🎧 Episode Summary

 

Whether you’re a seasoned illustrator or just beginning to experiment with digital tools like Affinity Designer or Procreate, you’ll hear real-world examples, simple strategies, and encouragement to help you take that first (or next!) step.

We discuss:

• What digital art assets are and how they’re used

• Why they’re helpful for other creatives

• Where to sell them: from Etsy to Creative Market

• The beauty of starting small and experimenting

• How digital assets can support beginners and experienced artists alike

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🧰 Resources + Class Links

🎓 Want to learn how to create and sell your own art assets?
Explore my in-depth classes below:

→ Make & Sell Digital Downloads
→ Creative Market: Make Money From Your Art
→ Affinity Designer: 29 Vector Texture & Pattern Assets

🎁 Procreate Mixed Media Bundle
→ [Explore the bundle here](insert bundle link)

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🔑 Key Takeaways

• You don’t need to start with a massive product line — one brush pack or texture set is enough.

• Your existing work — even sketches in a notebook — can be transformed into marketable assets.

• Digital products are a long-game income stream that reward experimentation and creativity.

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💬 Join the Conversation

I’d love to hear what digital product you’re working on — or dreaming up!
Come connect on Instagram: @deloresartcanada

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Kaylie Edwards (00:05)
Hey lovely listeners, welcome back to the Creative Juggle Joy podcast. I'm your host, Kaylie Edwards, and I'm here with my lovely co-host, Delores Naskrent Today, we're diving into a super exciting topic that I know so many of you have been asking about, turning your art assets into income. We're talking about how things like brushes, motifs, textures, sketches, and even digital clip art can be transformed into money-making assets.

Now this is an area that's near and dear to me because it's not just about creating beautiful things, it's about making your art work harder for you. Delores has tons of experience when it comes to creating and selling digital assets. She's got amazing brush packs, templates, and even her Procreate Mixed Media Bundle. You're going to want to hear about that.

So if you've been struggling with relying on single product or feel stuck with where to start, this episode is for you.

Delores Naskrent (01:06)
Ooh, I love this subject. I could talk about this all day long, Kaylie Who doesn't love a beautiful asset pack or getting a new set of brushes or textures to use in their projects? I love talking about add-ons and art assets. And this was part of my discussion last night in my Thrive meeting, too.

Kaylie Edwards (01:25)
I know we just talked about that. Yeah, it's just, it's funny how things happen, isn't it? So what exactly are art, assets? Well, in simple terms, they're digital creations like brushes, textures, motifs.

illustrations, clipart or even patterns and digital papers. These are elements that you can use in your designs, whether that's for wall art, print on demand products, stationery or a number of other projects. They can add texture, depth or dimension to a project or sometimes just that perfect little something it was missing. And the great thing about Art assets is that they can be reused in multiple ways.

So let's say you create a hand drawn sketch of a leaf. You can turn that sketch into a digital asset by photographing or scanning it in to your computer and use it in patterns, backgrounds, clip art packs, and more. One sketch, many products. It's about maximizing the value of each asset you create.

Delores Naskrent (02:29)
Exactly. And I've done this for years with my Affinity Designer asset packs and my Procreate brush sets and bundles and stamps and textures and everything. Creating these assets, they're things that I could use, but it doesn't just help me to illustrate, it helps me to grow my income. It helps other creatives or gives other creatives the tools they need to speed up their own creative processes or give them just more ideas and elements to play with.

It's especially good for beginners so they don't get lost in the weeds and they can learn big concepts more easily. And this is one of the things we discussed in my meeting last night. So whether it's a Procreate brush or Photoshop texture, these assets make it so much easier for artists to focus on creating instead of starting from scratch and staring at a blank screen. So for new artists especially,

If they're struggling to just create all the parts, for example, when they're first learning surface pattern design, this is a great example, it makes the task just way too daunting. So they're trying to learn this big concept of surface pattern design, and they're also trying to create all of the little bits that they need. So if they have assets that are readily available, then they can focus on the important part, which is the big picture of learning how to create the repeat pattern.

The rest will come in time, but it's also just so much easier for them and so nice when they can just dig in and learn the deep concept first.

Kaylie Edwards (04:05)
Yes, I totally agree with you there because I don't know how many times I've gone to start a project and I'm just like, I start it and I'm like, actually this could do with something else and I haven't got time to actually sit and create that one individual thing that I need for that project so I will go to something like Creative Fabrica because I've got a subscription and I will just go and download it and then add that to it, change it, edit it and then done. Boom, it's finished.

Delores Naskrent (04:31)
Yeah.

Kaylie Edwards (04:33)
So now let's talk about turning your traditional art, whether that's sketches, paintings or illustrations into marketable digital assets. If you've been creating physical products or art for a while, you may not have thought about how those sketches and paintings could be turned into clip art for digital paper packs or even motifs that can be used in print on demand designs. We have talked a bit more in a previous episode

going from traditional art into digital. There's a whole episode on that so you can check that out. And for example, that sketch of a cactus you did for your friend's birthday card, that can be turned into clip art and sold as part of a bundle or pattern pack for people creating their own stationery, wall art, or even scrap booking projects. The possibilities are endless. I don't sell art assets myself, but I...

Delores Naskrent (05:25)
Yeah.

Kaylie Edwards (05:31)
plan to do in the future and at least for right now that's not my goal but I do use them all the time in my own digital products and products. I've bought clipart textures templates digital papers you name it from places like Etsy, Creative Market and my subscription of Creative Fabrica and honestly anytime I think this design needs a little something I'll head there search and download what I need if I can find it.

And yes, sometimes I can't quite find what I had in mind. Sometimes my brain will go off in a wacky thing and I think that people must have created it somewhere and no they haven't. So I either have to rethink the project or I'll have to go and create it myself. And I have even used AI just to fill that gap because my brain sometimes doesn't work. And AI will help me create that little graphic that I needed.

Delores Naskrent (06:04)
Yeah.

you

Kaylie Edwards (06:29)
to help finish off a project. That said, I definitely caution against relying purely on AI to generate and sell assets as is. I always suggest editing, tweaking, or combining different elements, or even better, trying to create your own from scratch if you can. A good example of this is my revised logo that I have now created. I used a bit of AI to generate the icon elements. I'd already had a font that I'd bought previously.

I picked out my colours that I'd already had and used a frame from Canva that was on my previous logo. So it was all about layering the resource and making it my own.

Delores Naskrent (07:09)
Yes. And this process of combining and customizing is really where your own,

And this process of combining and customizing is really where your own artistic voice comes through.

I've done similar things when creating templates and bundles. It's all about building tools that feel cohesive and unique. And I also include assets for Affinity Designer as well as Procreate. And what I think is great about the Affinity Designer ones is that as vectors, they're easily changed, really, really easily. So there's something for creatives using any of those platforms, any of those programs.

Anyways, it happened to me even before that. I've looked at a student's work and thought, this is lovely. And then when I looked at it really close, I realized, ⁓ those are assets I've created. It's the coolest thing because that artist has taken what I've created and interpreted it completely differently and made it original and unique to the point where even myself as the original artist had no idea initially.

I always encourage my students to also take things like vector assets and when they drop them into their designs, just slightly change it. You know, it doesn't have to be much and that ends up making it really uniquely theirs.

Kaylie Edwards (08:36)
So how do you actually sell these digital assets? There are loads of great platforms where you can list your work, whether it's brushes, textures, clip art or SVGs. Etsy is great for individual assets or bundles. And there's plenty on Etsy you can have a look at and get inspiration from to create. Creative market is ideal for digital designers as well. Creative fabrica is perfect for fonts, clip art.

templates, brushes and so much more Envato suits creatives looking to scale on a larger platform for a lot more professionals. Now I don't sell on Etsy myself, but I do regularly buy from these platforms, especially Creative Fabrica since I've got the subscription. I love being able to grab what I need on the fly for a digital product or workshop resource

Delores Naskrent (09:28)
I've sold assets on a variety of platforms, and I've bought from a bunch of different ones. So these days, for my own selling, I focus on my shop, of course, on my website. Then I sell on Creative Market, and I've just recently started uploading all of my assets into my teachable school.

where I also offer the classes showing how to create and sell digital assets and then also how to use those digital assets. I do have an Etsy store. It's not my main platform anymore, but I do get a lot more action personally from Creative Market. So I've always got a good credit there, which is great because then when I need something and the thing I buy the most is mock-ups.

So when I need a mock-up, don't even have to think about it. I just go to Creative Market, search for what I want, and I use the credits that I've collected to pay for the product. And I've always got a few hundred dollars there that I can spend. I have found some really great mock-ups on Etsy. So you have to look around for the thing that specifically works for you. But that also helps you to think about where you could sell your own assets.

And I have to mention, of course, if you don't mind, Kaylie, I'm going to mention my Procreate Mixed Media Bundle, because I've just put it together. So I'm pretty excited about it. So if you love doing that layered, expressive kind of mixed media work, you're going to love this one.

It not only includes assets like brushes and stamps, but also a collection of the classes that I put together for mixed media. I didn't realize how many mixed media classes I've done over the years. And two of the packs, the asset packs that are in there are literally things from my own art journaling that I used to do with natural media. I shouldn't say used to do, I still do, but I don't do as much of. So.

Altogether, the pack is worth well over $400. It's got 11 courses, I think, in it and then eight asset packs. And it's designed to help you create really beautiful mixed media work digitally. So lots of my students use what I supply. And like I said, some of what I've created is scanned directly from my art journals.

I had one of those students, Marcy, you know Marcy, right? And she comes to my Tuesday night meetings all the time, but she just shared in the community just a couple days ago, an incredible cut paper illustration. It was unbelievably intricate and interesting. And layer upon layer of cutouts, she'd even create a little shadow so it really looked like cutout paper.

Kaylie Edwards (11:43)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (12:04)
And I loved it. And I didn't even realize that some of what she had used were cutouts from one of the packages that I had for the mixed media class, one of the classes that is in that bundle. Anyhow, it was something that I had created in my art journals with, I think it was a combination of like collage and acrylic paint. And I think there were some stamps, little rubber stamps that I had used in it.

And I did not even realize it was my own thing because she had combined it into her piece. So it was just so rewarding. know, really it's cool. And that's what I love about selling assets to other people. And you know me, mixed media is something that's really close to my heart. And I think it's great when other people use it and incorporate it into what they're doing.

Kaylie Edwards (12:51)
Yeah, I seen that from Marcy when I was in the community and I thought that was really cool what she did. I'm not... I don't know, mixed media wasn't really a thing that I liked in college and school. I don't know why. I don't know. Yeah, maybe I would now. But yeah, it just wasn't something that I liked back then. Maybe I would now, especially if it's digital. It's gonna be easier for me to do. Yeah, no mess.

Delores Naskrent (12:58)
Yeah, it was beautiful.

you

your mess.

Kaylie Edwards (13:21)
So if you're starting to think about diversifying your income streams, there are tons of creative ways to do that. And here are a few others we haven't mentioned yet. If you are tech savvy or design savvy, you don't have to be by the way, but if you are, you can also create presentation slides or social media templates. So I know some people of our listeners are good in keynote and things like that and have done presentations. Maybe that's something you could sell as well. ⁓ Design websites.

graphics, or email templates for bloggers and small businesses, even people in the creative industry. If you have an eye for design, that could be a great way to do it as well. You could develop SVGs for Circut or, I used to say that wrong, I had to actually Google it, for Cricut or laser cutting craft. If you're into that sort of thing, you could do that as well. So if you own a laser cutting machine,

and you know how to work around the software, you could create designs for it to sell to other crafters. So whether you're using Canva, Procreate or another tool, there are so many ways to help others while earning an income stream yourself.

Delores Naskrent (14:32)
Yeah, I've created and sold all sorts of things. I mean, mainly I started with way back in the day, I was making brushes for illustrator. So brushes that were responsive to pressing harder with my stylus. And that was where I started. But now I've created brushes, I've created templates, I've created textures, I've created so many different things. Lots of kits, little kits for creating greeting cards.

like Mother's Day kits or ⁓ Christmas card kits, the demand is there. I I'm constantly selling those things and you know, some people, there are different degrees of experience for the people who are using your products. So what you might think is super simple is something that is just gonna really help somebody else out.

And the beauty is, once you've done the hard work of creating something once, it can earn you money for years, like over and over again. So a digital project is so fantastic for that. You've done the work. You're sitting on that money. It's in your files right now. All you have to do is put it together. And I don't think most artists realize what a goldmine they're sitting on with their projects.

that they have filling all their drawers and you know like all the things that you've painted, things that you've kept. Those things are a goldmine. There are other artists out there who would love to work with some of your pieces to just get started on a project.

Kaylie Edwards (16:04)
Yes, there's so much that you can do. And like even things around your house you could turn into assets.

Delores Naskrent (16:10)
I do.

Textures. I take pictures of cement walls and sidewalks and weird things like that and turn them into repeating patterns or turn them into brushes.

Kaylie Edwards (16:13)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I like, this is gonna sound really silly, but I take photos sometimes of like if Aston's got like a TV show on or something and like it was mostly when he was like little, like littler anyway and it'd be our, and there'd be like, there was this one channel he used to watch and the colour palette, I used to love the colour palettes and things on there and I used to take pictures, pause it and take a picture.

Delores Naskrent (16:49)
Awesome.

Kaylie Edwards (16:49)
and put

it in a little folder to go back to that colour scheme again to using projects. So it's like you could find inspiration everywhere and you could turn that into something. So before we wrap up, just remember you don't need to have a full shop or a massive bundle ready to go. Start with a small pack or one brush set or a few textures and try uploading to a platform and see what happens.

Delores Naskrent (16:55)
That's great.

Absolutely.

Kaylie Edwards (17:18)
And if you're looking for ideas to build scalable income streams, my Beyond Handmade guide has 200 plus suggestions to get you started. And that will be linked in the description.

Delores Naskrent (17:27)
perfect. That's great.

show notes. Perfect. Yes, if you're curious about actually making and selling assets, check the description of this episode. We're going to link the classes, all of my classes that walk you through the whole process. I am thinking of recording a new class on the subject because I've learned so much more since I've created the creative market class because

That one class for Creative Market is really specifically how to get a full brush set ready for upload there, creating all the screenshots. And I just want to remind everybody, before you even start, be prepared to create as many screenshots as that.

that platform will allow. So I think on Creative Market you can upload about 10 screenshots and I think Etsy is about the same and it even suggests that you include video and all of that really helps to sell your product. So whether you're just starting out or looking to grow there is something for you. Anything that you create there's somebody else looking for it so be sure to experiment with this. I do have a student that has just

Kaylie Edwards (18:20)
Yeah.

Delores Naskrent (18:40)
just created her first brush set. And if you go to the Facebook group for the 5 Cards in 5 Days challenge, you'll see it there. It's a really cute little, a set of daisy stamps. Very, very sweet. Yeah, just go and check it out. You'll see it there.

Kaylie Edwards (18:52)
I know who you're talking about, yeah.

I was a bit like, because she does it in Procreate and I don't have Procreate and I was like, aww, why couldn't you do it in Affinity Designer or something?

Delores Naskrent (19:03)
you

That's why I do both now. When I'm creating, I end up creating the set for both Affinity Designer and for Procreate. And the good thing about the SVG assets is they can be used in Illustrator as well. it, yeah, I really, my packs that I create now are way better than the ones I created, you know, five years ago.

Kaylie Edwards (19:22)
Yeah. Yeah.

Well that's thing, it's experimenting and just seeing where you go with it, isn't it? And you know, things change and update and yeah, it's just big experimentation that you need to look at. So yeah, so thanks so much for listening everyone. We hope this episode gave you a few light bulb moments and some inspiration to Start turning your art into income.

Delores Naskrent (19:34)
Exactly.

Yep.

Yep and just remember keep creating, keep juggling, and most importantly keep finding joy in the process.