Relearning Adobe Illustator

About a month and a half ago one of the bloggers I follow, Bonnie Christine from Going Home to Roost, created a Skillshare class about how to create repeating patterns using Adobe Illustrator.  I know in one of my classes at school, we learned how to make repeating patterns in Illustrator, but that was like 6-ish years ago, so I had completely forgotten anything I had learned in that class.  When I saw this class on Skillshare I was inspired to relearn.

I have to say, this class is so educational.  I learned about so many new tools and tricks in Illustrator.  Bonnie did an amazing job walking through all the steps from inspiration for the initial artwork to making the finished patterns.  I watched the entire class all the way through once and then started working on making my patterns.  Watching the class I realized how much of Illustrator I wasn't using and didn't even know about!  The program is so much more powerful than I knew it was.  I still have a lot more to learn, but this class was a great way to get back into using the program.

In total, I made four repeating patterns.  It was a long process, but I am really proud of the results.  As I was working on creating the art for the patterns I was pretty discouraged because I felt like my art was lacking and I didn't have enough to work with.  Once I let that go and just started getting into the creative process, I really enjoyed it.

Here are the original four patterns, in their original color ways:

Here are each of the patterns recolored a few different ways.

What do you think?