Meet fabric designer Linda Kister
Hello, again! I’m excited to share a fabulous interview with Academy® alum Linda Kister. She is a newly minted creative entrepreneur designing fabrics for children’s clothing. She also sells items on Society6, and has several coloring books for sale on Amazon. If you’ve been feeling uninspired, this spotlight will help you get back in motion.
The video of my interview with Linda is over on my YouTube channel HERE. Please subscribe to my channel when you pop over there to watch it.
Here are three key takeaways from this interview:
#1 – What lights your fire?
It’s always fun to hear how students find my Doodles® mini course. Once they do, just like me, they are hooked and decide to get serious about Surface Design. She says, “I decided at that point that this is going to be something that I can really do because I get so lost in the process that I thought, ‘this is absolutely going to light my fire’.”
When we talk about inspiration, the best thing to do is to follow what excites you. It can be hard to pursue your passion when you don’t know where the journey will lead you, but this is where creativity meets courage. We have to lean into what brings us joy and get our artwork out into the world.
I encourage you to pay attention to what lights you up as you start or continue your creative journey. Hold on to that spark. You’ll know that you’re on the right path.
#2 – Let it unfold
When I asked Linda to describe her creative process, she said, “there’s never really a clear idea when I start out. It all just sort of unfolds and it’s hard to articulate it, but it’s all based on an emotional response to what I’m seeing or feeling.”
If you struggle with inspiration, I hope Linda’s words speak to you because sometimes we stop ourselves when we don’t have things all figured out. It’s important to just get going so that as we take action, we also gain clarity.
With practice, your signature style will emerge. You’ll discover what products work best with your designs, and even how best to promote your creations. Done is better than perfect, so give yourself grace to start simple and let things unfold.
#3 – Create color palettes from pictures
I love teaching my students how to pick colors from a photograph. Linda uses this technique to create color palettes from her own photographs. As she says, it’s hard to use color theory alone.
Colors are a key part of how your designs come to life, but you may find that it’s hard to start. What colors will work best in your design? I encourage you to glean inspiration from photographs - your own photographs. You’ll be amazed at how many palettes you can create from one picture alone.
If you would like to see more of what Linda is up to, you can find her on Instagram, @pour_your_art_into_it, or visit her shop on Society6.
Pop over to my YouTube channel to watch Linda’s interview. Click HERE and please subscribe while you’re over there. It really helps spread the word and get more people to watch my weekly videos.
See you next week!
xo,
Anne
P.S. If you’d like to learn to make your first repeating pattern using Adobe Illustrator, grab my From Doodles to Dollars® course. It’s available by clicking HERE.
It’s Never Too Late to Create®
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MEET ANNE
Hi…I’m Anne!
My creative inspiration comes from a lifetime of observation. I grew up in Paris on the Place St. Sulpice and walked to school through the Luxembourg gardens. And that was only the beginning… Learn more by watching the video on my About page.
