Meet Shannon Leis

Before I took the course, I was working in educational sales. I had gone to school for art and I am a creative at heart, but painting never felt like something that could sustain me. I create slowly and I also need a good amount of social interaction, so it never felt like the right fit. I enrolled in Immersion while I was in the middle of a career pivot. I knew I needed a change, and then life decided for me when I had to leave my job for health reasons.

During Immersion, I was working for a few artists as clients and used all of the Illustrator skills we learned to help them digitize their art, create graphics, ebooks, content and more. It has all slowly begun to bloom. I am now doing web design and creating logos, packaging and illustrations for brands and businesses, while also working another job to keep things financially steady. Now that the stress of transitioning from corporate life to the creative world has eased, I finally feel like I have the space to begin playing with actual pattern design and see where that leads.

I loved the pace of the course, the community and the care that went into every part of Immersion. I have never experienced something so thoughtful, with so much love poured into every detail.

Looking to the future, I have been creatively diving into writing, and I would love to explore the illustrative side of it and create patterns and illustrations to accompany written work. I would also love to create patterns for scarves and bathing suits one day. And as I mentioned, fabric patterns that tell a story and could be made into a quilt would feel like such a warm way to honor my heritage.

Most of my work is for client businesses, so I cannot share it all, but there are a few examples on my website that I have permission to show. For this form, I am sharing the one little phone case design I made for myself. It does not follow pattern design principles at all, but it felt like a digitized sketchbook and it made me happy to put it on my phone case. A baby step.