use the paper in portrait or landscape. (That was an aha moment for me in life drawing: when a person is sitting on a chair at an angle, for example, and ends up wider than tall.)
Once you’ve settled on the format, roughly sketch your subject. No details! Then start building up your drawing piece by piece. In other words, you work from the outside in. Details come last.

To be honest, this is hard. We have to keep all the individual parts in view the whole time, of a human body, for example. What’s interesting is catching yourself wanting to dig in at one spot. Drawing has a lot to do with how we think!

And just as unromantic: practice, practice, practice. The more confident we become at drawing, the more freely we move across the page.

Despite all that, drawing is fun! And a successful drawing gives us a wonderful feeling.

Do you know that feeling? I’d love to hear your comments!

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