William Morris Art Project

To create a William Morris-style repeating pattern, first you will need inspiration!

Walk around your own garden, or go to a local park and sketch flowers, leaves, plants and birds.

Use these sketches to create a William Morris-inspired stylised 2D pattern.

Once you're happy with your design, take a perfectly square piece of paper and neatly draw your pattern, making sure you keep inside the edge of the paper.

Then, cut the paper into four equal squares and, in pencil, lightly label them 1, 2, 3, and 4. 

Move 1 into position 4; 4 into position 1; 2 into position 3; and 3 into position 2. Stick the four squares back together.

You might notice the middle looks bare, so fill in that blank space with pattern.

You're now ready to trace your pattern over and over, being careful to line everything up correctly and finally add some colour! 

You can trace the design onto whatever size paper you like, whether it be smaller sheets that only allow room for a few repeated patterns, or huge sheets with multiple repetitions of the design. You could go crazy and make a whole roll of paper like wallpaper.

This is how it should finally look.

William Morris.