My Surface Pattern Design Creative Journey; 4 Year Update.

My surface pattern design journey started back in 2021. It’s been a truly amazing creative adventure and a wonderful learning experience.

Why Surface Pattern Design?

In my previous post, “An Exclusive Look at Surface Pattern Design, 101” I talk about my decision to pursue surface pattern design. My husband Derek and I moved to Nova Scotia in early 2021. It was during this move, I learned that traditional art supplies were difficult to come by. When I found supplies, I found prices to be fairly high as compared to prices in the US. At this point, I was pretty much forced to rethink my path as a traditional artist.

I’ve been an artist most of my life and have always been drawn to textiles, fabric, wallpaper and digital design. When I stumbled across surface pattern design, it seemed like a natural progression to move from my traditional art practice to learning all I could about surface design and digital art.

While in Nova Scotia I learned that because I wasn’t a Canadian citizen (even though I was married to one), doing business in Canada was going to be a challenge for me. I found out I wasn’t allowed to sell my artwork in Nova Scotia until I received my permanent residency and work permit. This process took 18 months to accomplish.

Fast forward to today, Derek and I are back in the states. We returned to North Carolina in fall of 2023 after he was laid-off from his job. The process of packing up and moving from one country to another was complicated and has kept my surface design business from progressing as quickly as I would like.

Distractions are all part of life, right? What’s that old saying?

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans” ~ attributed to John Lennon, but originally by Allen Saunders (1957)

Getting Settled in New Bern, North Carolina

We made a total of three moves in our process of moving back to the united states. First to an apartment in Greenville; second, to a condo we purchased in New Bern (after we closed on the sale of our home in Nova Scotia); third, a move to our current house (after we re-established our credit, we sold the condo and bought a house).

All of these moves stemmed from an overall BIG lesson we learned: that living outside of the U.S. for nearly three years meant we no longer had our 800+ credit score. The reason we no longer had a credit rating was because we sold our house in the states and no longer had a mortgage, and both of our cars were paid off, so no car payments. Additionally, we didn’t use our U.S credit cards (to avoid international transaction fees) so all of this made us invisible to the U.S. credit bureaus.

But, with that said, I think we’re finally settled. At least, until the next move!!

The condo we bought needed new windows and doors, so by taking out a small personal loan, to replace the windows and doors, this helped us re-establish our credit fairly quickly. Within a year our credit was back up over 800 again, and we found a house that suited our needs, as well as a buyer for condo. Life is Good.

Networking in New Bern

As an artist, and new business owner, in New Bern, I decided to join a few networking groups on Facebook and attended some local women’s networking events in town. By doing so, I met some pretty awesome women who helped me find my tribe.

One of the awesome women I met was Ginny Seeley. Ginny owns Outcome Academy, a company that helps small businesses learn how to grow and thrive. As a member of Outcome Academy, I met and connected with several local small business owners. These connections/friendships have been invaluable.

Finding Other Artists!

During my time as a member of Outcome Academy, Ginny also introduced me to her friend Veronica Campos-Hallstrom. Veronica is an amazingly talented artist and surface pattern designer!! Veronica and I are now good friends and studio mates.

From November 2023 through March 2025, we rented a studio space from Ginny, and her husband Joe, as part of the Highland Business Center and CoWorking Space. We outgrew our co-work space and moved on to other art spaces we found with a group of artists downtown.

I’ll always be grateful to Ginny for showing me so much support and for introducing me to Veronica. By the way, I’ve discovered that Veronica knows everyone in New Bern! She has been a key contributor to my building a network in my new home town.

LaceLeaf Art Studios

Veronica and I are now members of LaceLeaf Art Studios in downtown New Bern. It’s a lovely space where we have our studios and share in a community art space with other local talented artists. We are all going to be part of the 2025 New Bern Artists Open Studio Tour coming up November 8th and 9th. Veronica and I were part of this tour last year too. We are now located at 507 Pollock Street, Suite 2, New Bern, NC. Suite 3 also has artists to see during the tour! Stop by if you’re in town!

My Online Training Continues

Over the last four years, I have continued learning and expanding my knowledge about surface pattern design. I’ve retaken several courses with Juliet Meeks, Bonnie Christine, and Stacie Bloomfield. I’ve also discovered a few new courses along the way. I’ve also learned that some platforms/programs have gone away. It’s an ever changing profession.

My Top 10 Favorite Educators (make that 11)

• Juliet Meeks — An amazingly talented surface pattern designer who offers Licensing for Artists and a free Get Ready to License challenge. Both will be coming again soon in January 2026. * NOTE: I am an affiliate for Juliet Meeks, and if you use my link to sign up for her awesome licensing course, I will receive a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support.
• Stacie Bloomfield — An industry leader & educator. She teaches all about the business side of pattern design. I’m currently enrolled in her Leverage Your Art program (which will reopen again in fall of 2026). I enrolled this year as an alumni (at a 75% reduced rate) because Stacie has completely updated and revamped her program to focus on strategy, marketing, and licensing. I’m also a member of her Creative Powerhouse Society community. 
• Barbel Dressler — A surface pattern designer and pattern historian. If you are the least bit curious about where and how pattern design started, then Barbel’s Repertoire course is for you! I’ve taken this course twice and LOVE it so much! Her Patternpedia PDF is a 32 page encyclopedia of all things pattern design with illustrative images and descriptions of over 130 pattern categories, motifs, and styles. This document alone was so worth the course!!
• Bonnie Christine — A Surface Pattern Designer industry leader with many free resources to get you started. She also offers her Immersion course once a year, which is basically a hands-on 10-week course on Adobe Illustrator. Bonnie also has an alumni membership community called Pattern+ (formerly known as Flourish) and she also offers 75% off her course for returning alumni.
• Erin Kendal — Founder of the Power Sellers Academy membership. She’s an expert on how to set up an account on Spoonflower and teaches you how upload and sell your pattern designs on this fabric & wallpaper platform as a design business. 
• Elizabeth Silver — A surface design industry leader & educator, she offers free resources on her website and offers the Marketing Momentum Lab. She also has amazing trend reports with the most up-to-date info on trends in the industry.
• Anne LaFollette — offers The Pattern Design Academy & Anne’s Atelier Membership program. I started my journey with Anne.
• Michelle Fifis offers a weekly newsletter called Pattern Observer with amazing resources and job information for surface pattern designers. She also has a fabulous membership called the Textile Design Lab.
• Laura Coyle is a master instructor on Adobe Illustrator and I can’t recommend her tips and tutorials enough.
• Nora Wolf from Wolf-Craft, offers fantastic insight on how to pitch your designs to holiday gift guides without a PR (public relations) firm.
• Stacie Dale — founder & editor of Surface Design News, which is a paid monthly e-newsletter about all things surface pattern design. You’ll find everything from calls for art, freelance designer job listings, and information on companies accepting art submissions, and so much more! Definitely worth $10. Stacie also has a private Facebook group you can join if you’re a subscriber to her newsletter.

My Top 7 Favorite Procreate Designers/Instructors

• Genna Blackburn — An Illustrator, Surface Pattern Designer, & Educator. She offers two fantastic courses. One called the Beginners Guide to Procreate and the second one called InDesign Your Portfolio where she teaches you how to build your portfolio using Adobe InDesign.
• Mandy Corcoran is a Surface Pattern Designer and owns Amanda Grace Designs. She is an amazing procreate instructor and she offers design tips in her weekly emails and has a Procreate Pattern Collection Masterclass. I’ve taken this course and it’s awesome. I highly recommend it.
• Jasmine Hnatkova is a surface pattern designer with the best easy to follow tutorials on Procreate. After taking her workshop Procreate Patterns: A Step by Step Guide to Creating Stunning Repeats, I learned so much and I now actually enjoy working in Procreate more than Adobe Illustrator. Best affordable course!
• Liz Kohler Brown is a fabulous artist & designer who works with Affinity Designer and Procreate. Liz also has one of the best design memberships called The Studio Membership — As a member, I have access to classes, lives sessions, and marketing resources that are teaching me how to create more professional designs and helping me build the confidence I need to start selling my designs.
• Peggy Dean with The Pigeon Letters, is a wonderfully creative soul, artist, and educator with so much to offer for all creatives. She not only teaches Procreate, but she also has a blog with so many fantastic tutorials and resources. She also has a membership called The Art Nest (I’m not a member, but it looks amazing).
• Bre Hanks — Artist and digital art instructor, she owns Bre Design Co and teaches artists and creatives how to draw using Procreate in a fun and easy way to learn.
• Teela with Every Tuesday — Teela is another truly amazing creative who shares her knowledge of Procreate. With beginner friendly courses on how to make your own brushes in her Pattern Combo Brushes course, to tons of free resources sent out via email every Tuesday. Check out her wealth of information.

Art Top 5 Marketing Creatives

• Vanessa (Ness) Stoilova — is an artist and professional illustrator who owns Art Business with Ness. I recently discovered Ness through her The Profitable Artist Summit. Ness organized this FREE summit back in June, and I have to say, it was one of the BEST FREE 3-day events I’ve ever attended. Ness teaches how to market art for surface design, how to build a picture book portfolio, and all about Instagram for Artists. Ness also has The Art Business Bootcamp starting this fall!! Also, check out her interview with Stacie Dale, editor of Surface Design News! These women are amazing contributors to the surface design industry. Because of The Profitable Artist Summit, I learned about Kelsey Rodriguez, Margo Tantau, and Krissy Mast; truly amazing artists and designers. See Below:
• Margo Tantau — an art agent and mentor, recently taken over where Lilla Rogers left off. Margo calls herself a connector, collaborator, and champion for the modern creator. She also hosts a podcast called Windowsill Chats and has a vibrant & supportive community called The Foundry. Bottom line, I wish I had the time and money to join and learn from all of these amazing resources available to today’s surface designers and artisans.
• Kelsey Rodriguez — a marketing extraordinaire! She is a coach and mentor who offers strategy sessions and marketing training to entrepreneurs and creatives to help them build profitable businesses. Oh, and did I mention, she’s also a visual artist and content creator too!!
• Krissy Mast — this surface designer/artist is my hero. Krissy has 4 children under the age of 6. She just started her surface design business in 2023 and already has numerous licensing deals, is working with an agent, and is already making over 1 million a year. Krissy has also just launched Art Licensing Unlocked where she teaches other designers her techniques and strategy. I’ve got her course on my radar for next year.
• Creative Studio Collective — is an artist collective founded by Fleur Crawford and Ryann Scrafford who are absolutely fabulous surface designers. They have a combined 35 years of experience in the design business. Fleur worked with Hufton Studio and Ryann worked with Charlie Rowan Designs. Both share their knowledge and skills inside their community with insider tips, monthly portfolio building design briefs and so much more!! Again, if there were 3 of me and I had loads of money, I’d be all over joining this community.

My 3 Favorite Pinterest Gurus!

• Meagan Williamson — Founder of Pin Potential, a Pinterest expert and educator who has been using Pinterest for over 14 years and teaching other creatives how to use Pinterest strategically for their businesses. She has a new course available: Pinterest 101: The Beginners Guide to Pinterest!!
• Ashleigh Fish — a professional illustrator and surface pattern designer. Ashleigh is knocking it out of the park using Pinterest to get found for licensing deals! She offers her own Pinterest Workshop to teach other designers her strategy on how to make the world of surface patter design accessible and fun! I highly recommend her workshop! (Note: Ashleigh is an alumni of Meagan’s Pin Potential course above). Watch Meagan’s interview with Ashleigh on how Ashleigh landed 10+ licensing deals from Pinterest!!
• Alayna Perrault — Creative Marketing Strategist, founder of Alayna Creative. She offers organic Pinterest marketing services with the goal of getting people from Pinterest to your website. I learned about Alayna via The Profitable Artist Summit in June of 2025. AND… Alayna offers a FREE Pinterest Course for artists!! Not an affiliate link, just sharing the wealth of knowledge!

The Future of Surface Pattern Design

If you’re interested surface pattern design and you’re wondering if there is room for you, my answer is YES! Absolutely! Everyone is unique and we all have a different style and visual voice. Yes, there is competition, but there are so many companies out there looking to license unique and different styles!! You just need to learn everything you can about how to make repeat patterns, but of course you can also sell individual designs as cards, wall art, and prints as well. There’s nothing that says you have to know how to make a repeating pattern in order to become licensed.

Print-on-Demand

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again, I believe the future of surface design is bright. And with all the new technologies and printing methods available, especially with Print-on-Demand companies like Spoonflower, Zazzle, Fine Art America, Contrado, Red Bubble, Printify and Printful, you can get your own business up and running in no time. You could even open up an Etsy shop to sell your products.

It’s all about building a body of work and finding a way to get your artwork and designs seen. There are so many ways to get your artwork discovered, for example: social media, Pinterest (which is actually a search engine and not considered social media), your own website, blog, print-on-demand, teaching, and even wholesale marketing. There are so many options and possibilities!

Coming Up in My Next Blog Post:

My Top 10 Recommended Books & So Much More!!

In my next post, I’ll write about my top 10 books on art and design I’ve read over the last 4 years. I’m also going to introduce you to Ali with 3 Dotted Penguins, dive a bit deeper into Print-on-Demand, tell you about Stacie Bloomfield’s new book, Bonnie Christine’s new SPD magazine, an introduction to Trend Forecasting and the artists who cover this topic best, and so much more! Subscribe so you don’t miss a thing!

Bottom line, there is more information out there than I could possibly write about in one blog post. Let me know if there is anything in particular you’d like to know more about regarding art and surface pattern design and I’ll try to answer your questions.

Interested in Learning More? Please Subscribe!

If you are interested in learning more about my art, creative journey, and adventures in surface pattern design, please consider subscribing below and I will add you to my list and keep you up to date on my latest news and adventures.

As always, I am interested in hearing your comments and views, please post your comments below. Wishing you and your families all the best for the 2025 fall season!