Learning New Skills Can Be Fun

When I first started creating patterns and cracked the code for the perfect repeat, I thought that these patterns would be my ticket to making a living.

Wrong.

But as I have striven to pay my bills as a  graphic designer, I've had the good fortune to learn a ton of new skills on the job.

One of these skills came rather recently when I started designing for Needlepaint.com. This entails designing a pillow, Christmas stocking, or belt that I then convert into a grid for a needlepoint canvas.

It is basically pixel art, which harkens back to the early days of video games.

I kinda love this conversion of a design into a grid and even find it addictive.

Below is a photo of a fox that I made a simple vector drawing of. Below that is the pixelated version, with one pixel equaling a stitch.

Below that is an enlarged view.

Huh. Who knew?