Recently my brother and I spent a day hiking at Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park in southeast Minnesota. As has been the case nearly all winter, there was still no snow. It makes things a little bit drab but a walk in the woods is always invigorating and beauty can always be found if one keeps their eyes and mind open. This is a really nice park with heavily forested, rolling hills and lots of trails. I’ve never actually been to the cave – perhaps that will be a post for another time. It was a great day for a hike and the forest was calm, dark and mysterious so I composed a few shots to try to capture the experience.

As we walked and as I was enjoying the changing wooded vistas I looked down and something caught my eye. There were some spots on the trail with a little snow and I liked the pattern that the fallen twigs and stones made in the snow.

Since I started making repeating patterns and uploading them to my Spoonflower shop I notice things like this that maybe I would’ve just walked by in the past. I think it’s fair to say that it has sharpened my eye a little and I’ve started seeing patterns in places I never would’ve noticed before. A few days later I brought the image into Photoshop, cropped it a little, and joined mirrored images together to get the kaleidoscope effect.

I really like this one. Below is the repeating pattern that it makes.

I liked it enough to upload it to my Spoonflower shop. If you would like to see how it looks on fabric and other home decor products click here.

I know creating patterns like this doesn’t appeal to everybody but the takeaway is that beauty and interesting things can be found anywhere – maybe even at your feet. So the next time you’re walking in nature don’t forget to look down.