Ever since I created my mistletoe pattern I have wanted to do a holly one, but everything I tried just wasn’t working for me, until I decided to try a different style altogther.

I started off drawing the classic spikey leaf shape that most people draw to represent holly, but I didn’t like it, I took pictures of a holly bush in the garden and tried to get a more accurate shape from that but still didn’t like it, so I left it for a long time before I tried again.

This time I thought I at least had some decent elements but when I tried to make them into a pattern they still looked wrong and awkward together, so gave up for a third time.

It really was that spikey shape that was throwing me off, I just didn’t like it.

But after making the offset leaves patterns I decided to attempt it once more but in a similar style to those, and finally I had a something I actually liked.

I then took some of those elements and made a striped pattern with them.

The stripes looked a little too plain to me at first so I decided to put a small leaf pattern over them, it just helped to break up the flat colours.

Holly Pattern | Shutterstock | Adobe | 123rf
Striped Holly Pattern | Shutterstock | Adobe | 123rf

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Post updated November 2022 to add direct links to available print-on-demand products.