Hi there!
I'm Tasha - the owner of tishpaints. Welcome to my blog! Seen as this is my first blog post, and you're most likely reading this because you've either come to have a look at my website or you want to know more about tishpaints, I thought we'd go behind the scenes & talk about why I started my own business.
In 2020, I had to stop working and turned to art to keep myself busy. I spent time taking part in online community challenges on Instagram and found myself drawing and painting every single day.
Previously to this, I've been a creative thinker for as long as I can remember. I've always felt drawn to a creative career (despite being told more times than I can remember that it's unlikely to work out). If you go back to my childhood and asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'd say a Fashion Designer. If you asked me when I was a teenager, I would tell you a Makeup Artist.
In school, I studied Fine Art - it was my favourite subject & a safe space. I LOVED spending time in the art classrooms. No matter what was going on, my art class was the highlight of my day & I found myself exploring my thoughts as a piece of art. During my A Levels, I spent so many hours with my art teacher talking about my projects & expanding my creative skills. I've always been a quiet person, but my art teacher always made me feel welcome, calm and happy. She encouraged me to pursue my creative interests, especially when I did a project on body painting in my final year.
Fast forward a couple of years to 2018, and I was studying to become a makeup artist. I specialised in Fashion (after initially thinking I'd work in prosthetics!) and had an absolute blast at uni. During this time, I felt myself become more grounded towards a creative future, and although I briefly stopped painting on paper, I was using brushes and creating fun catwalk looks on the daily.
It all came to a stop in 2020 when the dreaded pandemic hit. Due to health issues, I had to stay at home and couldn't even go to my part-time job. After a month or so of relaxing (and actually enjoying some time off), I picked up a pencil and started a new sketchbook. I started out drawing faces before moving into plants and eventually starting my Instagram account, @tish.paints. I was taking part in daily online art challenges and connected with a community of like-minded artists who were also rediscovering their creativity after life came to a halt.
When we were finally allowed outside again, and I could go back to work, I didn't want to. I wanted to stay at home, drawing and painting flowers, and feeling the best mentally that I had in a long time. A friend encouraged me to open an Etsy shop, and in November 2020 I listed 8 Christmas card designs, thinking if I got one sale I'd be happy. The first sale was such an incredible feeling, and I felt so proud of myself.
After Christmas 2020, I popped my shop on holiday mode and got to work creating my first line of greeting cards & stickers, and in February 2021 I officially opened my Etsy shop as tishpaints.
Fast forward a couple of years, and you get to the tishpaints of today! tishpaints is now an eco-friendly stationery & home decor brand, creating colourful watercolour greetings cards, prints, stickers & more inspired by flowers & nature.
I'm sure you've got some questions about why I decided to focus on flowers & nature, or even why I wanted to make tishpaints eco-friendly, and I can promise you I'm going to answer those questions in the next couple of blog posts. But for now, that's the story of how I started tishpaints & started to build my mini floral empire. 🌸