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Hi everyone!
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I am doing something
a little different today.
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I am doing a kind of a vlog.
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I guess I just wanted
to give you a rundown of of me,
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my life,
how I came to be where I am today.
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As a, illustrator and surface
pattern designer.
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I'm going to take you through the sort of
timeline of where I started.
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And how I got to where I am today.
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So growing
up, I, was very much into ballet,
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and that's where I thought
my focus would be.
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As an adult, I thought I would become
a professional dancer.
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I wasn't too bad at ballet.
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I won a scholarship when I was 15
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to go to the Australian Ballet School.
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And I ended up training there
for the three years.
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And unfortunately, at the end of my time
there, I had a small stint
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with the Australian Ballet Company,
but I ended up, with a really bad, foot
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injury that pretty much wiped
my career, off my journey path.
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So I ended up coming back to New Zealand
for a year and,
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trying to work out what on earth
I was going to do with my life.
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I obviously it was a bit of a soul
destroying time.
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You know,
I had worked really hard for this career.
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And so right now the plane is
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going over, so we might get a few of them,
but hopefully not too bad.
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Yeah, it was a pretty bad time in my life.
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I was pretty down in the dumps
about, my life
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and where it was going
and what I was going to do.
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So when I was back there in New Zealand,
I decided I was really missing my friends,
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in Australia.
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So I decided to quit my little job
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that I had found here
and, move back to Australia.
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And so I had about $300 in my wallet.
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This was 1995.
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Wasn't going to last me long, but probably
a lot longer than it would today.
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But I got on a plane,
went back to Melbourne in Australia,
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and I stayed with a friend
and I found a job as a P.A.
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and I worked there for quite some time.
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I actually really enjoyed it.
It was a company.
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It was a lingerie company, actually,
and we did lots of, fun, exciting things.
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We would go into, like all the big stores
like Myer and David Jones.
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We would do fashion shows.
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Yeah, it was pretty cool.
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But obviously it wasn't really
what I wanted to do with my life.
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I've always been quite ambitious and,
I was still trying to work out what,
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you know, what could I do?
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I ended up moving to Sydney.
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I got another job
with a, sort of civil engineering company.
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And while I was there,
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I started playing around
on their computer system.
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I've always loved computers.
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If, you go back to when I was maybe ten
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or 12 to 10, 11 or 12,
I can't really remember.
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My parents bought us
a, Commodore 64 computer,
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and I remember getting the magazines
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from the newsagent, and, they would be,
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they would have pages and pages of code
that you could copy out onto the computer.
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And then at the end of it,
if you hadn't made any mistakes,
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if you hadn't missed a semicolon
or whatever,
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you'd have a fully functioning game
and obviously the games back in
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the 90s, things are a little bit different
to how they are now.
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Coding back in the 90s
was a lot different to what it is now.
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But I think, actually that was the 80s,
not the 90s, the 80s.
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Yeah.
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And so I think that kind of
taught me a lot about computers.
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So I was kind of teaching myself
how to code without really knowing it.
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And so when I was working for this company
in Sydney,
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I started dabbling with their,
their databases,
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and I didn't
really have any systems on there,
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but I kind of discovered
that I could build them a system.
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And so I asked the manager and I said,
oh, look, I reckon I could build
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you guys a system that will help manage
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your, your staff,
your work workers who go out
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and they do these,
these jobs on these worksites and stuff.
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And he was like, oh, okay.
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Yeah, you can do that in your downtime.
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I don't think he really expected much.
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But over the next few months,
I created them, this fully fledged
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management system that tracked everything,
and they were kind of blown away.
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And I was like, wow, actually,
this is really fun.
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I quite enjoyed it.
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Maybe I should pursue that.
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So I ended up signing up
to take where I did
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a one year diploma course in it.
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And I remember, sitting there in the class
and they were teaching us basically,
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you know, hello world, which is what
you learn when you first, then coding.
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And everyone was struggling
and I literally was sitting
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there, I'd done it and I said, well,
is there anything else we can learn?
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And I ended up teaching most of the class
how to code, basically.
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So I thought, okay,
I need to go a bit higher than this.
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I was also buying magazines at the time
and teaching myself,
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and so I signed up for, a 90 degree,
and also at the
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about the same time, I got another job
for a very big corporation in, Sydney,
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and it was the, the position
I was a PR for the IT director.
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So I was right
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in with IT people, software engineers,
project managers, all that kind of stuff.
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And he discovered that I was doing it
80 degree.
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And so he decided this is the IT director.
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He decided that the company
would sponsor me for that.
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So and they would help, mentor me,
and help me to get that sort of position.
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Excuse me. In the company.
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So over the next few years,
I went from being a P.A.
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to a software engineer
in this very large corporation,
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and we did some pretty impressive,
projects.
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I remember one project in particular,
we worked with a German company
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who were engineers to build,
like the first distribution
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warehouse in Australia,
which was fully automated.
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So that was
that was really fun being a part of that.
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And, creating the software, and working on
that was pretty fun.
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Anyway, over the years that I worked for
that company,
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I still hadn't found hadn't
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found my joy, I guess I hadn't found,
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the thing that really made me,
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sort of passionate about what I was doing,
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and I thought,
oh, maybe it's because I'm missing
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that creative outlet that, you know,
maybe I need to be back on the stage.
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Maybe I need to be doing something
that's creative.
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Because that's
where I had my joy in the past.
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So I ended up resigning from that company.
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And because I wanted to pursue
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some acting, I wanted to get back on the
the stage in the theater.
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So I quit,
and I actually ended up going freelance
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and working contract work
as well as doing some acting work.
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So I was doing some training and acting,
but also getting jobs
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on commercials
and TV shows and doing theater in Sydney.
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That I was also doing that
at the same time as working for myself,
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as a software engineer
for a bunch of companies around Sydney.
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And I was doing that for,
for quite some time.
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And then my partner and I decided
to move out of Sydney to the country.
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So we really love the Southern Highlands,
and that is just sort of an hour
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and a half out of Sydney.
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And it's beautiful country.
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Lots of wineries. Really beautiful.
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So we bought a house
out there and I got pregnant
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around the same.
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It was the same year
I got pregnant that we bought the house.
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And I
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then started struggling
with all the driving to and from Sydney.
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In the second half of my pregnancy
in particular.
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It was pretty hard being in a car,
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sometimes for up to three hours
in peak hour traffic.
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Going back and forth from Sydney.
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I listened to a lot of audiobooks back
then.
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It was, you know,
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when you're sitting in the car
for that long, but being heavily pregnant
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and doing that and then working
in a stressful environment
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was not good for me and not good for
my mental health or my physical health.
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So I ended up having to sort of say,
I can't come
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keep coming into the city,
I'm going to work from home.
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So I sort of started doing that instead.
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And then of course,
I went on maternity leave.
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But it was also around
this time that I was,
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thinking, you know, I want to,
I love sewing.
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So I was like, oh, I want to make some,
some baby clothes for my baby
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that's coming.
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And I went looking for some gender
neutral fabric,
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and I could not find anything
I liked anywhere.
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So I went back to, my computer,
and I typed in how to create your own
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fabric and spoons that I popped up
and I was like, oh, wow.
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Okay.
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I could actually create a moon fabric
or design my own fabric,
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print it out,
and then make the baby clothes.
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So I went about learning how to do that,
and I did
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it, and I was lucky in that
I had been using Photoshop
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and Adobe Illustrator for years
because I'd done a lot of graphic
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design work with my software
engineer engineering work.
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So I already knew those
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software platforms really well, and
I just didn't know how to create patterns.
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So I taught myself how to create patterns.
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I was uploading them to spoons.
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I I started getting in the sort of top
ten of some of their challenges,
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and I was like,
oh, this is, this is really cool.
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I even I got fabric printed.
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I even started selling some of the,
baby clothes at a local store.
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And I was like, oh, maybe I could actually
create a business out of this.
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And, you know, at this time is put
I had my own business.
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I knew how to run a business.
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I just didn't love
what I was doing in that business.
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So I thought,
I'm going to just keep plugging away
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at the, pattern design
and and see where that goes.
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I ended up, applying for a scholarship
at the make it and design team.
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They ran an online course, back
then, and I ended up winning that.
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So I ended up doing this amazing course,
and that kind of catapulted
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the start of my career.
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That's kind
of where I got my foot in the door.
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I learned how to create, patterns
and obviously collections,
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and I managed to build a portfolio.
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So at the end of that, I got an agent.
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And the reason I got an agent
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is because around that time,
I had been posting on Instagram
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and I had a, a company reach out
to me, a shoe company in Melbourne,
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and they wanted to license
a couple of designs.
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And at this point, I had no idea
I had a license.
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I had only been earning
a little bit of money on speed.
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So when I say a little bit,
I mean like 102 hundred bucks for the
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whole year, like nothing. And
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so with this,
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when this company reached out to me,
I was like, oh, how do I do this?
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How do I navigate this?
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How do I write a contract?
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How do I set the price?
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How do I, you know, all these things
I didn't have a clue about
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and I really stumbled.
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I made a lot of mistakes.
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The shoes ended up being amazing.
They looked amazing.
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They were lovely to work with.
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But I hadn't set any sort of rules
about how many, Iterations of designs.
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I was going to do
any of that sort of stuff.
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So it was.
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Yeah, it was difficult.
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But we got there in the end.
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The shoes were lovely,
but it was at that point I was like,
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I need to learn more
about the licensing side of this business.
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So, I got an agent and the agent
having the agent really help me understand
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contracts, licenses, royalties,
all that kind of stuff.
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How to deal with clients, negotiating,
all that kind of stuff.
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So having that an agent was really handy.
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It took me 2 or 3 years to actually start
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earning a decent amount of money
through my agent as well.
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Like, it wasn't like
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I started getting lots of lots of jobs
or commissions straight away.
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The first couple of years,
I probably only learned,
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I probably only meant,
you know, 1 to $2000 from them.
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So at this point, I was also doing my
contracting work as a software engineer.
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So I had that income,
and it didn't matter so much.
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But I really wanted to build up,
you know, that illustration work.
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So I was also then, you
know, juggling parenthood.
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So I was full time parent.
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I had another child, I had a daughter,
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and, my partner work full time.
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So I didn't have a lot of time
to put a lot of effort into it.
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I was also doing,
you know, part time, contract work.
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So it was a huge juggle.
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But over time, it was I could see
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I could see that I was going in the right
direction, even though it was slow.
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So in 2018, we decided to move
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from Australia back to New Zealand.
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So I had been away from New Zealand
at this point,
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27 years I've been living in Australia.
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I was an Australian at that point,
so I'm now a dual citizen.
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But we decided to move back
to New Zealand.
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My parents were getting older.
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My dad in particular was
had had some health issues,
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and I really wanted my kids
to spend some time with them.
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So we
packed up her house, we rented it out.
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We moved back to New Zealand, and,
set up, house here.
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And that was probably
one of the hardest years of my career or,
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it was tough.
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My partner had to take a huge
cut in, income.
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And even though she was working
the same sort of fulltime hours,
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her income was about a quarter
of what she was earning in Australia.
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And obviously I was looking after
a four year old
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and an 18 month old,
plus trying to have some sort of business.
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And I was also, quite ill at the time.
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I had some mysterious, illness.
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And, and I'd been to every specialist
on the planet.
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It felt like I trying to work out
what was wrong with me.
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And, I had no energy.
I had chronic fatigue.
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I was having trouble travel volcanoes.
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I've been having trouble talking.
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One point, I
the doctors thought I had Ms..
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It was all very similar symptoms.
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It took them about three years
to work it out.
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All I had was a B12 deficiency.
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And so now I just have jabs
and I'm all better again.
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But it was pretty bad.
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Like the symptoms
I was having were pretty horrendous.
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And it was that year
that we weren't earning very much money.
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We were just staying afloat.
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It was very stressful,
but we made it through.
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I think also at that time I was like,
oh, I'm just going to have to
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give up this dream because I, you know,
I wasn't making a lot of money.
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I didn't have time to do a lot of work.
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And I was like,
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I'm just going to have to
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put the kids into daycare and I'm
just going to have to find another job.
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So I even started applying for
a random job somewhere, and it sandwiches.
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I remember
applying for a job at the library
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that, you know, the job where you drive
around the books to other libraries.
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I was like, just as a driver,
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and I could not get an interview
for any job that I applied for.
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Which for me was quite demoralizing
because in Australia,
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every time I applied for a job,
I basically got it.
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I never got.
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I got every job that I applied for.
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It was so weird, like,
and then all of a sudden
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I was applying for ten jobs
and I wouldn't even get one interview.
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So it was it was quite, Yeah.
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A a kick in the guts, really.
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So at that point I was like, well, I'm
just going to have to make this art thing,
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this illustration business work.
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I had no choice.
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So I put my all into it.
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And over the next couple of years,
I really saw it grow.
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And I think in 2022, when,
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you know, the world kind of stops,
I guess.
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I think that's
when I realized that I was doing it.
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I was full time.
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I was making more money
than I ever made in my, I take it, work.
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I was getting book commissions.
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I was earning, royalties from licenses,
I was getting licenses.
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I was getting, print on demand,
like my spoons.
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I went crazy during that time.
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I think everyone was making masks
and everyone was getting into their craft.
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And I.
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Yeah, it was a it was actually despite it
being a hard year because of the obvious.
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It was actually the start of,
a good, you know,
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number of a good number of years for me
financially and business wise.
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It was when I realized that, you know,
I am actually a full time artist now.
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And then that kind of just built up
to where I am today and over the past,
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sort of, four, five years,
I have done this solely.
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I haven't done any it work.
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I have tried to do 1
or 2, children's books a year.
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I try and get, you know, as many licenses
as I can each month.
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I have regular clients that I license to.
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I get royalties every quarter from a wide
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range of, licenses that I and companies
that I have worked with.
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I'm also getting income from teaching.
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I have my own online course.
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I have my own online community.
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And also, you know, YouTube, YouTube.
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I don't get a lot of money from,
but I love it because
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I get to connect with people
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and provide my learnings, my knowledge
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to people that probably can't afford
to take those big courses.
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And that makes me really happy
that I can do that.
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Because I kind of wish
I had that back in the beginning.
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And I kind of wish, you know,
some of the mistakes that I made
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I may not have made
if I had had someone like myself
00:18:13
giving this information for free
on YouTube back when I started out.
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So I guess looking back, there are
a few things that I have learned.
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And one of them is to embrace the detours
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and I'm getting lots of planes going over,
so hopefully they're not too loud.
00:18:30
I live under a flight path,
so it's a bit annoying.
00:18:33
But anyway, yes, embrace the detours.
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My path was not.
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It wasn't linear at all.
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I mean, I went from ballet to software
engineering, acting, you know, I had
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a number of jobs before
I ended up doing this, and I think this is
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where I will be for the rest
of my working career and even beyond.
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But I embraced the detours as I went.
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They were, you know, changes.
00:19:00
And I've kind of taken skills
from those previous careers into this one.
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And I think they've really helped, like,
yeah.
00:19:08
Like having, perseverance,
like perseverance really is key.
00:19:12
You've got to be persistent.
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Persistent.
00:19:15
You've got to have that kind of work
ethic and business mind to make it work.
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And I think I got that
from being a ballet dancer,
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and I think I got that from working in it.
00:19:26
And it's helped me to have a
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work ethic and a determination
and perseverance and a stubbornness
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I think is, well, to be able
to make this work.
00:19:39
Another thing that I learned is to really,
00:19:42
diversify your income, having your income
just in one bucket
00:19:47
is pretty much
setting yourself up for disaster.
00:19:51
Because if that bucket goes, then you,
00:19:54
you know, your your business is gone.
00:19:56
Having multiple bucket buckets of,
income really does help.
00:20:01
It allows you to,
00:20:04
you know, if one falls out, then
you've got another one to keep you going.
00:20:07
And that has definitely happened to me
over the years.
00:20:09
So I try to focus on for, about 3
or 4 buckets or income, areas.
00:20:16
And I make sure they are areas
that I am earning money,
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and I am passionate about and that I can,
00:20:28
see a future in, I guess,
00:20:33
I also recommend not underestimating
the power of community.
00:20:37
And when I say community, I'm not only
talking about sort of physical communities
00:20:43
like the people around you,
but also the online community.
00:20:47
You know, social media
can be a bit of a love hate relationship.
00:20:50
But, I do love the communities
on that social media that I am a part of
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because they have provided me
with support and feedback.
00:21:01
And I also am able to give other people
support and feedback in those communities.
00:21:06
And I think, you know,
I set up my own community
00:21:10
because I wanted to be able to provide
00:21:14
that support and mentorship
00:21:17
To people
that, want to work in this industry.
00:21:20
And I just love having that support
and that, those people around me
00:21:25
that, that, have the same sort of,
you know, passions and joy.
00:21:30
So it empowers you and makes you feel good
about what you're doing.
00:21:35
I guess.
00:21:36
Another thing is to trust your instincts.
00:21:39
Like, listen to your gut.
00:21:41
If you got is saying, don't
do something, don't do it.
00:21:44
If it's saying, yeah, maybe give it a go.
00:21:45
I would go, go for it.
00:21:47
Sometimes I'm not good at this.
00:21:49
Sometimes I listen to my brain
and not my gut, and I need to listen
00:21:53
to my gut more.
00:21:54
When I listen to my brain,
it sort of takes over, and I.
00:21:57
That's when I make mistakes.
00:21:59
So, yeah, listen to your gut.
00:22:01
It's, Yeah, it's a good indicator
of whether you should do something or not.
00:22:05
Do it. Well,
if you feel something is right or not.
00:22:07
Right.
Yeah, definitely. Listen to your gut.
00:22:10
But finally,
the biggest thing is find your joy.
00:22:14
If this is something that you find joy in
you are passionate about, then I.
00:22:20
I think it's something that you can't fail
at and you're going to have
00:22:25
if you find joy in it,
you're going to have the, perseverance
00:22:29
and the stubbornness to just make it work
and work hard at it and, you know,
00:22:36
invest in the education, in the skills
that you need to build, to make it work.
00:22:41
And yeah,
you can only do that when you have
00:22:44
that absolute passion and joy for it.
00:22:47
So yeah, definitely
just find your joy in whatever you do
00:22:51
because then you can make it happen,
I guess.
00:22:55
All right.
00:22:56
I think I have come to the end and,
thank you for sticking with me,
00:23:01
and I hope I have provided
you with, some sort of inspiration,
00:23:06
and also insight into how I have
gotten to where I am today.
00:23:12
So the plane.
00:23:16
I'll just wait for that one to go over.
00:23:18
If you want to see more videos like this
and this sort of format, this is quite
00:23:23
new for me, just let me know,
whether you enjoyed it or not.
00:23:27
And if you do,
I'll make some more of them.
00:23:29
If not,
then I'll just stick to the tutorials.
00:23:32
Now, if you do want to learn a little bit
more about surface pattern design,
00:23:36
I have a course called the Art
and Joy of Surface Pattern Design,
00:23:39
which takes you right
through everything from the creative,
00:23:44
the technical,
and the business side of the industry.
00:23:48
And you will learn from the very basics
right through to very complex
00:23:52
patterns, as well as how to approach
00:23:55
clients, how to deal with contracts,
all that kind of stuff.
00:24:00
So check it out.
I'll leave the link below.
00:24:02
But yeah, hit that subscribe button too,
and I will see you in the next video.
00:24:07
See you.
00:24:08
Also, don't
00:24:08
forget to check out this playlist
for more Surface pattern design tutorials.
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