Creating repeating patterns

1One motif, a thousand prints

A roll of kitenge may carry the same flower thousands of times, yet the designer drew it only once. The skill is in the repeat: deciding exactly where each print goes so that the pattern flows without gaps or crowding. With a stencil or a simple stamp, a ruler and a pencil grid, you can do the same by hand.

2Key vocabulary

• Repeat unit: the motif together with the space around it. It is the "tile" that is printed again and again.
• Grid: light pencil lines that show where every repeat unit goes.
• Repeat system: the rule for placing the units.
• Stamp (relief block): a block with a raised motif. The raised part takes the colour and prints, the opposite of a stencil, where the hole prints.

3Repeat systems

• Block repeat: units in straight rows and columns. Easy and steady, but it can look stiff.
• Half-drop repeat: every second column moves down by half a unit. The eye now travels diagonally, and the grid is harder to see. It is very common in printed cloth.
• Brick repeat: every second row moves across by half a unit, like bricks in a wall.
• Mirror repeat: every second motif is flipped over, so neighbours face each other. With a stencil, wipe it clean and simply turn it over.
• Rotation: the motif is turned a quarter turn each time; four turns bring it back to the start.
• Alternating repeat: two motifs, or two colours, take turns.

Worked example: planning a border

Niyonzima is printing a border on a strip of card 40 cm long. His stencil motif is 4 cm wide and he wants 1 cm of space after each print.

• Repeat unit = 4 cm + 1 cm = 5 cm.
• Number of prints = 40 ÷ 5 = 8.
• Eight motifs and seven gaps use 8 × 4 + 7 × 1 = 39 cm, leaving 1 cm spare. To centre the row, he starts 0.5 cm from the end: the prints begin at 0.5, 5.5, 10.5 cm and so on, and the last one ends at 39.5 cm.
• He rules a light line along the strip and makes a small tick at each starting point, then lines up the left edge of the stencil window with each tick.

For a half-drop on a whole sheet with a repeat unit 6 cm tall, every second column simply starts 3 cm lower than its neighbours.

4Printing through a stencil

1. Mix the colour as thick as cream. Poster paint works; so do natural colours thickened with cassava paste (next lesson).
2. Make a dabber: a piece of foam from an old mattress, or a ball of cotton wool wrapped tightly in cloth.
3. Take a little colour, then dab most of it off on newspaper. A nearly dry dabber gives sharp edges.
4. Hold or tape the stencil flat. Dab straight up and down, working from the frame towards the middle of the hole. Never brush sideways: that pushes colour under the edge and blurs the print.
5. Lift the stencil straight up, wipe its back, and move to the next mark on your grid.

5Make it: a potato or cassava stamp

1. Cut a firm potato in half, or cut a 4 cm piece of peeled fresh cassava, with one clean, flat cut. Blot the cut face dry with a cloth.
2. Draw a bold, simple motif on the face with a pencil or ballpoint pen.
3. With a small knife, cut straight down about 5 mm all round the outline, then slice in from the side to remove the background, so that the motif stands up.
4. Dab thick paint onto the raised face with a sponge. Do not dip the stamp; it floods.
5. Press firmly and evenly without rocking, then lift straight up.
6. Remember that a stamp prints a mirror image: carve letters and numbers back to front. Draw them on thin paper, turn the paper over and trace the reversed shape onto the stamp.
7. Print on the same day: a cut potato or cassava dries and shrinks within a day or two.

6Look closely

The French designer Maurice Pillard Verneuil published this plate in 1897, in a book of animal designs for decoration.

• The narrow band on the left is a border, and its caption calls it bordure au pochoir: "stencilled border" (pochoir is French for stencil). A crow and a group of leaves make one repeat unit, printed again and again down the band. Find where one unit ends and the next begins.
• The wide panel on the right is an all-over pattern for printed cloth. Thistles and cicadas are spread so evenly that the eye cannot find a straight row: the designer has hidden the grid.
• Both designs use a limited set of colours, which is exactly what stencil printing needs: one stencil per colour.

Practice