Nina is a graphic designer by profession, an illustrator by heart and also a proud Etsy shop owner. Inspired by travels and wildlife she loves illustrating joyful animals in their environment. Besides painting with watercolors and gouache she designs paper goods and various pretty items.
I consider myself as a creative individual who likes to make things and is dedicated, optimistic, hard working, open minded, a perfectionist and above all honest. I strive to create beautiful and playful things that make people happy ♥.
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Get in touch with Nina
- Website: http://www.ninastajner.com/
- Etsy shop: https://artsideoflife.com/ninastajner_etsy
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ninastajner/
Key Takeaways
“Just be creative, trust your instincts, never give up and be patient”
- Nina studied graphic design, and she didn’t have much support from the professors and people around her because they did this minimalistic style and her style was cute and whimsical, she did ‘teddy bears’. It simply made her happy.
- After she finished the University, she started not to care what people think and that’s when it really started. When she started posting on social media, she got a really positive response and that encouraged her. She advises to follow your instinct and doesn’t care what people think (especially the haters). Focus on constructive feedback only
- Nina doesn’t have any strategy for the layouts for photos. It’s just random, from daily walks, or flowers on her table … She just combines it organically. It’s a playful thing
- Nina decides which projects to say yes and no to based on the intuition and budget. In the beginning, she said yes to everything, but that’s not right. She ended up drawing what she doesn’t like and it’s not good enough
- When starting, don’t be too hard on yourself in the beginning. Nina started small with one coloring book and a couple of prints. Take baby steps and grow gradually – trial & error – test things out!
- Social media delivers a lot of business for Nina. She is extremely grateful to be living in this period because the whole world can see her artworks!!!
Resources mentioned
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- University Nina attended: Academy of Fine Arts and Design In Ljubljana, Slovenia
- Little Blue Nest – company that hired Nina to design blanket patterns to design blanket patterns
- Lake Artists’ Coloring Books – an app where you can find Nina’s coloring books
- Event that Nina attended in the past: OFFF Barcelona – design conference
- Tools
- Watercolors, gouache, colored pencils, masking tape with watercolors
- She uses Adobe Creative Cloud – Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign to only do final touches or preparing products
- Lightbox for tracing
- Brushes with watercolors & gouache – Winsor & Newton brushes – miniature – the ‘brushes obey’ her – artwork goes from her mind to paper
- Canson Moulin du Roy Watercolor paper – not rough texture
- Documentaries
- Planet Earth 2 – BBC Documentary – animals – you can see texture of the animal’s skin
- MEDIUM blogs – she reads on iPad – articles – biz, politics, what’s happening in the world
- Books: Gary Vee – Crush it & Jab Jab Hook Hook (doing business in internet age)
Special thanks to Nina for joining me today. See you next time!
All artworks by Nina Stajner, used with permission
Click Here For The Episode Transcript
