It’s me, hi!
I’m Erin, an artist and surface pattern designer. I have blogged before. I was teaching art classes to students, mostly my kids and their friends, after school once or twice a week. I would use the blog to showcase their work and as a way to catalogue my growing collection of lesson plans and project ideas. I am fairly certain it was only me and those kids who ever saw it. That was years ago.
Pictured: Photo from Erin’s art class - suminigashi marbling ink, one of my favorite lessons to teach
Here I am again, finding a place to share. I have done things like this my whole life … carved out time to create. But sharing it is a little vulnerable. So thank you for being here.
As a kid, my mom would let me use her sewing machine and scrap fabric to make up stuffed creatures. As I grew older, I would get lost for hours in school art projects, and was asked to design my high school’s yearbook cover my senior year. I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art degree in Illustration. After getting married and starting a family, I continued to take freelance illustration and graphic design jobs when I could - mostly for family and friends who knew I loved art and design. I would open my home for art classes to kids for years. I learned to quilt, painted gifts for friends, and collected art supplies. I couldn’t quit “art” if I tried. I feel in color, and speak in shapes and lines.
Pictured: Completed top quilt pieced by Erin in fabric from Kikue Chrysanthemum collection designed by Erin Silliman Designs
All of this has led me to now. Close to the time that my youngest baby was about to start school, I began really leaning in to this increasing desire inside to pour more of myself into creating. I opened an Etsy shop at the end of 2016 and started selling cards and prints and customized watercolors. But my artistic true love was yet to come.
Sometime in 2019, my eyes were opened to the world of surface pattern design. It was a revelation. Surface pattern design is the world of creating seamless, repeating art to fit on any surface - think fabric, gift wrap, stationary, anywhere you can put a design. It felt like a perfect fit. I love the drawing and creation element, I love the mathematical and puzzle element in a technical repeat, I love the possibilities. I took many online courses, (most notably Bonnie Christine’s Immersion course, where I now assist as an Expert on the support team in Immersion 2024.) After taking classes, listening to podcasts, learning new software, experimenting and creating pattern after pattern, I knew this was something I wanted to do every day. And after some very personally challenging COVID years, I started devoting real time and energy into more focused efforts in Surface Pattern Design.
Studio of Erin Silliman Designs
The last couple years have been special. Since 2022, I have built my first website, opened a print on demand SPOONFLOWER SHOP and other POD sites selling fabric and home goods with my designs. I have licensed prints for children’s wear and gift wrap to multiple companies. I have worked part time as a designer for a gift wrap company for a season, freelanced and designed on contract with multiple companies, and have pitched my work in several different industries over 100 times and counting. It has been so much fun, and it has been so hard. I’m not going to stop. I am so looking forward to whatever comes next. And I’m going to share it with you.
*I have personally taken the class linked above called, The Art of Selling on Spoonflower Successfully. This is an affiliate link, thank you for your support!
PS - It feels a little exposing to write my own experiences and make them public. But I always love reading about other creatives and their paths and ideas. I feel like among their stories I am in good company and it is okay to contribute my own. If you are interested in reading more of my story, I have been featured in a couple places you can check out: