Welcome to this newest blog section! If you’re interested in what this section is all about, keep reading! If you want to skip it and go my latest illustrations, click here.
I’m super excited to share this 🙂 My crafty journey is absolutely taking me further than I thought I’d go. In fact, in my post talking about my goals for 2024, digital illustrations wasn’t even part of it!
More about my Love for Digital Art
I’ve been in the graphic design industry for more 30 years, that’s what I did when I worked corporate jobs. In my free time, I loved creating digital art just for myself. I got away from it for a long time until about 2020. I remember during the pandemic, I started dabbling into it again selling my Wall Art illustrations on Kim’s Studio Art, an eCommerce store I built to accompany my Etsy shop. I closed the shop because it became more of a job and was no longer fun.
These are just a few of the pieces I made from my Etsy Shop
Since I’m a cardmaker, having pretty images for backgrounds and/or focal points is important. Typically, I buy stamps and die sets or stencils to color images. I’ve also purchased digital stamps and made cards with them. Check out this card post of the cutest fox you’ll ever see!
Ever since I closed the shop, I had thoughts about how much fun it was creating illustrations and I longed to return to it but not for commercial purposes. I realized that my crafting time needs to be fun and I don’t enjoy the business end of it. I just want to craft, to create using my hands and my computer. That said, I do share affiliate links to the products I use in my posts where I receive a small commission at no cost to buyers. Click here to read my affiliate disclosure statement.
Let’s Talk about the Process
I’m not a traditional artist, I admit I need help when I create so working with original artwork from other talented artists is my jam! Just like with making cards, I use dies/stamps/stencils that are designed by crafting companies. Same thing with my illustrations. I use original collections that I’ve either purchased or gotten for free from sources like Creative Market and Creative Fabrica.
I also incorporate clipart or vector images from Pixabay.com and Clker.com from time to time. What I like to do is, use several elements from different collections and repurpose them into a brand new piece. For example, I’ll mix birds from 1 collection, florals from another, maybe a sky or sand from still another collection. I love changing colors, shades, rearranging scenes, etc. I spend anywhere from an hour to several days to complete a final illustration. I will not purchase or use a free image without altering it to create something new.
The software program I use is Serif’s CraftArtist 2 Professional and sometimes I use Canva. I purchased CraftArtist 2 Pro many years ago, it gives me 100% creative freedom to change whatever I want. So, I get to play around with blending colors, filter effects, shadows, glows ~ anything I want. I get to do some drawing, cropping, replacing until I’m satisfied. When I’m done, I have a high resolution illustration that I can size down and export to any format I need.
The goal here is to use my final illustrations on my cards, and I can either scan and die cut through my Brother Scan ‘n Cut machine or print them on my printer and fussy cut or trim down to use as a card panel and add a sentiment. Then, I can send my cards to friends and family!
Finally, my disclaimer, the legal stuff…
All illustrations posted here come from sources like Creative Fabrica, Creative Market, Stock photo sites like: Pixabay.com and that I have purchased or that were free to use. I do not sell my illustrations, these are for my personal use only to make handmade cards to give away. Please respect the original artists’ works, including myself and do not download any images on my blog. If you have questions, please let me know. Thank you. ~ Kim
Hi, I’m Kim! Welcome to my little Happy Place! I’m a cardmaker, former yarner, paper & fiber crafter! Learn more about me here.
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