Hey there, creatives!
In today’s Creative Juggle Joy podcast episode, Kaylie and I dive into an exciting topic for traditional artists—how to transition into digital art.
If you’ve ever wondered how to take your sketches, paintings, or collages and make them digital, you’re in the right place!
I’ve worked with a lot of artists over the years, and one of the biggest challenges they face is the fear of losing their traditional art’s charm when they move into the digital space. But the truth is, blending the two is absolutely possible—and I love helping artists find their way into this exciting new arena
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For me, the iPad is my go-to tool. I use Procreate for my sketches and drawings, and I’m a big fan of Affinity Designer for creating patterns and designs.
But I understand not everyone has access to an iPad, which is why I’m a big advocate for using affordable tools like the Ugee tablet (which Kaylie uses) and programs like Affinity Designer and Canva.
In the episode, we talk through everything you need to know to get started, from scanning and photographing your traditional work to vectorizing images and cleaning them up digitally.
I also go into detail about how you can use Procreate and Affinity Designer to clean up and enhance your sketches digitally, making your transition seamless.
We share practical advice on how to get your work ready for sale, whether you’re creating art for print on demand or licensing your designs to bigger brands.
We also chat about tools like Vectorizer.com and Photopea—free tools that can help turn your scanned images into vector graphics, making it easy to scale up your designs for all sorts of applications.
Kaylie’s journey with her own digital patterns is a perfect example of how you can take something traditional and make it digital while keeping your unique style intact.
Don’t forget to check out her Highland cow pattern below—it’s a great example of what’s possible!
Key Resources Mentioned:
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Beyond Handmade Guide: Over 200 Ideas to Add Scalable Income to Your Handmade Business
- Since this episode - Kaylie found a video on vector tools showing the quality of each to give you options: Vectorizer AI Alternatives Video
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My Digital Art School: Beginner-Friendly Procreate & Affinity Designer Classes
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Kaylie's First Digital Pattern in Affinity Designer: Highland Cow & Thistles Example (This is using my full drop repeat affinity designer template from the Affinity Designer Template Club which you can also get access to through my Thriving Artist membership):
Kaylie's highland assets she created from her sketchbook doodles - she used the eyedropper tool to pick her color palette from a highland cow photograph from the internet she liked.
Kaylie's highland assets before being vectorized:
TRANSCRIPT:
Kaylie Edwards (00:04)
Hey, lovely listeners. Welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy podcast with your hosts, Kaylie Edwards and the amazing Delores Naskrent We are so excited you're here with us today. If you're a traditional artist wondering how to bring your art into the digital space, this episode is just for you.
Delores Naskrent (00:25)
That's right, today we're diving into how traditional artists can transition into digital art. Whether you're creating with pencils or paint or any other analog materials, I love collage for example, we're gonna show you how you can take that magic into the digital world. And don't worry, we're gonna make it as simple as possible.
Kaylie Edwards (00:47)
Absolutely. Whether you're curious or ready to dive in, we'll talk about the tools, techniques, mindset shifts, and a bit of advice to help make that transition a lot easier than you might think. So let's get into it. Okay, first up, tools of the trade. If you're a traditional artist and you're thinking about going digital, the idea of new software and hardware might seem intimidating, but the good news is that
There are entry level tools that are user friendly and perfect for beginners and some of them don't break the bank.
Delores Naskrent (01:24)
Exactly. One of the ones that is the most popular and most accessible is an app called Procreate. I think it's a fantastic option, especially for iPad users. Especially if you're... Okay, can I do that one again, Kaylee? Exactly. One of the most popular and accessible tools is Procreate. It's a fantastic option for iPad users, especially if you're just starting out with digital art, because it's easy to learn, it's intuitive.
It's affordable and it has a wide range of features for drawing and painting.
Kaylie Edwards (02:00)
Yes, I would love Procreate but yeah, I don't have an iPad yet. I'm actually a Windows laptop user so I don't own an iPad. I use a drawing tablet called the UGS640. So I got it for about £30 from Amazon and it's lilac so of course I love it. It can take a bit of getting used to and you have to play around with the settings to get it to feel intuitive.
but once you find your groove, it works great. I used to use Photoshop for my digital art when I was a teenager, back in college and back in doing my design course, but I wasn't using it as much the past couple of years and with all the updates, it got too hard to keep up with where everything was, so I decided to cancel my subscription. Now I'm focused on Affinity Designer, thanks to Delores.
Delores Naskrent (02:56)
Mm-hmm.
Kaylie Edwards (02:57)
I'm using it for art, patterns, and even looking into using it to create printables. Create printables. But I also very much love Canva, and now I'm starting to use Kittl, which is starting to become my favourite, for designing too, because it's great for creating professional-looking text-based designs with easy text manipulation features. It's also perfect for creating art for print-on-demand products.
Delores Naskrent (03:03)
That's Excellent.
gonna have to check that out I've never heard of it, Kittl. I personally am all about the iPad right now. I use it for both Procreate and Affinity Designer. I can use Affinity Designer on my desktop but I mainly use it on my iPad because I just like being comfortable. I used to work with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop a lot more than I do right now and I teach on both of those. In fact I taught 30 years of both of those but I've transitioned
transitioned out of those over time and phased them out to focus mainly on Procreate and Affinity Designer because they're just so much more affordable for people. I love that intuitiveness and the flexibility with these tools now and I can't imagine working without them anymore and they don't break the bank.
Kaylie Edwards (04:16)
Yeah, exactly. Both of us have different setups, but the beauty of digital space is that there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Now let's talk about how to get your traditional art into the digital space, as some people find this a little bit tricky. One of the easiest ways to do this is by scanning or photographing your artwork.
Delores Naskrent (04:38)
Yeah, once you've got a high quality scan or photo, you can use digital tools to clean it up, to enhance it, and to even add new elements. I do this all the time. I create the files as large as I can when I'm working in Procreate, especially if they're going to be used for something like wall art. And I always work at at least 300 pixels per inch. If you need extremely large finished art,
you may want to vectorize it. And that's just another way of creating files that you can use and enlarge really, really big. So I'm talking for things like shower curtains or for drapes or maybe even for murals. So vectors aren't pixel based and that makes them easily enlarge. You can enlarge them without losing any quality. Now vectorization
adds that extra step. So let's talk a little bit about the tools. So if you're not really familiar with the term vectorizing, it really means just turning your pixel-based images like your photos or scans into vector graphics. I use vector graphics all the time for repeat patterns. even if you, even if they start as raster or bitmap images, you can auto trace or you can vectorize. That's it. That's
They're basically saying the same thing.
Kaylie Edwards (06:07)
Yeah, one means that you can scale it as much as you possibly can and the other one means it'll go grainy if you scale it too high. To help with that, there are a few tools I love to use. One that I use is vectorizer.com. It's free and super simple. You just upload your image and it automatically traces it for you. There can be some little edits that you need to do, but you can obviously import that into something like Affinity Designer and just clean it up.
There's another free tool called Photopea, which is actually a free version of Photoshop and it has a great trace feature as well. I'll link it in the show notes. There is also a fantastic YouTube tutorial in the show notes that you can see exactly how it works.
Delores Naskrent (06:55)
use my iPad for sketching or for doing clean ink drawings so I the process or the workflow is that I will draw them or ink them in procreate and then I'll auto trace them in either Adobe capture or and that's free or Illustrator on the iPad or as an online app I really like Vectornator and it's not very expensive I think it's $12 or something like that
I then save them as SVG files, then I can import those into Affinity Designer or even Illustrator. And once the image is on my iPad, I clean it up. So there's always a little bit of cleanup to do. And then I start working on it digitally. I have a lot of fun with layering and using colors in ways that I just couldn't do if I was doing it by hand. Like I would never experiment as much when I'm doing the hand done work.
as opposed to what I can do when I'm on the iPad.
Kaylie Edwards (07:55)
Yeah, that's what I love about the SVGs is like you can change the colours and things of little areas So if I draw something and I'm like, I don't like that colour anymore. Just because it's vectorised then and I can just change the colours again. So that's awesome and as you mentioned I'll also be sharing my own example with you all in the show notes. I actually did a process when I first started with Affinity Designer. I took my hand-drawn Scottish Highland doodles, photographed them,
with just my Samsung phone and brought them into Vectorizer tool. And then afterwards, I imported them into Affinity Designer and traced them with the pen tool. And from there, I used one of Delores's Affinity Designer pattern templates, which is amazing, to create a simple repeat pattern of a highland cow and thistles. And I don't be afraid to play around with new tools. I think that's how we all learn best.
Delores Naskrent (08:40)
Yay!
Kaylie Edwards (08:52)
and I'll have the image of my Highland cow pattern in the show notes for you to check out. Don't judge. It was my first attempt and my first time really using Affinity Designer.
Delores Naskrent (09:02)
love that example, Kaylie you actually took on a pretty complex subject matter to do your first pattern. And don't worry, we all start somewhere. And remember, this was your first attempt last year. You were only exploring and that's the beauty of it. So it's not something that you necessarily are gonna run over to upload to Spoonflower at the moment, but it's just great that you got started. That's the trick right there.
Another example that I really love is, and I've taken immersion a few times and I've learned so many different things from Bonnie Christine, but what she does is she blends traditional tools and doodles with digital art and her own and creates her own surface pattern designs out of them. So she'll do the same thing. Well, she'll start with a bunch of hand-drawn doodles and then she'll scan them into Illustrator and turn them into beautiful repeat patterns. The beauty of this process is that
Your own traditional art doesn't lose its charm, but it gets a whole new life when translated into digital form. She also does things, really crazy things like scanning and photographing natural items like leaves. And then she vectorizes those and adds them to her patterns as well. So it's really fascinating. Just remember, like any new skill, you need to start small. There's no need to dive into those huge, really complicated projects right off the bat.
If you're new to digital art, try focusing on something small, like just scanning your sketches, cleaning them up, and experiment with adding digital patterns or other elements.
Kaylie Edwards (10:44)
Yeah, and the best part, once you get used to it, you'll have so many options at your fingertips. You can manipulate colours, add textures, layer designs, and just let your creativity run wild. You don't have to choose between analogue and digital. You get the best of both worlds.
Delores Naskrent (11:02)
Exactly. That's one of the reasons I really love Affinity Designer because I can work with both raster and vector images in the same program. So quite often I will scan, let's say, a background that I have in one of my art journals and use it within the design that I'm creating as a vector. So the digital world, just like anything else, is just another tool and it helps you to
Express your creativity in new ways. It doesn't have to take away from that traditional work or that traditional look. It just gives you new possibilities. Experiment, know, scan, photograph an image and import it into Procreate and do things like just adding a lot of detail in layers above your original. Your original can just stay completely intact, but you can add all kinds of doodles and marks. It's really fun.
Kaylie Edwards (11:59)
I'm addictive as well.
Delores Naskrent (12:00)
Yes,
addictive.
Kaylie Edwards (12:03)
If you're struggling to get started, I've created a resource to help you make the transition. My Beyond Handmade Guide has over 200 ideas to help you add scalable income streams to your handmade business. It includes actual steps for adding digital art, digital prints, patterns to your repertoire. Check it out in the show notes. Also, don't forget to check out Delores's Digital Art School for beginner friendly classes in Procreate and Affinity Designer. I will link it in the episode description.
Delores Naskrent (12:32)
Well, thanks. Before we wrap up, we want to hear from you. Really would love to have some feedback. What challenges are you facing when it comes to transitioning your traditional art into the digital space? If you have any questions, any problems, drop us a message on social media or leave a comment. We'll address your questions in future episodes to help guide you through the process.
Kaylie Edwards (13:02)
Yes, and thanks so much for joining us today. We hope you feel inspired and excited to explore digital art and take your traditional creations to the next level. Remember, it's all about starting small, having fun and trusting of the process. Until next time, keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly, keep finding joy in the process.