Studio Visit with Surface Designer and Educator, Bonnie Christine
In today’s virtual excursion, I’m going to the Smokey Mountains to visit gifted fabric designer, artist, generous educator, and beautiful human extraordinaire, Bonnie Christine.
Bonnie is a force of nature. She is intensely creative and a savvy businesswoman. She has built her surface design empire by putting one foot in front of the other and taking bold steps towards her dreams. And on top of that, she’s shared her secrets with thousands of creatives, and have helped them follow AND achieve their dreams. She is an inspiration for sure.
In the last blog post about creating passive income, I mentioned how surface design can be a great fit for those illustrators and fine artists who enjoy pushing pixels and desire to add a viable income stream to their businesses. Quite a few of my clients have told me they desire to create a lifestyle brand that encompasses their artwork but also thoughtfully-made products. If you’re also dreaming about rounding out your business with a beautiful line of products, then keep reading.
I’ve worked with several of Bonnie’s students and one common thread is that they have a vision for the future that is more than just a dream. They are on a path to their vision of success, and Bonnie helped put them there.
To put in perspective, Bonnie’s surface design students have gone on to:
Support their beautiful families with their own income (six figures!!)
Gain confidence in their artistic abilities.
Form successful partnerships with dream brands.
Stop dreaming, and start DOING.
Get their artwork on products in real shops.
And so much more.
During my Studio Visit, I discovered Bonnie and I had a similar journey learning Adobe Illustrator around the same time, over 10 years ago. Back then, deeply inspired by an artist I was introduced to via Grace Boney’s design*sponge blog, I decided to launch a business selling digital prints all over the world with ZERO experience. Etsy was just getting started and this dream seemed full of potential.
But here’s the thing, it turns that learning new software was not as easy as it had been in my dream of becoming the next Ashley G. And while eventually, my prints were shipped to Australia, Scandinavia, and all over Europe, but each digital design took me weeks to create because I simply didn’t have the knowledge to efficiently create my suite of digital prints. I still have regrets over not investing in a class at my local art college to learn this tool and turn my big dream into a smooth and wildly more profitable business.
If only I had a time machine then perhaps I would’ve made more money, learned how to license my work, and how to create beautiful work efficiently.
Nowadays, you can clobber together a rickety Illustrator and pattern-making education using a YouTube video here and a Skillshare video there. But what a pieced-together “free” education doesn’t get you is efficiency, clarity, industry insider knowledge, a beginner-to-pro action-based roadmap, and the commitment to follow through with your dreams.
So what does?
Listen in to my conversation where Bonnie and I chat about what it really takes to make it in the Surface Design field. And it’s not as complicated as you think.
WATCH THE VIDEO
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO
