Gentle beginnings
I’m writing this with a full heart. After months of planning, Day 1 of the Profitable Artist Summit has come and gone—and it was more magical than I imagined.
Sitting down with Vanessa Stoilova, my dear friend and partner in this adventure, I felt both proud and humbled as we celebrated our first day of talks.
The summit isn’t just about information; it’s about community and generosity.
A mosaic of voices
Our speaker lineup reads like a dream: Bonnie Christine, Colleen Underwood, Shelly Kim, Liz Kohler Brown, Stacy Dale, Gabrielle Brickey, Cat Coq and more. Each artist brought a different perspective on creative entrepreneurship. No two talks were the same—some focused on trend forecasting, others on making cohesive collections, and others on lettering or pitching your art. This diversity is intentional. We wanted you to see the big picture of what’s possible when you combine creativity with business know‑how.
Tools as allies
In my own presentation, I shared my love for both Procreate and Affinity Designer. These tools can work together beautifully. I showed how I paint flowers in Procreate, then quickly build a repeat pattern in Affinity using one of my self‑populating templates. It felt important to slow down and show the why behind the workflow—the Secret Summit session gives us that extra breathing room to go deeper.
The Secret Summit: an invitation
Many of us recorded two talks: one free and one for the Secret Summit. Vanessa’s second talk is about using trends without copying. Stacy Dale offers a ready‑made list of companies to pitch your art to. This paid experience is optional and affordable, and you can join anytime—even on the last day. I love that it allows us to honour our time while offering an incredible depth of resources to those who want it.
Behind the scenes gratitude
Organising 26 speakers was no small feat. We learned a new platform (Hey Summit), gathered bios and headshots, and juggled schedules with grace. There were challenges, of course, but seeing our community come together made every late night worth it. If you’ve ever doubted that artists can be generous business people, this summit will change your mind.
Listener Support Note
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Resources or Businesses Mentioned in This Episode
· Art Business with Ness – Vanessa’s educational platform for creatives
· Profitable Artist Summit – Three‑day free summit with an optional paid upgrade for deeper learning
· Speakers: Bonnie Christine, Colleen Underwood, Shelly Kim, Liz Kohler Brown, Stacie Dale, Gabrielle Brickey, Cat Coq, Jen Nichols + more
· Procreate – iPad illustration app
· Affinity Designer – Vector/raster design software
· Hey Summit – Platform used to host and organise the summit
· Surface Design News – Stacy Dale’s newsletter and resource for surface designers
Affiliate Disclaimer
Some links in this post may be affiliate links, which means either Kaylie or Delores may receive a small commission (at no extra cost to you). We only share tools or products we genuinely love and use ourselves.
Closing reflections
Day 1 showed me once again that when artists share openly, we all grow. Whether you’re exploring new tools, learning how to pitch your art or simply soaking up inspiration, I hope you feel as supported and encouraged as I do. Thank you for being here, for listening and for being part of this creative family.
TRANSCRIPT:
Delores Naskrent: [00:00:00] Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy. I'm Delores, and today I'm joined again by Vanessa. I feel like I've been seeing a lot of you lately.
Yes. We have seen a lot of each other lately. of course, Vanessa runs Art Business with Ness, and we are so excited because we did it. The summit is officially live.
Yay. Oh my gosh, honestly, this has been- We worked so hard. Oh, I know. It's so much work, but such a labor of love, and seeing everything finally happening has been so amazing. Oh my God, I'm gonna get emotional here if I don't keep- ... talking. We've worked so hard, you guys, on this, and I have to say I am just blown away.
Vanessa Stoilova: We're starting already into these presentations today and wow, can you believe it, Vanessa? Can you believe it? they- day one has been spectacular already. I've got so many nice [00:01:00] comments. we had a stacked lineup, and you can still catch all of these presentations. You have the replays. We have Bunny Christine, Colleen Underwood, Shelly Kim, Liz Kohler Brown, myself, and you, Delores, Stacy Dale, Gabrielle Brickey, and of course, tonight we have the live with Kat Koch.
Delores Naskrent: Oh my God. I know. It just sounds crazy, and I... Just hearing my name amongst that list- ... just makes my stomach just flop when I hear it, And like-
Vanessa Stoilova: It's crazy, and it's just day one.
Delores Naskrent: It's just day one. And, there was... When we were going through these topics, remember at the beginning, and we were sort of like, "Okay.
Well, we gotta make sure we get people talking about different things. We don't want everybody talking about the exact same things," and we were thinking that we were gonna have to do a bunch of juggling and trying to figure out who gets to say what. And in the end, all of the ideas we got were different, like all of them.
Vanessa Stoilova: Completely different. We didn't even have to do anything except people who [00:02:00] had multiple ideas, we helped them choose which one we thought sounded the best, but there was no overlap in the topics, which is crazy. Because everyone came in from different angles. we have lots of surface designers, as speakers in this, but some people were talking about, how to find companies to pitch to.
Some people are like me, I'm talking about trends. Some people are talking about making collections. Some people are, make better patterns or, all of these different topics coming in different angles. we have some people- Yeah ... talking about lettering. It's just so varied and really value-packed really.
Delores Naskrent: Why don't you talk about the two different ones that you're doing? 'Cause you've got the one from today, and what's the other one? Just to explain to everybody what's coming up.
Vanessa Stoilova: Right. So we have the free summit for everyone, of course, and then we decided to, because we're crazy like that, let's organize a whole other summit.[00:03:00]
Delores Naskrent: We're Canadian. It's 'cause we're Canadian.
Vanessa Stoilova: So everyone is doing two talks, and the second one is in our secret summit, our paid experience, which is completely optional, just if you want to. So for example, for me today, my talk was all about trends. it was how to find trends, and I'm literally going through all of my secret places where I go to find trends with names and receipts.
So you can literally go to all these places that I go to find the trends. And my second talk in the secret summit goes into how to actually use the trends without copying- Ooh ... how to make it your own. Nice. So it's related, but, different applications, and that's what a lot of our speakers have done.
you know- Yeah ... kind of a part one going over the basics and a part two going over either implementation or going deeper or a slightly different angle So [00:04:00] that they're independent, and if you're just doing the free one, you're still walking away with a ton of great stuff. But if you wanna go deeper, you can.
Delores Naskrent: Yeah, 'cause let's be real, half an hour, I felt like I was talking so fast and- ... like trying... There's so much I wanna share, So my first session, I really wanted to... I felt, I feel like this is a really important topic. I wanted to cover both Procreate and Affinity Designer because I love both of those programs so much, and because you can use them together.
So I wanted to really, have stuff for people who are Procreate lovers, who love to illustrate in Procreate, and I wanted to give them just a little tiny taste of why they should possibly consider using Affinity Designer at the same time. So I did a bunch of painted flowers in Procreate, and then just right at the end brought them in real quick into Affinity Designer and threw them into one of my template [00:05:00] that's self-populating, and showed how quickly somebody could put together a pattern.
So like I said, I was like talking like a mile a minute, and I... If you know me, you know I can talk fast, but like it was hard to it was hard to fit it all in. And so that Secret Summit was really, helpful for me so that I could go into a little bit more detail. So for anybody who wants to get some real, play-by-play of how and why templates work, that's what I put into the Secret Summit.
And remember when we first asked people and we were telling people, "You'd only have to do one session. You don't have to do two." did anybody not give us a second one?
Vanessa Stoilova: The only people who did not are the people who are doing hour-long interviews live with us. Okay. And even so, we had some speakers who said, "I'll do two hour-long workshops."
That's- Unbelievable ... like Jen Nichols, which [00:06:00] is just amazingly generous.
Delores Naskrent: Oh, so generous. And I can remember last year when we had Kat, and we were talking to her, and she was so funny because, at the end, at the one-hour mark, you were saying to her, "You know what? We can stop, if you wanna stop. I know.
I don't wanna take your time if, you agreed to an hour." And she's like, "Hey, but let's just keep going."
Vanessa Stoilova: I know, right?
Delores Naskrent: I think we went for an extra 20 or something like that.
Vanessa Stoilova: Yeah, because we had a bunch of questions in the chat. it was just, so much energy because everyone was just so happy to see her, and she had so much good stuff.
So this year I have a whole new list of questions for her because we didn't cover it all- Good ... last year. So I'm really excited to chat with her again and, get to the bottom of this.
Delores Naskrent: For sure. For sure. as you look back at how our organizational stuff went in this last... we started before Christmas.
Vanessa Stoilova: We were talking about it already last year. [00:07:00] So as you think back of all of what we've done, what really stands out with you, in this whole process that you and I have gone through behind the scenes? honestly, the first thing that comes to mind is I'm so glad you're here. I couldn't do it alone.
it's so much work. a lot of organization. This year we added a new platform, Hey Summit. So last year we patched up a pages, from our platforms together. But this year we have a dedicated summit platform, which is so great because it allows people to, decide which talks they want to attend and get the schedule.
Yeah. And it's just, really nice. so although that's been nice, it's been a learning curve also because new platform, new problems.
Delores Naskrent: Challenges.
Vanessa Stoilova: Exactly. So I guess next year is gonna be easy now that we've figured it out. And just, I've been doing a lot of the speaker wrangling and just making sure every- look, everyone has their photo [00:08:00] and their bio and their links, and what's your title and when do you wanna do the live?
And all of this has been crazy, but I'm so glad and surprised yet again that it's all worked out.
Delores Naskrent: And here we are, the summit is happening. It's happening right now, and I just feel like these last few months has been so worth it now that I see it, it's of course, I'm one of those last-minute people, I was literally the last person to get my talks in and uploaded.
Vanessa Stoilova: I know. Everyone had given us their official titles and everything, and Delores was like, "I'm doing the graphics, so I'll decide when I'm making my graphics."
Delores Naskrent: Oh, yeah. it's been a real scramble the last couple of weeks with the recording for all of this, and editing of course, and then uploading.
But what I did find with the platform was that it was actually quite easy to do in comparison to what we did last year, right? It was just- Yeah ... so [00:09:00] much easier, so that was a real positive experience. And, I think from what we've heard in the way of feedback from our speakers, we've heard the same thing from them.
So that has been, really gratifying for us to know that this is how it's gonna work every time we do it, and of course we plan to do it every year, right?
Vanessa Stoilova: Absolutely. As long as you guys want to see it, and so far we're seeing, so much excitement for the summit that we're not planning on stopping anytime soon.
And although it has already started this year, you can still join us. There's plenty more time. Not only we have replays up for day one, but also there's day two and day three that are still coming up. So join us. There's still plenty of time.
Delores Naskrent: Yeah, and I wanna remind everybody that no matter what day you join, and even if you go through the whole free summit and you still haven't paid for the secret summit, if you wait until the very last day and you decide that you want to, [00:10:00] just after you've gone through everything and you're like, "Oh my gosh, why didn't I?"
so many good things, you can still sign up. You can still grab that secret summit. So don't feel like you have to make the decision today, this very first day. Wait and see, listen to a few of the speakers, and, think about what is coming up in the secret summit and whether or not you'd be interested.
What's really great about it is that everything is here and together, and that's what we like is that we've done all of the secret summit, all of the paid summit, all of it together in this one little ecosystem, and it's hours of amazing information. Lots of steps that could be implemented, lots of ideas for you.
You can go... you know what I think is important? Tell me if you agree with me or not, that I think what this does is gives people the big picture. the really- Yes ... big picture about this kind of business, and allows them to see it from all these [00:11:00] different angles, all of these different experts, and then make decisions about what they might want to do first
Vanessa Stoilova: Exactly, because you'll see experts come in with, "Here's how I do it in my business," and then another point of view, "Here's how I do it in my business."
And with, 26 speakers coming in, for sure you're going to really gel and relate to at least two or three of them that you think, "Oh, yes, this is what I need to do because this speaks to me on a deeper level." So- That's great ... yeah, surely someone exactly for you in the summit. And, then if you wanna learn even more, then you can, join us at, in the secret summit.
But again, it's completely optional. It's also very affordable, $67 for literally hours of content. We really, we wanted to give you a good experience.
Delores Naskrent: And you know what I liked too, Vanessa, is that we [00:12:00] covered so many different things. there's people covering the, literally the painting or the drawing, like the actual skill, and then there's the kind of the in-between stuff that you don't think about when you're first starting out as an artist.
doing the art is not usually the issue when trying to create a business for yourself and try to make money. That's usually not the issue. The issue is all of the other things that you need to learn in order to run your business. So I think that we cover not just the art, but the art biz, the actual business things that you need to know.
And that's what was so cool, was seeing all the different business things that were being added as we went through. And you and I, remember that one meeting we had, and we're just like, "Oh my God, I can't believe that she is sharing this." Or like- ... "Look at this. she's actually telling us this."
Vanessa Stoilova: Yes. I had this moment when I was looking at Stacy Dale's talk.
So Stacy Dale, she runs [00:13:00] Surface Design News, where she, tells people about companies where you can pitch your art. So in her free talk, she explained exactly her whole process of finding companies. And then for her paid talk, she decided, "Oh, instead of doing another talk, I'll just give you a list-"
of done-for-you research." "I'll give, just give it to you." I could not believe that she was giving us that.
Delores Naskrent: And that's what we've seen in this. That's- is what chokes me up about it, honestly, is just the fact that these people are so openly sharing. And we've gathered these people that are just so giving, so generous, vested in helping you get your business off the ground, which is what you and I, Vanessa, do with our own businesses.
And having spent so much time together in the last year, especially 'cause I'm in your boot camp, so I see you every week anyways, in fact, that's one [00:14:00] of the things that has drawn us together even closer, is just this whole idea of really helping people with the things that they need help with, not just generalizing and - not just saying, "Oh, you can do this," but saying to you, "This is how you do it."
Vanessa Stoilova: And that's what- Yes ... has been really the whole, go- goal for us, for you and I in the, in creating this summit. and there's no gatekeeping here at the summit. All of the speakers have been just completely generous in telling you exactly how it is, exactly how they do it. It's just, ugh, I can't believe.
when we were reaching out to them, we were so starstruck, but then talking with them and wrangling them into giving us their social links and their bios, we realized they're just such nice people, very approachable, and very generous.
Delores Naskrent: Yeah, and I am so happy that you're here listening to this podcast with Vanessa and I.
what I did, because I'm just [00:15:00] like that, I went to a lot of these people and said, "So, do you think you might want to do a podcast with me in the future?" So I also have a lot of these people coming up in future podcasts and in working artist studio sessions within my membership. that's what I mean about these- Love that.
Yeah, right? And they're just like- You never miss an opportunity. Nope. And it's been so nice because of getting to know these people, and now you know, they're not just people that we've asked and we have as speakers. I feel like I've made a bunch of new friends, and not just regular friends, but friends who really get me, which is really nice.
Vanessa Stoilova: Yeah, because we're all in this creative business together, both the art side and the money-making side. those are our people.
Delores Naskrent: Yes, for sure. We're really genuinely proud of everyone and what they have created. You're just getting a taste, but these next three days are gonna be just incredible for you.
We'd [00:16:00] absolutely love for you to experience all of it. Thanks for hanging out with us today on the Creative Juggle Joy. Keep creating, keep experimenting, keep juggling all the beautiful pieces of your creative life, and we'll see you next time. Thanks, Vanessa. Thanks so much.
