Around January of 2024 I decided to put my primary focus for selling my art into Etsy based on the fact that I had no social media following or fan base to provide sales, apart from my Pinterest, which at the time had less than 10,000 monthly views. Etsy is a huge marketplace that has a lot of pros and cons. Despite these known cons, I decided to try my hand at it in January of 2024 and it has happily resulted in over 250 sales,84 reviews averaging 4.8 stars in my first year on Etsy. Here are my top 17 tips for opening your own shop on Etsy.

Travel Sketchbook Tour!

See my favorite sketchbook spreads from my recent travels and see my inspiration for my art!

I also recount lessons learned from completing my 10th watercolor sketchbook.

When you are short on time and creativity these classes are great! Here I have complied a list of 5 watercolor skillshare classes that can be completed in an afternoon if not under an hour. Classes are ordered from beginner to more advanced and will have you painting birds, Venice canals, and beautiful watercolor patterns.

How to make a travel journal for your next adventure. 6 tips for creating beautiful travel journal spreads in your sketchbook that will help you keep lasting memories of your travels.

Here I review the art supplies I have gathered so far this year, test them out, create art with them, and give my ultimate impression. I got my art supplies from two different places, Amazon, and the others I got while on vacation in Marseille, France from the cutest art store, Rougier & Plé Marseille.

Air-dry clay tile magnets are easy and fun to make, mine are inspired by tile designs I have collected traveling. Here I painted yellow and blue tulips inspired by the Netherlands, and orange flowers inspired by Mexican artwork.

Part of my January goals included intentionally drawing for myself, pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and painting subjects I don’t typically paint. So to start my year off strong, I made a list of 15 drawing prompts. The only expectations I made for myself for this month of painting prompts was:

1) Paint 1 prompt roughly every 2 days
2) Stick mainly to watercolor
3) Keep things simple
4) Make sure you enjoy yourself

Stuck in a rut artistically and don’t what to draw? Staring at a blank page with an empty mind can be the worst, so here are a few of my favorite places to get inspiration for my sketchbook or artwork when I don’t know what to create or where to get started.

Skillshare is a subscription-based online learning community for creators, filled with thousands of classes and categories. I was of course initially attracted to Skillshare for the painting and art classes, but I soon found I could learn so much more on the platform, from how to start my own business, how to use the Adobe suite products, or improve my productivity. Here I have listed 5 of my favorite watercolor classes that I have taken on Skillshare over the past few years that I feel really have improved my skills, given me tons of new tools, and expanded my mind and art.

I feel like no art blog is complete without at least one post on favorite painting supplies, so this is mine!

In this post, I plan to go over some of my favorite supplies that I use for painting that aren’t necessarily your typical, everyday watercolor supplies. These are things I don’t necessarily use every day in my painting practice, but I use these supplies regularly enough to make them near and dear to my heart.

How to create beautiful gouache illustrations, step-by-step instructions….I really enjoyed this process of filling one sketchbook with one type of painting. It feels really rewarding to see the progress of the sketchbook filling up as you paint, and I always feel a strong sense of accomplishment when I finish a sketchbook. Setting projects or goals for yourself artistically is so important because it allows you to grow. It also takes away the work of deciding what to create when you sit down, which at the end of a long day I love.