Pattern design: suggestions from masters

Trying to get the best of my Pesach chol hamoed free time, while keeping up with my motto of learning something new every day I tried to day to use the opportunity offered by skillshare to learn for free about surface design and creating patterns. The video classes by Jenna Frye are very easy, illustrative and very useful. The program yo need for the practice is Illustrator, from the Adobe Family. The course is rather an introduction into the topic, with some good examples to practice but if really interested in improving the knowledge, more skills and practice is needed.

As for now, I decided to move on and improve my visual knowledge about the topic, and did some research about some of the masters of patterns used as examples during the class. 

Cath Kidston

Cath Kidson brings into your home, at your table or on your body the charm of the British countryside. Her website offers regularly various discounts and the diversity of her motifs, built around a smooth base of mild colours brings peace to the eyes. Her products can be also ordered online and delivered in specific countries all over the world, including outside Europe.

Joel Dewberry

Joel Dewberry is another example of praising simplicity and classical beauty. His elegant collections cover clothes, interior design, upholstery, wallpapers. 

Flower: Eucalyptus Bazaar

Johannes Itten

We are entering the hall of art, as Itten is an expressionist painter, close to the Bauhaus movement, which developed an elaborated theory of colours. 

M.C.Escher

One of my favourite artists by far, Escher is the master of creating special effects through repetition. He combines architectural elements, with stylish fragments of nature and the inspiration of the Italian art and architecture.

Convexe and concave

Lessons learned of the Pesach cleaning

Finally b''H, the Pesach cleaning was done in time. At the limit of time, but still ready for the intensive cooking I plan to start tomorrow early in the morning. I must confess that this year I was incredibly late, as one week before the hag, I was still procrastinating, thinking about how can I start the cleaning and the preparations. Right now, I keep being late, with the menu still unclear, as unclear is the place where we will spend the second seder. 

Despite all the shortcoming, I dare to think about the lessons learned that hope to respect carefully the next year. The most important are:

- Start planning the cleaning as soon as possible. After Purim, as I always used to do. Start little by little, one corner at a time, and be sure that you move fast enough to be ready at least 5 days before Pesach. It is such a good feeling to know that you still can rest and have the mind clear for preparing the menu and the schedule for chol hamoed. 

- Involve your family: my big mistake this year is that I wanted to do almost everything by my own. When they saw that I am getting too far, they decided to help and, honestly, they saved me at least one day when felt too tired to continue doing at the same time: kashering, washing loads of clothes, selecting the things we don't need and putting in order those that we want to keep.

- Relax from time to time, or while doing the boring cleaning: listen to some shiurim - as usual, I used the resources from YUTorah and WebYeshiva, catching up with the learning - or some Pesach music. Thus, one can already enter the feeling of the holidays and the hard cleaning gets a different perspective.

- Pesach means more than cleaning. It means a return to humility, to modesty and thoughts about what really matters in life. For the next days, we are trying to nurture our spiritual side. What we build during the next days should be the basis for the rest of the year. I wish the next year cleaning will be easier also because I would think twice before bringing at home or buying things that I actually don't need. 

It's all for now. Enough talking and thinking, time to relax for a little bit before a long cooking marathon tomorrow!

Hag kosher v'sameah!