What 158 Creative Women Proved Last Week
Vicki thought learning Illustrator felt like climbing Mt. Everest in flip-flops. Then she created her first repeating pattern. Vicki was one of the 158 creative souls who signed up for my most recent Doodles Coaching Week program.
She loves to doodle. She loves to create. She has beautiful ideas tucked away in her sketchbooks and in her studio.
But the minute she thought about moving those designs onto a computer, a wall of panic went up.
Adobe Illustrator felt too big. Too technical. Too overwhelming.
And like so many women in our community, that fear quickly turned into a story she started telling herself:
“Maybe I’m too old to learn this.”
“Maybe my brain just doesn’t work this way.”
“Maybe this is for other people, but not for me.”
But during Doodles Coaching Week, Vicki made one small but powerful decision.
She decided to trust the process.
She showed up for every session. She put her blinders on. She stopped trying to figure out all of Adobe Illustrator at once and simply followed the step-by-step framework I teach, one manageable piece at a time.
And then, a few days into the program, her breakthrough came.
I received a message from her that brought tears to my eyes. She wrote:
“Anne, before this week, learning Adobe Illustrator felt like trying to climb Mt. Everest in flip-flops. But by following your daily steps and having you as my guide, it felt like taking a beautiful, clear path up the mountain instead. I just created my very first repeating pattern!”
That’s the transformation I never get tired of witnessing.
Vicki went from feeling like Adobe Illustrator was an impossible mountain to climb to creating her very first repeating pattern in less than a week.
And that’s what I want you to know, too.
You do not need to be a tech genius to create beautiful surface pattern designs. You do not need to learn everything all at once. And you are absolutely not too old to begin.
You simply need the right steps, the right guide, and the willingness to trust yourself enough to take the next one.
If you’ve ever looked at Adobe Illustrator and thought, “I could never learn this,” I want you to know that fear is not the final word. Here are three TRUTHS our most recent Doodles Coaching Week reminded me about what’s possible when creative women have the right guide and the right process.
Truth #1: Beginners can create real results quickly
One of the things I love most about Doodles Coaching Week is that it gives creative women proof.
Not theory. Not vague encouragement. Not “someday, maybe.”
Proof.
In our most recent cohort, 158 students said yes to learning something new. Many arrived with the same nervous energy Vicki had. They loved their artwork, but they were not sure they could handle the technology. Some had never opened Adobe Illustrator before. Some had opened it, panicked, and closed it right away. Some had watched tutorials online and felt even more confused than when they started.
That is so normal.
Adobe Illustrator is a powerful program, but powerful does not have to mean impossible. The problem is that most beginners are shown far too much, far too soon. They are introduced to every panel, every tool, every option, and every possible path forward. No wonder their brains feel like they are trying to drink from a firehose.
Doodles Coaching Week works because we do the opposite.
We focus on one outcome: creating your first repeating pattern.
That means students do not need to master Illustrator in five days. They do not need to understand every menu. They do not need to become professional designers overnight. They only need to follow the next step in front of them.
Take a photo of a simple doodle.
Bring it into Illustrator.
Turn it into vector art.
Add color.
Build the repeat.
Test the pattern.
One step. Then the next. Then the next.
This is where real progress begins, because small wins create momentum. Researchers Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer studied nearly 12,000 daily diary entries from workers and found that making progress in meaningful work was one of the strongest drivers of motivation and positive emotion. In other words, progress does not have to be huge to matter. It simply has to feel real.1
That is exactly what happens inside DCW.
The first win may be as simple as opening Illustrator without panic. The next win may be importing a sketch. Then suddenly the student who thought, “I can’t do this,” is looking at her own artwork on the screen.
And then comes the moment I love most.
She realizes, “Oh my goodness. That’s mine.”
That is when the fear begins to loosen its grip.
Truth #2: The right guide makes hard things manageable
There is a reason Vicki described Adobe Illustrator as Mt. Everest in flip-flops.
That image makes me smile every time I read it because it is funny, but it is also painfully accurate. When you are standing at the bottom of something unfamiliar, without a map, without the right equipment, and without someone who knows the trail, even a beautiful dream can feel impossible.
That is why the guide matters.
I do not believe my students need someone to impress them with how much I know about Adobe Illustrator. That would not help them. They need someone who remembers what it feels like to be brand new. They need someone who can say, “Click here. Ignore that for now. This part matters. That part can wait.”
That kind of guidance is not fluff. It is what makes learning possible.
Educational researchers Paul Kirschner, John Sweller, and Richard Clark famously argued that novice learners usually do better with clear, direct guidance than with minimally guided discovery learning, especially when they are learning complex material. When we are new at something, our working memory can become overloaded quickly. Guidance helps reduce that load so we can focus on what matters most.2
That is why I am so intentional about the way I teach DCW.
I do not ask beginners to “explore Illustrator” and hope they stumble into a pattern. I do not hand them a giant list of tools and expect them to sort it out. I give them a path.
A clear path.
A doable path.
A path that has worked for hundreds and hundreds of students before them.
And because the path is clear, students can save their energy for the creative decisions that matter. What doodle should I use? What colors feel joyful? How do I want this pattern to look on fabric or wrapping paper or wallpaper?
That is the magic.
The technology begins to move into the background, and the creative work comes forward.
I often tell my students, “You do not need to know everything. You just need to know the next thing.”
That one sentence changes everything.
Because when the task becomes smaller, courage has room to grow.
Truth #3: Community turns fear into momentum
The third truth from this most recent Doodles Coaching Week is one I have seen again and again:
Creative women are braver together.
When someone joins DCW, she is not just getting lessons. She is stepping into a community of other women who are also learning, trying, asking questions, making mistakes, celebrating tiny victories, and discovering what is possible.
That matters more than people realize.
Fear loves isolation. It gets louder when we are alone with our thoughts.
“Everyone else probably understands this.”
“I’m the only one who is confused.”
“I should have figured this out by now.”
But in community, those thoughts begin to lose power.
A student asks a question, and five other women silently think, “Thank goodness she asked that because I was wondering the same thing.”
Someone posts her first pattern, and another student thinks, “If she can do it, maybe I can too.”
Someone admits she is scared, and suddenly the room softens because everyone recognizes that feeling.
Research on self-efficacy supports this beautifully. Albert Bandura’s theory explains that people build belief in their abilities not only through their own successful experiences, but also by watching people like them succeed and by receiving credible encouragement from others.3 More recent research on social support and learning has also found that support from others can strengthen engagement and self-efficacy.4
This is why I never treat community as an “extra.”
It is part of the learning.
It is part of the courage.
It is part of the transformation.
When a woman sees another woman in her 50s, 60s, or 70s create her first repeat, something shifts. The dream no longer feels abstract. It becomes real. Close. Possible.
That is why the wins inside DCW are so contagious.
One person’s breakthrough becomes another person’s permission slip.
One finished pattern becomes a spark.
One brave question helps the whole group move forward.
And by the end of the week, the energy is completely different from where it began. The fear is still there for some students, of course. Learning something new always includes a little wobble. But now the fear is mixed with evidence.
Evidence that they can open Illustrator.
Evidence that they can follow the steps.
Evidence that they can turn their own artwork into a repeating pattern.
Evidence that they are not too old and it is not too late.
A quick recap
Our most recent Doodles Coaching Week reminded me of three powerful truths.
Beginners can create real results quickly when they focus on one clear outcome and take the process one step at a time.
The right guide makes hard things manageable by simplifying the path and reducing overwhelm.
And community turns fear into momentum because we borrow courage from one another until our own confidence catches up.
That is what Vicki experienced. That is what so many of our students experienced. And that is what I want every creative woman in this community to believe is possible for herself.
Your doodles, sketches, and watercolor paintings do not have to stay tucked away in a drawer or hidden in your studio.
They can become fabric.
They can become wrapping paper.
They can become wallpaper, apparel, stationery, gift bags, cards, and so much more.
But even more than that, they can become evidence.
Evidence that you are still learning.
Evidence that your creativity still matters.
Evidence that it is never too late to create something beautiful and bring it into the world.
And if you’re ready to create your first repeating pattern with me, I’d love to invite you to join us for the next round of Doodles Coaching Week in September. Early bird tickets are on sale now, and you can save $40 off the regular price of $77 when you claim your seat for just $37. Come join us, follow the step-by-step framework, and let me help you turn one of your doodles, sketches, or watercolor pieces into a repeating pattern you’re proud of. Save your seat here: members.artwithanne.com/doodles
What would become possible for you if you stopped telling yourself Adobe Illustrator is too hard and simply trusted the next step?
xo,
Anne
It’s Never Too Late to Create®
Footnotes
Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer,“The Power of Small Wins”, Harvard Business Review, May 2011.↩
Paul A. Kirschner, John Sweller, and Richard E. Clark,“Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work”, Educational Psychologist 41, no. 2 (2006): 75–86.↩
Albert Bandura,“Self-Efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioral Change”, Psychological Review 84, no. 2 (1977): 191–215.↩
Yifan Wang et al.,“Influence of Perceived Social Support and Academic Self-Efficacy on Learning Engagement”, Frontiers in Psychology, 2024.↩
More Resources for You!
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MEET ANNE
Hi…I’m Anne!
My creative inspiration comes from a lifetime of observation. I grew up in Paris on the Place St. Sulpice and walked to school through the Luxembourg gardens. And that was only the beginning… Learn more by watching the video on my About page.
