I was excited to finish my last daily December pattern a little after midnight last night! I’m happy to report that I only missed one day (Christmas), but that I made it up the following day and kept going. I’ve posted a few of my patterns from this month below. If you’d like to see the full set, they are all posted on Flickr/patternadaydec, and there are a couple more blog posts as well.

The lesson learned from this month is to just keep going! Paper is cheap, and there’s no way to get better without practicing. About mid-month I was really disappointed with some of my patterns. None of the patterns I was creating really looked like “me”. I started wondering if I was cut out for this, and if I would ever find “my style”. I kept making a pattern daily, and toward the end of the month starting making some patterns that I liked again. I’m still not sure that I’m close to a cohesive style, but I did discover that I prefer patterns with a little bit of black line or brush pen in them.

The great part about the commitment to using one set of supplies (this month was watercolor backgrounds and Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens) for an entire month is getting to explore, and then move on to something new the next month. I haven’t decided yet what to use for January, but I’m off to work that out now. I’ll post my first pattern on Instagram when I’m done tonight.

I hope you’ve all had a creative first day of 2013!