In this 41 minute Skillshare.com course, Turn Your Watercolor Florals into Etsy Clip Art that Sells, the author Shalece Elynne Christiansen discusses in detail her process for converting her analog watercolor designs in to clip art for sale on Etsy. She also demonstrates how she creates the preview images for listing her clip art on Etsy.

Recently my sister ask about online options for selling her analog designs. It was easy to make a list of marketplaces to consider. But as a digital artist, I had to do some research about how to convert analog designs in to their digital counterparts. The first place I looked was Skillshare.com.

Skillshare.com has some of the best design oriented courses for both traditional/analog art and digital art, along with a multitude of other topics. But for my research, I was interested in how to make the transition from analog artwork to selling on Etsy.

Christiansen begins the transition process with a scan of her analog artwork. But she also discusses a few details that I haven't read about before, such as scanning in the artwork both upright and upside down and merging them in Photoshop. She covers her process for removing the surrounding white background from the floral motifs, using the Photoshop Levels, HSL and Layer Style features. Next, she grabs a color palette from the artwork.

Her next step is to isolate each design element on individual layers and grouping those layers as to content, such as leaves and flowers. She then repositions the design elements in to a visually pleasing layout on an artboard, which will become her main Etsy shop graphic. She also demonstrates how she combined several design elements in to a finished drop header design and expanded the number of elements by duplicating the elements and changing the orientation, rotation and scale. Once her clip art items are complete, she discusses how to remove any remaining empty space around the motifs and export each as a png file.

Christiansen is now ready to package her clip art for her Etsy shop. Besides the main shop graphic created above, she also discusses other options for more graphics, including a wedding invitation mockup. She supplies a link to a free mockup Photoshop file.

Once she has the shop graphics ready, she walks the viewer through the process for uploading and listing the product on Etsy, including the importance of tags and keywords. Finally, she discusses how she uses Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram to market her products.

Shalece Elynne Christiansen is a surface pattern designer and Etsy shop owner.

Turn Your Watercolor Florals into Etsy Clip Art that Sells on Skillshare

https://www.etsy.com/shop/ShaleceElynne

Disclosure: As a participant in the Skillshare affiliate program, some of the links in this article are affiliate links. However, my opinions are completely my own based on my experience.

Screenshots used by permission of Skillshare, Inc.