Design

Forest Person – another variant

A few days ago I shared my Forest Person design:

Grass and flowers with the text "Forest Person" — Forest Person (First Version)

This is a black design on a grey background. But not everyone likes wearing light t-shirts. So I always try to invert colors and upload the design again, this time as a white design on a black background. However, when I inverted the colors, the design didn’t look so good:

It sort of looks like a white blob. I decided to paint the design again so it would look better on darker colors. Here’s the new version:

Grass and flowers with the text "Forest Person" on a t-shirt.

“Forest Person” on Threadless

This design was made with reMarkable 2, which I love.

ReMarkable Cat

All my days are spent sketching on reMarkable or working on our cat book. I am also searching for a new apartment.

"Cat Looking Out a Window" by Justyna Dorsz

This cat is another minimal sketch I made using reMarkable 2.

If you want to do more sketches…

I think reMarkable 2 is one of the most useful things I bought. I always keep it next to my keyboard and whenever I take a break from work, I start sketching in it. Sometimes all I manage to create are some silly drawings but every now and then I make something good and can send it to my Artist Shop on Threadless.

Here’s a drawing I made two days ago:

"Night Birds" by Justyna Dorsz — Night Birds

ReMarkable Productivity Boost

I’ve been using a reMarkable tablet nonstop for the past week.

I moved all my to-do lists there. All notes on reMarkable are organized into notebooks so I now have a notebook just for my to-do lists. I created separate notebooks for all my projects that I am working on. One more notebook with weird ideas that might turn into projects one day.

I keep it nearby all the time, open on my to-do list for the day. No longer do I have to shuffle paper notepads and loose pages that somehow always accumulated on my desk.

But it’s not useful for notes and lists only. I also sketch in it a lot. I have a notebook for my sketches and another notebook for sketches for my next apparel store. When I have a completed drawing I simply export it to a PNG file. I still have to remove the background in Photoshop but it’s way faster than sketching on paper and then taking a photo and cleaning it up.

Here’s another sketch that I made yesterday:

"Dog Looking Out a Window" by Justyna Dorsz — Dog Looking Out a Window

Available on Threadless.

Hygge

Hygge means enjoying the present, being cozy and comfortable. If you google it, you will see lots of photos of people snuggled in blankets with a cup of hot beverage nearby.

Hygge is a Danish and Norwegian word for a mood of coziness and comfortable conviviality with feelings of wellness and contentment.
–Wikipedia

My mom heard about it on the radio recently and told me about it. I hadn’t known the word before that.

I don’t know about you, but for me sitting comfortably and being cozy, and not doing anything, isn’t relaxing. I always feel there’s something I should be doing, and wasting time just makes me anxious.

King Cat

I drew a cat in a crown for a Threadless Competition 🙂

Forest Person – first design made with reMarkable

I bought reMarkable — it’s a tablet for taking handwritten notes and sketching. I’ve only had it for two days so far, so it’s too early to write a review, but I will write one soon. (Edit: My reMarkable 2 Review)

I bought it because I want to sketch more and turn my sketches into designs for apparel. I draw a lot on paper but it’s tiresome having to take a photo, clean it up, and then publish. And if you draw with a pen you can’t really fix anything when you mess up. reMarkable makes the whole process easier and faster — I just draw, erase mistakes without a problem, and export the file. Then I have to remove the background in Photoshop, though I hope I will find a way to automate it.

Here’s my first sketch made with reMarkable:

"Forest Person" by Justyna Dorsz — “Forest Person”

I already published in on Threadless:

Transparency problem with DTG printing

I made this design:

"Dark Woods" by Justyna Dorsz — Dark Woods

Unfortunately, when printed on apparel it looks like this:

Most of the design is not printed, only very bright places are visible. This design is painted with white color only, so in darker places those white pixels are nearly completely transparent.

The method that is used to print designs on apparel is called Direct-To-Garment and most DTG printers don’t deal well with low opacity pixels.

If you want your design to look good on apparel, you need to adjust it so that most pixels have higher opacity. Threadless notified me about this issue, and this is how they adjusted my design:

Now, when printed on apparel, the design should be much more visible.

“Spacing Out” design sales stats

I plan to share sales data of all my designs. Everyone always asks how much you can earn. Today, let’s see sales stats for “Spacing Out”.

"Spacing Out" by Justyna Dorsz — “Spacing Out”

Sales Stats

Average Monthly Earnings: $16

Total Earned: $655

It earns me only $16 per month. Not much. But that’s the thing about passive income — you make a design once and then it keeps earning you money without you doing anything else. And when you have 30 designs, or 50, or 100, and each one brings in a small passive income — well, you do the math.

As with many of my designs, when I drew it, I wasn’t sure if I should publish it. But I did, and now I have an additional $655 that I wouldn’t have, had I not submitted it to Threadless.

Design

1. Not Today

2. Overthinking and Also Hungry

3. Get Your Own Pizza, Human!

4. Vaguely Aware of Social Norms

5. Go Outside. Worst Case Scenario, A Bear Kills You

6. Among Trees

7. Space Stuff

8. Space Botanica

9. Adequate Expression of Feelings

10. Inconceivably Vast

Sales Stats

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