allow yourself to fail before you succeed

Hi! My name's Melissa Lee, and I'm an illustrator and surface pattern designer living in the hilly forests of Northern California. Alongside doing freelance and art licensing work (I’m a proud Riley Blake Designs fabric designer!), I've spent much of my time cultivating my love of sharing what I know and encouraging others to nourish their creative side through teaching online art courses on Skillshare, where I teach a wide range of topics, including classes on surface pattern design, creative entrepreneurship, vector programs, watercolor techniques, caricature, and character design. I love making patterns, character art and caricature, and watercolor paintings. I'm endlessly inspired by animals and nature (whether living today or extinct), science fiction and fantasy, space and astrology, witchy things, and bees.

Always bees. 

Surface Design In Adobe Illustrator: A Beginner's Guide to Pattern Building

MY ONLINE COURSES

This class focuses heavily on the technical side of creating a repeating pattern in Adobe Illustrator. I put a lot of time and effort and care into making it a truly comprehensive introduction to surface design in the program. I go over all of the essential tools that I use for drawing, coloring, and assembling motifs to make patterns, and then some. In addition, I cover common beginner mistakes and how to fix or avoid them. I’ve also created some downloadable PDFs, including an Adobe Illustrator Keyboard Shortcuts quick reference guide, among other things, for you to print out and reference along the way. As always, if you sign up for Skillshare with my link, you'll get a free month of membership (much better than the standard one week free trial)! I hope to see you there! :D

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INSTAGRAM @MELISSALEEDESIGN