Recently, I have been thinking about ways we as artists could support each other on Instagram. I decided it might be helpful to start an Artist’s support group where artists can share their latest Instagram post within the group with the idea that other artists would be able to easily access and engage with Instagram accounts within the group that they like. To start this support group, I created a Pinterest group board which would allow artists to pin their latest Instagram post and other artists could follow, like, share, and/or comment on Instagram posts that they like. I know that most ar ..read more

I have gotten a few messages from readers who want to know what software they should get if they are just starting out in surface pattern design and I wanted to post about it to help other new pattern designers who might have the same question. Typically, the standard software used by most surface pattern designers is either Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop. For the sake of this post, I will mainly focus on those two apps, but I also want to address cheaper alternatives to Illustrator and Photoshop as well as address Adobe Creative Cloud and why you might want to get that as opposed to buy ..read more

For a while I have been selling my products on Creative Market and my best selling product has been my flat and round monoweight brush set for Procreate. Featuring 12 flat and round brushes in corresponding textures, you can grab this brush set in my Creative Marker shop for as low as $9 here. For those of you who want to try out a flat and round brush before you decided if you want to buy the brush set I have decided to include one flat brush and one round brush in this post for you guys to try before you buy. If you do end up buying this brush set please leave a review over at creative mark ..read more

When I first started making patterns, I assumed that only people who owned businesses would be buying my patterns. I really didn’t see a market for people who would use my patterns for personal projects because I didn’t know what they would make with my patterns aside from buying my pattern from a print on demand website where they would get that pattern on a product. Ever since I started making raster patterns where I give away PNG and JPG pattern blocks, my patterns have become more assessable for the people who want to use my patterns for personal projects so I thought I would share with y ..read more

When I started using a digital planner, I knew I wanted to make digital stickers and washi tape for my shop. After messing around with different techniques in Procreate and applying tricks I learned from watching YouTube videos, I wanted to share with you what I have learned about creating realistic washi tape. In this tutorial, you will learn how to add texture to your washi tape and an easy way to create the ripped affect on the edges of your washi tape. So let’s get started!   The first thing you want to do is create a new canvas by navigating to the page that shows all of your pro ..read more

  When I started selling my products on Creative Market, I would continually submit products to be featured as one of Creative Markets free goods of the week. After many rejections, I just assumed that getting one on my products featured as a free good wasn’t going to happen for me so I stopped trying. Eventually, a full schedule at school took up most of my time and I wasn’t really creating new products anymore. By the end of 2019, my schedule cleared up so I decided to post a new  product in my shop on December 30th. On the same day, I decided I was going try to submit that patter ..read more

School, the flu, and an immense amount of homework have made this blog a week late, but I said I wanted to write a blog post a month so here it is. I have been contemplating for a while about if I should cancel my yearly subscription to Adobe Illustrator. If you follow my instagram you might already know this. As of lately, I mostly use a combination of Procreate and Affinity Design to make designs so I thought I would review three design apps I have tried on the iPad. Stick around for the end of this post when I will reveal if I am getting rid of Adobe Illustrator. Let’s get started! Adobe I ..read more

In my last post about my creative market shop earnings I half jokingly talked about how I made my first $15.40 on Creative Market. Although sadly it’s true that my shop didn’t pop off after that it is important to talk about the struggles of opening a shop because your shop is not always going to be successful right away. When I wrote that post, I documented my last sale on November 5th, 2018. At that time, there was a sale on my shop almost every month so I assumed that trajectory would continue, however, I had two sales in December, one in February, then I didn’t get my next sale until May ..read more

  You know when you take a break from something for so long, you don’t know how to start it back up again. Well, it’s been a while since my last post and my blog has stayed stagnant for 7 months. In that time, I have been the busiest I’ve ever been and I thought I would share with you some of the highlights. I finished my second to last semester in grad school which means I worked 20 hours a week for free on top of going to school at night. I got an iPad for my birthday and started using Procreate. I also tried Adobe Draw and Affinity Designer. In the last few months, my Creative Market ..read more

Disclaimer: This design talk series on my blog is ment to be a discussion. All things in this blog post are my opinions, however, I would love to hear what you think in the comments. Almost every surface pattern designer has probably been told when starting out how important it is to make pattern collections. To an extent I agree with that, however, making pattern collections isn’t for everyone. Primarly, whether or not you need to create pattern collections will depend on your goals. You may have noticed that I don’t make a lot of pattern collections. This was a choice I made when asking mys ..read more