Interview with Erin Wilson
Are you lucky enough to have Erin Wilson’s beautiful blush floral cover on your Golden Coil planner? Her design won last year’s contest and we wanted to ask her more about it. We hope you enjoy getting to know Erin and learning from her wonderful advice!
What does your typical day look like?
I'm a stay-at-home mom who designs freelance in my "free time," whenever that is! This year, I have two kids in elementary school and one in preschool, so a lot of my time is taken up with driving all of the kids all of the places. My youngest still naps on the days he's not at school, so I usually get a couple of hours of design time each afternoon. Every night after the kids go to bed, I usually spend a few hours with a diet root beer nearby, working on either designs or any of the other things you have to take care of when you're self-employed!
What keeps you creatively inspired?
Root beer. OK, I'm kidding (kind of). Really, my best inspiration comes from getting out of the house and out of my own head. I'm not at all outdoorsy (unless the weather is between 70 and 80 degrees!), but I love to see museums or go on outings with my kids. I start to feel creatively zapped very quickly if I stay inside too much, which is tricky when you stay at home with kids and work from home. My very favorite way to get inspired is to take a trip to someplace new, and I absolutely adore air travel and airports (yes, even all the lines and the waiting!). I come up with my freshest designs after a vacation. That is obviously not a practical plan for day-to-day creativity!
What helps you stay productive?
There's a certain level of unproductivity I've just accepted for the time being while I have little kids at home! I believe that's how it should be. I can't make a schedule in the morning and follow it to a "T" every day and still meet everyone's needs because our needs change throughout the day. I think this unpredictability will improve over time, and next year when my youngest is in school full-time, I know I'm in for a whole new world! All that said, each day, I'll physically put pencil to paper and write down a single (yes, just one!) "to-do" that is my top priority. I love checking off a physical box. The "to-do" lists in my Golden Coil planner are my best friend and I have a whole sheet of them opposite my weekly schedule so that I can keep (and check off!) a running list.
Tell us about your Golden Coil cover design. What was the thought process behind it? What inspired you?
Where to start? I knew I wanted to create a design that would feel at home in any season. My design has foliage for spring and summer, bare branches for autumn and pine boughs for winter. A good neutral color works in any season, and I'm still in love with pink, so a really soft blush like the one on my cover shows up in my work often. I'm always inspired by flowers in nature, and also by many of my artist friends who make gorgeous florals look effortless. Tiffany (@washdayfloral) is a local friend of mine whose floral designs are awe-inspiring, and I always love seeing florals done by my three favorite floral artists: Erin McManness (@paperraven.co), Leah Bisch (@leahbischstudio) and Susan Moyal (@susanmoyal). I'm so grateful to have friends who are such amazing artists and who inspire me every day.
How do you come up with a new design? Walk us through your process.
I am a big believer in simply putting in the time. There are times when I sit down with a full-fledged idea in mind, and I sit down and draw it and love it. However, there are far more times where I don't know what I'm going to draw, but I start drawing anyway. I try to keep my inspiration cup full by seeing new things, places, or faces each day. Then, when I have time to sit down and draw, I just start and see what happens! This runs a bit counter to the sort of fairytale image I always had of "the artist"- someone from whom creativity pours endlessly and effortlessly. In my artist reality, design is like solving a puzzle, and I think that's what keeps it feeling fresh to me and why I keep coming back. If I draw something I don't love right away, I start problem-solving. Maybe I need to throw it out, but first, is there a way I could love it? Do I need to add to it, or possibly take something away? What if I try a different placement, or a different scale? Would different colors help? Could I make it a pattern, or draw it in symmetry? I usually end up tinkering with all of the above many times before I come up with a finished design.
What advice would you give someone designing a Golden Coil cover for the first time? Where should they start?
This is such an interesting thing to think about, because it makes me try to think back to where I started when I created the cover that won the contest last year. I know I didn't think, "Well, Erin, time to sit down and create a winning cover!" You just, start. You sit down, and you begin. Maybe you try a new medium. Maybe you sit down with your trusty medium. Maybe you try painting outside (if you live in somewhere warm right now, and I'm jealous if you do!). Maybe you paint with your kids. For me, so much of art has been simply in the "doing" of it. I don't have a lot of concrete steps or processes. I just commit the time to sit down and do. It's the most liberating thing to just give yourself time and space to just make something beautiful. That's where the magic is. I can't wait to see what designs we surface from artists this year!
