One of my favorite creative shortcuts surprisingly has nothing to do with working faster. It’s realizing I already made the thing. Or at least… I made part of the thing.
If you’ve been creating for any amount of time, you probably have a universe of artwork sitting around already. Think about your sketchbook pages... random elements from your "practice sessions" like florals, leaves, shapes, lettering, misc motifs, random doodles you love but never did anything with. Or maybe you did, and maybe there are elements within your finished pieces that could breathe life into another one.
I say it because, somehow, because we’ve already made them, our brains file all of that under DONE. Which is simply unfair to all those perfectly good leaves sitting in there waiting for a second chance.
In this video, I’m taking elements from a repeat pattern I already created, and I'm talking BASIC, simple-as-ever elements, and rearranging them into an entirely new standalone illustration in real time (aka no time flat). I didn't redraw anything and I certainly didn't start from scratch. I just looked at what already exists and asked myself what else it could become.
Your artwork is raw material
We tend to treat finished artwork as one fixed thing. A pattern is a pattern. An illustration is an illustration. A sketchbook page stays tucked inside the sketchbook.
But the individual pieces inside your artwork can have a 👏 much 👏 longer 👏 life!
A flower from a pattern could become part of a greeting card. A handful of leaves could turn into a border. Several motifs could become a wreath, corner framing, a sticker sheet, a print, packaging, a social graphic, or the beginning of another pattern entirely.
While I'm pulling from my iPad motifs in this example, you can pull from traditional artwork too. Scan a sketchbook page or photograph your work, isolate the pieces you want, and bring them into whatever digital program you like using.
Suddenly your archive becomes less of a storage closet and more of an ingredient shelf.
Start with the elements you already like
For this example, I started with artwork I had originally arranged as a repeat pattern. I started pulling a handful of elements into a new area and arranging them into one composition. You don’t need every element from the original piece. In fact, using fewer can help the new artwork develop its own personality.
Rearrange first, fuss later
This is also a very good place to resist the urge to perfect everything immediately. When I started arranging the new piece, I wasn’t carefully adjusting every scale, angle, or bit of spacing. I was mostly moving things around and seeing where they felt good.
I clustered some flowers together and I let smaller pieces peek out from behind others. I left intentional openings where I knew stems could eventually connect everything. I paid attention to density. Some areas got fuller while others had a little breathing room.
Once the overall composition was working, then I could think about rotation, scale, layering, flipping individual elements, changing the background color, or adding a few finishing details, and in this one, I didn't actually end up doing that at all!
Working this way keeps you out of the weeds while you’re still deciding where the garden goes (I've been really into garden analogies lately.. we can thank my naturopath for that).
A few small changes can make it feel brand new
One of the funnest things about rearranging existing artwork is how quickly your brain stops recognizing the source material.
Try doing something like one of these:
- Change the composition
- Flip a flower
- Layer one element behind another
- Remove a few pieces
- Change the scale
- Add some connecting motifs
- Try another background color
You can end up with something that feels completely different even though almost every individual element already existed. And once you start noticing that, the possibilities multiply pretty quickly!
The same group of motifs could become:
- a standalone floral composition
- a wreath
- a border
- a corner embellishment
- a repeat pattern
- a greeting card
- a print
- product packaging
- a sticker or decal
- a collection of coordinating designs
One set of artwork can have a whole extended family.
Go dig through your archives
There are leaves I’ve drawn once and used over and over because I genuinely love them that much. Your own archive probably has pieces like that, too.
You don’t have to reinvent your visual vocabulary every time you sit down to make something. Part of developing your creative voice is noticing what you naturally return to and giving yourself permission to return to it.
So here’s your prompt for today: dig through something you’ve already made and pull out a few pieces you still love.
Then rearrange them.
Crop them. Flip them. Repeat them. Change their color. Build a border. Make a wreath. Create a strange little composition you never would have drawn from scratch.
See how many lives one piece of artwork can have.
You may already have the beginning of your next piece sitting in your archives.
