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Creating Textures: Patterns, by Dani Jones
You can quickly add a little visual interest into your illustration by making your own patterns for clothing, wallpaper, furniture, and other elements in your painting.
Open a new document. Create a new layer.
Draw any object or design. Do NOT touch any of the edges of your canvas.
Go to the Filter menu and scroll all the way down to Other. Select Offset.
In the new dialogue box, at the bottom under “Undefined Areas,” make sure the option “Wrap Around” is selected. Now, move the sliders around until you can see the “holes” in your pattern, and click OK.
Continue drawing your pattern. Again, do not cross the outside edges of your document. If needed, rerun the Offset filter (you can use the shortcut Command+F), and continue to fill in your pattern until you can no longer see any blank spots.
Throw away the background layer.
Select All (Select > All or Command+A), then go to Edit > Define Pattern. Give your pattern a name, then click OK to save it to your Pattern library.
To see your new pattern, create a new document, go to Edit > Fill, change the Use drop-down menu to pattern, and then find your pattern under Custom Pattern.
Now go Play!