Hi! My name's Melissa Lee, and I'm an illustrator and surface pattern designer living in the hilly forests of Northern California. Alongside my freelance and art licensing work (I'm a proud Riley Blake Designs fabric designer!), I teach online art courses on Skillshare, covering everything from surface pattern design and vector illustration to watercolor techniques, character design, and creative entrepreneurship.

I also consider myself something of a professional creative community cheerleader. 📣 Over the past 4+ years, I've worked behind the scenes in various creative communities as a moderator, mentor, and support team member. I love helping artists push through creative blocks, celebrate wins, nurture their creativity, and take their first steps toward monetizing their work.

When I'm not supporting other creatives, you'll find me reading (usually fiction), sewing, needle crafting, making repeating patterns, or painting with watercolors and gouache. I love blending vintage aesthetics with modern design to create artwork that feels both timeless and contemporary. And my love of caricature and character design brings a playful, stylized energy to much of my work. 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. 🐝🐝🐝

If you're curious to learn what I know, check out my classes on Skillshare, (where I’m a Top Teacher to over 65k students) and get 1 month of free membership through my link! If you wanna read more on my story, CLICK HERE for the long-winded, but heartfelt, version of my bio. ;)

For custom commissions, collaboration, events, interviews or podcasts, licensing & sales inquiries, or anything else, please contact me. 

(Disclosure: Some of the links on this page are affiliate links. This means that, at no cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase. As always, I only share tools that I personally use and recommend.)

#1 I own a ball python named Tony Ssstark.

#2 You may have noticed that I use bees in my branding. My name, Melissa, comes from the Greek words for "honey" and "bee", which is part of the reason why. The other reason is that I love them. 😆🌷🐝

#3 I majored in Studio Art in college, but graduated without knowing what I wanted to do with my art professionally. I love character design, but after interning at a video game company for two years, I discovered that I really only like making my own characters.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So instead, I make classes on character design where I get to only make my own characters, lol. I also love caricaturing people’s pets! (Commission me!)🐾 🥰

#4 I am both a huge skeptic of anything supernatural and a lover of everything supernatural. Are ghosts real? Probably not, but I love and support them.

#5 I also enjoy astrology and tarot. Do I believe in accurate predictions of future events based on horoscopes or tarot readings? Nah. Do I think astrology is scientifically sound? Nah. Do I find comfort in the joy and guidance it (especially tarot) provides me? Totally. I thrive on being contrary.

#6 “Allow yourself to fail before you succeed” has become a career motto/mantra for me because I truly do believe in the power of embracing failure and learning to love and appreciate your “bad” art as a valuable part of any creative path or journey.

#7 The only trivia I’ve ever dominated was Lord of the Rings trivia at a friend’s hobbit feast costume party.

#8 The next snake I own will be named Snake Plisssken.