About me

heleenvandenthillart

Heleen van den Thillart

Hello, Thank you for visiting!

I am Heleen a Dutch pattern designer and illustrator for postcards, fabrics, wallpaper and gift wrappings. I have always loved to draw and now I can earn a living with doing what I love most. I work from home. I have two young children who I take care of during the day, so I work when they are a sleep or in the evening. All my designs start with hand drawings. I scan those drawings and edit them in the computer. I know the computer can do these things automatically, but I allways end up editing the computer traced scans myself. I am really focused on the details and sometimes computers miss those. My designs have the look and feel of hand drawn images with the benefits of digital artwork. This means a lot of my designs I can scale down or up without loosing the quality and sharpness of the design. Most of my designs are designed for children, because mine are my biggest fan. But I do make some abstract and floral designs too. I love making designs for my kids or our home, like curtains, pillows or children’s wear.

Here is some background information about me. I have a bachelor degree in Science and in Design: a unique combination, but I love both! When I was 18 I started at the Technical University of Delft with Design Engineering. I like drawing and working with my hands, but further on in my studies I did less and less of this. So after I got my Bachelor degree I applied for the Royal Art Academy in The Hague. I studied Graphic Design there and got totally in love with typography and type design. I like the mathematics and scientific approache to designing with type. After graduating I worked as a teacher for a couple of years. I have taught science classes and design classes to children from 4 up to 16 years old. I love teaching, but I missed drawing and designing myself. The kids did all the fun work! So when I became pregnant of my son I decided to become a stay at home mom and try to do some drawing and design work in between his naps. At the end of 2014 I discoverd Spoonflower, where you could upload your pattern designs and earn money if people buy fabric with your designs. I decided to give this at least a year, but allready made my first sale in the first month. My Spoonflower shop is still growing and I make new designs every week. I had never designed patterns before, but I love it so much! It’s just like type design, very mathematical and precise because of the repeat and yet playful and loose because of my use of hand drawings. I love this combination.

Heleen van den Thillart

my workspace at home

Heleen van den Thillart

me working on some drawings

Heleen van den Thillart

me behind the sewing machine, working on some baby bibs and teethers for my Etsy shop