Renata Paton on getting started as an artist, expanding into new mediums, and committing to your content.

Renata, also known as GremRen, is a Melbourne-based indie artist who's all about fun creatures and punchy colour palettes.

You can see her messing around with paint pens, yarn, wood carving, and the list goes on. AKA, if it's vibrant and fun, she is in. In this episode, I talk to Renata all about her secrets and I find out how on earth she has done it to build thousands of followers worth of audience, an amazing art style and that kick ass brand.

In this episode, you're gonna learn things like how to get started as an artist, how to find your style, how can you balance work, your art, your creativity with creating a consistent brand. How do you expand into new mediums and still keep your brand consistent? How do you show up every single day online and build an audience that loves your work and a lot more?

The people listening have heard a little bit about what you do right now and kind of how you describe what you do, but I would love to know a little bit about how you kind of got to where you are now. So, do you think you have always identified as creative? Were you creative as a young person? How did you kind of get into being creative?

Yeah, definitely. Art was kind of always my, my main shtick. Some kids are really good at sport or music. I was always most comfortable in the art room doing art, woodwork, ceramics, all that kind of stuff; my favourite things in school.

So I've always leaned very heavily towards that growing up. And then when you start to leave high school, you think seriously about where you wanna go to university, or doing  more practical courses. After a little bit of introspection, I originally decided I was gonna go into industrial design because at the time I loved soft toy making. That was my thing at the time. So I was gonna try and make that work.

And a year into that university course, I found out it wasn't as much about toy making as it was about kind of product engineering. Started getting a little bit mathematical. I remember a moment they talked about the welding properties of steel and how to calculate the load that would take. And at that exact point I was like, “oh, this isn't for me.” With all due respect to whoever can. Engineers: incredible people. Yeah, not my faculty.

I scrolled all the way back to the beginning of your Instagram. And I saw that the first post ever were of plushies that you were making. I guess you were interested in the plushies, you went to industrial design school, then how did you get into the design and illustration work that it looked like you went into next?

Yeah. So from that point of like, “oh gosh, industrial design isn't for me.” I had a little bit of a look around at my, my own university, and where I could easily jump to. And they had a visual communication course, like graphic design.

And while at the time I wasn't super confident with my illustration skills, I knew I was good at art, I knew I could figure it out, and so it was a bit of a choice of necessity, you know Instead of having to mess with different university, different courses, whatever.

But yeah, I jumped into the communication design course instead and started that. It started pushing me towards illustration and graphic design and long story short, it's pushed me to where I am now.

I saw that earlier on, you had these business cards that you had made that were for branding, design and illustration. They had some cute illustrations of cats and a fish and a bubble and stuff, they were awesome. So is that when you started branding yourself as a designer and illustrator? Tell me about that process.

Yeah, definitely. Going through that communication design, graphic course, I found myself leaning towards branding and logo design as the things that personally piqued my interest a lot more.

And so once I was heading towards the end of university as well, I was like, "oh, I should start putting my name out there and showing that this is something that I'm interested in, this is something that I want to work in a little bit more."

Doing it on Instagram necessarily wasn't what I had planned, but I did start to work in a logo-y sort of area, and throughout the branding projects that I'd done at university, built a little bit of a visual portfolio, and built it from there.

And so then from doing like that branding work and logos, how did you get into doing the full-time illustration and making your own products that you do now. When did that happen?

It was definitely a gradual process. It wasn't like one day, boom, I'm just like making my own stuff, a hundred percent. I graduated university and as is the fun part of graduating from graphic design, you go on job search websites and see how much they're asking you to do and how little opportunities there are for graphic design, at least in my personal area around Melbourne at the time. It was slim pickings.

So I ended up accepting a position at a printing company in the prepress art team, which is  what it was officially called. Essentially they said I could do creative stuff while also doing printing stuff at the same time. But the job was a little bit more form editing. Medical was their biggest customer and clients. From that, our team would get a lot of jobs where we would just be editing forms, creating brochures for certain surgeries and stuff. Lots and lots and lots of medical paraphernalia. It kept coming, so it was a great business model. But not quite where I was anticipating ending up.

So I was working in the pre-press team full-time, which was helpful in its own way. It helped me understand printing output settings and CMYK values; everything around printing. It was excellent as a crash course of that. So I'm definitely so grateful for that job, but I found myself in my evenings and weekends starting to do my own thing.

I didn't have a set goal per se. At the time I was just following a bunch of artists on Instagram that I was amazed by. I would see them doing their full-time work and then just be like “that seems pretty cool”. Not even with the intention of that's where I wanna be, but just kind of like, that seems really cool, I'm inspired by that.

So I would just work on my evenings and weekends, make art. I self-funded my first enamel pin, which was a huge thing in the art community at the time. And I made a hundred of that design and it took three years to sell them all out.

I started with two sticker designs, one pin design, and I launched an Etsy shop ‘cause it's always something that I wanted to do, but I never admitted it to myself because it seemed too scary, too difficult, just entirely unattainable.

It's always something that I wanted to do, but I never admitted it to myself because it seemed too scary, too difficult, just entirely unattainable.

So I started as tiny as possible. My friends and family bought my designs. From there it was the just pushing the boulder bit by little bit up the hill. It took about a year and a half to get a bit of traction on Instagram, to get a bit of a following, I guess. I was posting essentially every day, maybe skipping one or two here and there. But thanks to that year and a half, my illustration style grew like tenfold.

You have such a distinct style, and scrolling all the way back to the beginning of your Instagram, you can see that there were definitely elements of your style that were there from the beginning or have been there throughout. How have you developed that style and come to find what's you?

Great question. Essentially like you said, you scrolled back to the very beginning of my Instagram. There were the seeds of my style there, but it was really rough. I didn't really have a lot of the fundamentals down.

I've always been someone who loves really punchy colour palettes. Even when I was doing branding, and logo design, I would always gravitate to designs that had really bold, reds and blues and would catch your eye with their colours. So that has been the thread that weaves everything together, all the way through.

But honestly, as far as building my style was concerned. It was literally just doing those consistent drawings every evening, every weekend. Months and months and onwards of that year, just kind of really putting the time in.

Before I had that full-time job and it pushed me to do my own stuff, I never really took the time to invest into my art and really solidify it. ‘Cause I was always into art, I was always the art kid, but I took it for granted a little bit and so, I kind of coasted on natural ability, but at the end of the day it was still very rough.

So thanks to that job that pushed me to work on my own stuff, really slowly but surely, I would figure out the palettes that I like. I refined my anatomy knowledge and started working with backgrounds and stuff and I found that people responded really well to that.

I remember a few of the earlier pieces that I did that had more defined backgrounds. I got a lot of really positive feedback and so I was like, “oh, okay, people wanted to see this” and so I worked on it more because, I realised this is a worthwhile investment of my time.

I got a lot of really positive feedback and so I was like, “oh, okay, people wanted to see this” and so I worked on it more because, I realised this is a worthwhile investment of my time.

It's really just the daily practice of putting that little bit of time in. It doesn't feel like much in the moment, but it can snowball into something so, so good.

It's really just the daily practice of putting that little bit of time in. It doesn't feel like much in the moment, but it can snowball into something so, so good.

Your style now is obviously a big part of like your brand and what people know you for and they recognise your style. So how do you build the rest of your brand around the work that you do so that it compliments and all works together with your work?

I would say it's been a fairly natural process for me as I make a new business card or a new logo or little visual elements that I add to the photography that I share. It's been a natural evolution. Like I said before the color palettes that I really enjoy using are a thread that ties everything together.

In branding generally as well, you have what is called a toolkit. You have your brand colours, your logos, your visual assets that you tend to use in a lot of the things that you make and you share. While I don't have the literal like toolkit–I can't actively grab an asset from Illustrator or whatever–but I have defined little visual cues and styles that I purposefully add to my branding and even little advertisement posts for store updates and stuff.

And that's kind of naturally developed from me looking at things that inspire me, like certain  stationary designs or designs from other artists. I take note of what they're doing and what I really like from that sort of inspirational content as well. And then I test it out on my own stuff, and if it doesn't gel, I don't keep going with it. But if I find that it does, then I put it in my toolbox and it comes with me for the ride. That's essentially it.

I love the idea of a toolbox. And I definitely noticed you have those different visual assets. You have a mascot, and so that mascot shows up when you have announcements or things coming from you, which I think is really cool. And also you have a logo on your website and then the illustrations around you and your profile photos. So there's definitely those clear assets that connect everything together, which I think is really clever.

Tied into that, a question that I get a lot of the time from artists is “how do I have a consistent brand, which is what you're "supposed" to have, but then also have the freedom to still be creative or try new things?”

I'm curious if you have any perspective on how you balance those things, if you think about that at all: being consistent, but still being able to create new things and be creative.

Yeah, I totally relate to that. I think it's a struggle that every artist has if they're on social media, because social media kind of demands consistency. Like a visual narrative that flows through everything that you share. So it does naturally feel a little bit constraining to artists who wanna just experiment and make new and fun and different things.

I would say having those few kind of key visual elements that can naturally put into every single thing that you make definitely helps keep your overall visual brand consistent. It keeps everything a bit cohesive.

I would say having those few kind of key visual elements that can naturally put into every single thing that you make definitely helps keep your overall visual brand consistent. It keeps everything a bit cohesive.

If I broke my visual identity down into its absolute core components, the colours would be  the stand out thing that ties everything together.

I made the jump into doing rugs and trying that as a different medium, which you would say is very different from the work I’m known for, with Posca paint pens and illustrations. But I found that my main audience is still very excited about the textile things that I'm doing at the moment because they still have the core parts of my style. They still have my very recognisable colour schemes that I use. And it lets me have that little bit of creativity as well, using different mediums.

I found that my main audience is still very excited about the textile things that I'm doing at the moment because they still have the core parts of my style. They still have my very recognisable colour schemes that I use. And it lets me have that little bit of creativity as well, using different mediums.

You have to kind of adapt to their strengths and weaknesses and you just bring those core elements in, that has helped a lot. So finding what are your absolute main core visual ingredients and if you wanna try something new, that's totally fine, just sprinkle it in a little bit and just see where it goes.

If you're experimenting, and it doesn't go maybe the way that you wanted, I feel like you always still get something out of it. It's always still a worthwhile investment of your time, even if it wasn't successful. So I think it's always worth a shot.

Yeah, absolutely. I was so curious and interested in the fact that you had expanded into so many different things. ‘Cause as you said, when you began, you had the enamel pin and a couple of stickers, you were doing illustrations and prints and that kind of thing. But now you're doing rugs, you made a plushy, you’ve got the wooden little animals.

How has it been expanding into these new formats or mediums while trying to keep your audience engaged and enjoying things. How's that been?

Yeah, it's definitely been a learning experience, I would say. I'm still riding the wave of feeling comfortable with all the different things that I'm trying to do because like I said before, initially I was hand sewing toys and stuff. So I've always been interested in very tactile, more kind of craft-focused creative pursuits.

But at the time, after I left university and started working a full-time job, those sorts of pursuits just take so much time. And so at that time, I pivoted towards illustration because you can bang out something in an hour or two and you get it done, you throw it up there and then you move on to the next thing. Hand carving and then designing a wooden bear takes a little bit longer, 10 hours, maybe, a bit more that sometimes.

So yeah, I’ve always had the desire to shift more towards 3D products, more tactile craft and stuff as well. But when I was initially building my brand I guess, it wasn't a viable thing that I could do, so, I made that active choice to shift towards illustration. Which was great because then I got way more comfortable and from that, grew people's interest in my work, solidified myself and made myself known for the things that I'm into.

And then as I needed a little bit of a break from illustration and Posca and stuff because you do the same thing over and over and over again, even with different subjects and different ways of doing it. You need a break. You need to freshen things up a little bit. And so that's where a bit more of the product design and leaning more towards craft has just been such a breath of fresh air.

And the people who engage with my art consistently, a few of them noticed that my excitement for what I was doing was dimming a little bit. And then with changing and trying a few different things, it really perked back up a little bit.

So it definitely did feel like a little bit of a risk because at the time I was known for illustration. That was the meat and potatoes of what I did. So yeah, it definitely felt like a little bit of a risk, but it has turned into a worthwhile risk now. It's so encouraging and now I  jump from rugs to illustration, to product design to any other craft that I can get my grubby little fingers on. And people have consistently been excited about anything and everything that I come up with, which has been so encouraging and really, really just makes me wanna push myself further and further from there.

That's so special that those people who have been following you for so long are so excited to see this new level of excitement for you and I can imagine how encouraging that is.

Those illustrations you said you can kind of smash those out pretty quickly. You said you were doing those every day, every weekend, so you're publishing a new illustration or sharing a new something almost every day. Compared to now you are doing things that take a lot longer, so maybe people aren't seeing like something new all the time. So how have you adjusted to that? What are your thoughts on that shift and publishing new things all the time?

Yeah, definitely. I know it's a thing that a lot of people struggle with when it comes to social media. There's this kinda expectation to share something new and fresh and amazing like every single day.

Even when I was doing full-time work and drawing really consistently and everything, I would on a somewhat consistent basis share the sticker designs that I had up in my shop and have that as my daily post. Or if I had maybe a page of doodles or something, I would use that instead.

So there was consistently, visually new stuff that I was sharing to my Instagram feed. But it wasn't a new piece of art every single day. I think that's unobtainable. And not sustainable on a long-term basis. So even when I was doing that, I was giving myself a little bit of a buffer when I didn't have something new to share.

I would be consistently taking my artwork in my car, driving to work. And then as I parked in the carpark of work, I would take the photo of my artwork because at the time I started work earlier, around eight o'clock. I couldn't take the photos when I got home ‘cause the sun would be down so I couldn't take them before I left to work. The sun would just be rising, so, I would have to do it then, because that was the best time for lighting. That's just how it goes.

Now as well I found that video content–which in the past few years really become a much greater force in the creative social media community–that has been something that I've relied on as well.

So I will make a new design, if it's an illustration or a rug or whatever, but while I'm creating that design, I'll be probably recording it, either a full-time lapse or just in little segments here and there. It's literally all you need. And then, I'll slap that together as a reel or a TikTok video, and then I can share that as one of my daily posts as well. So in that way, one piece of art can become two pieces of content and you can really stretch one piece of art out into multiple posts as well.

You could do a work in progress post. You could do it in a collection with pieces of art that are similar. You could show it in a frame, looking so beautiful and ready to be adopted. And then from that, if you make much of it, then share your product photos as well.

one piece of art can become two pieces of content and you can really stretch one piece of art out into multiple posts as well.

There really are a lot of different ways that you can keep up that schedule if you need to, if you feel the need to do so. I think the idea of new art every day is so bad. It's bad for your little artist's soul. So if you can ever move away from that, I would highly, highly recommend it.

I think the idea of new art every day is so bad. It's bad for your little artist's soul. So if you can ever move away from that, I would highly, highly recommend it.

Yes. Just mildly unsustainable. And like you said, it's bad for the creative soul in a way if you are feeling rushed or like you can't spend the time to just explore or to really hone your craft or you feel like you can't venture into something that takes longer.

There are people who paint things that take days and months and years to finish. And if you were trying to post that every day, you'd be like, “oh, I can't do that.” But if you just let yourself think “I can actually spend the time on this work. Maybe I just need to document my progress every day or some other aspect of it to spread that out as a great approach.”

Absolutely. It takes a little bit of planning on your part to make sure that you have the backed up content, if daily posting or even schedule posting is what you wanna do, but it's entirely achievable. It's worth a little bit of planning, I promise.

It takes a little bit of planning on your part to make sure that you have the backed up content, if daily posting or even schedule posting is what you wanna do, but it's entirely achievable. It's worth a little bit of planning, I promise.

Yeah, definitely. It's obviously worked for you because you have 115,000 followers on Instagram, 187.5k on TikTok, 30,000 on Twitter. What has helped you to grow your audience that much and to venture into TikTok when that launched? What has been your strategy or your approach to growing your audience?

It's not especially complex, I would say. I don't have an eight point strategy that I can share. I have made the active decision to roll the dice every day and just show up, Even if it's not my best work or anything, just be consistent, be disciplined. This is my full-time job and I take it very seriously despite, you know, my, my little goofs that I share all around the internet.

I don't have an eight point strategy that I can share. I have just made the active decision to roll the dice every day and show up, Even if it's not my best work or anything, just be consistent, be disciplined.

That's my core of what I would recommend to everyone ‘cause I know a lot of people get a bit dejected looking at numbers, the algorithm, and engagement. I make the active decision to not do that. I try to disengage myself from the numbers as much as possible, ‘cause at the end of the day, I can't do a lot to change how those numbers roll in or roll out. I would much, much rather focus my energy on just creating the art. That's what I'm here for in the first place. And if people enjoy that, then extra bonus for me.

I try to disengage myself from the numbers as much as possible, ‘cause at the end of the day, I can't do a lot to change how those numbers roll in or roll out. I would much, much rather focus my energy on just creating the art. That's what I'm here for in the first place. And if people enjoy that, then extra bonus for me.

But as far as more specific things, for Instagram at least, it's always just those few little viral posts that managed to, by some miracle end up on the explore page or get that crazy traction. I've had a few reels that you know get a few million views, which is just insane. But from there you get potentially a bump of 10,000 followers. And it's the same thing that you've been doing for the past two months or something. But this one post, you just got lucky. You timed it right, had a seven second clip and it went well.

I found, at least for TikTok, a lot of my followers came from a water illustration tutorial, which once again, I made on a whim. I didn't expect it to do particularly well. It did very particularly well. It was a bit of a thing, which was fun. And from there, it was like 50,000, 60,000 or something on TikTok. Nuts. Absolutely insane. So I, I haven't really made many tutorials since then. I would like to do them in the future, but you do the best you can.

And there are so many people sharing tips and tricks on how to game the algorithm and make your content elevate to the next level or whatever, which you can pretty easily find on, on each respective platform.

But at the end of the day, I find just showing up, I try to do every weekday at this point and give the weekends a little bit of a break when possible. But yeah, just consistency ‘cause you really never know which one is gonna be the banger.

Sometimes you have a post that you think is gonna be incredible and then it does lukewarm at best. And you have to be able to roll with those punches and keep going regardless. That will help you more than anything else.

Sometimes you have a post that you think is gonna be incredible and then it does lukewarm at best. And you have to be able to roll with those punches and keep going regardless. That will help you more than anything else.

Yeah, absolutely. And just knowing that it's not necessarily that that post was bad or that people don't like that piece of art. It just is what it is. It's just how the platforms work and you just have to, like you said, keep showing up. Keep just focusing on doing the work. It'll happen.

It's nothing personal. At the end of the day, it's nothing personal. If your stuff doesn't do well, it's just that algorithms unfortunately don't have feelings. Try not to take it to heart and just keep going. That's all you can do.

Exactly. You've done some pretty cool collaborations that I've seen. You did some one recently doing a sneaker collaboration with the tribe where you were drawing on sneakers. How have those brand collaborations come about?

It's been, I would say, a hundred percent from my social media and just me naturally putting myself out there, over and over again.

They'll send me an email or send me a DM. Nine times out of 10 they’ll be the ones putting the feelers out and being like, "Hey, we have this idea. We think you'd be a great fit for it. What do you think?" And then if I have the time and if I think it's a good match or a good use of my time and resources, then you keep rolling the ball from there. You don't have to say an absolute yes so you can ask for more information and see if it's a good fit. It's usually very organic. People will come to me for that kind of stuff.

I do feel bad not saying yes to every single one, but I do have people pleasing tendencies that I have to squash down into my little box and just make sure I’m not saying yes and overloading myself.

The ones that I've said yes to have all been like really, really cool partnerships and I think I've learned a lot from every single one of them. They've been great. Worth the effort for sure.

I am with you on being like a people pleaser. I'm terrible at saying no or have been in the past. One of the things that I learned or someone said to me that helped me was, "A no from me means a yes for someone else." So I, I say no to something that means another creative gets to do that thing, or another artist gets to do it. So that makes me feel a little bit better about saying no.

Oh, I'm gonna take that and I'm gonna run with it for the rest of my life.

It makes you feel like a great person. Like, no, I'm giving everyone else a chance to be their beautiful, resplendent selves. Pass on the good vibes. I love that.

Exactly. What do you think is the biggest lesson that you have learned about branding your passion?

Ooh, that's an interesting question. I would say for me personally, the biggest lesson is it's okay to change a certain part of your visual branding throughout your cute little journey or whatever.

I have changed my personal online name, once at least with my Instagram. As far as visual style, if you scroll back far enough in my Instagram feed, you can see that I've picked some things up and I've definitely let some things go.

It's okay to make those changes. I don't think a soul has come up to me and said “the inconsistencies, I can't believe it! I can't believe you're not running with this one colour palette that you loved two years ago. Unsubscribed, unfollowed, blocked” or whatever.

If you don't try, you don't know if those things are going to work for you or not in the long term. So even if you don't have that 100% perfect vision of what you want your brand to be, just make something and then tweak it as you go along. I promise that's way better than not making it at all because it's not perfect in your eyes. Just give it a go. That's all you need to do.

Even if you don't have that 100% perfect vision of what you want your brand to be, just make something and then tweak it as you go along. I promise that's way better than not making it at all because it's not perfect in your eyes.

That's such a good lesson. I'm a big advocate and I teach a lot of my clients the same thing. People feel like they have to be locked into their brand forever and ever and ever. And they make this one decision now and they're never gonna be able to change it. But you are a human. You are gonna change, you should change and evolve and grow and learn and your brand should do the same thing to make sure that you feel like your brand reflects you and you feel comfortable showing up under that brand.

I'm glad you're on the same page. I think it was Burberry or something has done a really solid rebrand recently, fully changing their logo, bringing back the more old school visual style that they had a hundred years ago or something. So if a giant fashion company like that can do a very significant visual rebrand, you can do it too. It's okay.

Absolutely. What piece of advice do you think you would give to other creatives who are wanting to brand their passion?

Don't care about it being perfect. Just give it a go. Solid piece of advice. Will stand by that until I die.

Don't care about it being perfect. Just give it a go.

Also, it's good to take a second to look at your overall visual catalog of what you create and even what you personally enjoy as an artisan, as a human being and kind of.

Even dot point down a few like key things that really tie your art and what you love together. Whether it's a certain style that you like to add to your illustrations. Say you love crosshatching or something–it wouldn't work for me, but it would work for another artist a hundred percent if that's something that they use as a constant visual cue in their artwork.

It's very helpful to have key colours, a certain typeface that you can use consistently throughout your branding. And then those little visual elements that you can put into advertising for shop updates or events that you're doing.

I kind of semi-recently started doing this dotted sort of sketched line thing. I had never done it before and then I tried it one time and I was like, “that's really cute!” And then I've just kept doing it consistently. It's become a part of my, my visual toolbox.

So if you can find those few core little things that you can keep repurposing and using in different ways, that's going to make your overall branding experience so much easier and go so much more naturally.

if you can find those few core little things that you can keep repurposing and using in different ways, that's going to make your overall branding experience so much easier.

Incredible. Multiple pieces of incredible advice!

Thank you so much. I'm sure that everybody listening will love that advice and hopefully take it on board and it will help them to create a brand as great as yours.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you so much to Renata for joining me on this episode of Brand Your Passion - I LOVED this conversation and I hope you did too. Her visuals, socials and commitment to showing up has me totally blown away and I cannot wait to keep learning more from her.

For even more inspo, make sure to hang out with Renata on Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok, and treat yourself or a friend to a piece of her work from her Etsy shop!

‍