What Have You Learned Lately: Online Creative Class Round Up

Over the past two-ish years, I have become obsessed with taking online classes to learn new design and craft skills. As you may know, I never attended any kind of design school (apart from a few basic classes in my Journalism undergrad). Through the years, I was always on the hunt for various art classes, but I could never find the time or motivation to actually go to an in-person class.

But lately I've been noticing a huge crop of new design and craft classes, led by some of my very very favorite artists, cropping up all over! I've dipped my toe in the water here and there, but I wanted to briefly share my experience with the classes I've taken in case anyone else out there has any interest. So here goes!

I Still Love Calligraphy with Melissa Esplin

This was one of the first classes I took back in 2012. At the time I paid $99 plus materials (paper, ink, pen, nibs). Currently the class is $130 and includes materials, and I believe she has been updating her videos and content since then. My favorite part about this class was getting feedback directly from Melissa and the structured practice exercises. I have to admit that I haven't kept up with my pointed-pen practice, but this class really improved my understanding and appreciation of hand lettering. See more...

Pattern Camp with Jessica Swift

This class probably had the MOST impact on me in terms of learning technical skills that I now use all the time to create repeating patterns. I have admired Jess for a long time (and also took her Declaration of You class). I met her at a craft fair once in DC and was completely, ridiculously, embarressingly star struck.

Anyways, Pattern Camp is a great overview on how to make repeating patterns in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. I paid $130 for the class and it was worth EVERY PENNY (I believe prices have rightfully gone up but Jess is regularly running specials so check her blog! Worth it!). I already had a copy of Illustrator/Photoshop so I didn't have to pay additional for that.

The videos walk you through each step from concept to creation, and it was great even if you've never used the software in the past. This class offered the option to go through it "live" during a specific weekend which I highly recommend. Jess and my classmates' real time feedback through the Facebook group and webcasts was extremely helpful and generally made me feel like a rockstar. See more...

Design, Carve, Print with Jen Hewett

Jen is another artist that I've been stalking admiring for many years, so when she opened up a new online block printing class I waited less than five minutes to sign up for $99. Like Pattern Camp, this class offered and "live" option, which again, was so much fun which some great teacher/class interaction.

I had tried block printing before but Jen's class really helped me improve my efforts and understand the right materials to use, particularly on fabric. I tried my hand at printing a full yard of fabric to make a tote bag, and also combined several of my block prints with my digital skills to turn out some pretty fun digital patterns. See more...

Creative Bug Fabric Design with Heather Ross, Lizzy House & Denise Schmidt

Creative Bug is a subscription site that I signed up for in March in order to watch their fabric design class co-sponsored by Spoonflower. It's only $4.95/month which seems like a ridiculous steal for the amount of classes and content.

The Fabric Design class was really good in learning more about the artistic process that these three amazing designers use in developing their fabric collections. I really loved their personal stories and seeing how there really was no "right" way to do things. I think it was less helpful in the technical department (where Pattern Camp really excelled), but for $4.95, I enjoyed it immensely. See more...

Creative Bug Drawing & Illustration Basics with Heather Ross

Following the Fabric Design class, I also started watching the Drawing & Illustration Basics class taught by Heather Ross who seems like another person I want to be best friends with (sorry if that is creepy). This class touched on sketching and painting everyday objects and creating conversational artwork. Heather's style isn't exactly the same as mine, but I loved trying something different. Her mantra that everyone can draw was really empowering because I have often felt that I couldn't draw "things that look like things." See more...

Lynda.com Adobe Illustrator Essential Training

Finally, the last class I'll talk about was on Lynda.com. This was another subscription, about $40/month. The site, which was recently purchased by LinkedIn, is geared more towards career development vs. hobbyists, but this class was really helpful and in depth. It definitely gave me a great foundation and more confidence in working with Illustrator which I had never used before.

All in all, I hope to keep jumping in to these classes and would love more recommendations if you know of any. I love learning new skills and techniques and really hope that more artists will be sharing their passions through this type of setting in the future!

Here comes the snow and block printing (unrelated thoughts)

We're expecting some snow in D.C. which kind of stinks because 1. I dislike snow and 2. I was supposed to go to NYC on Wednesday... so we'll see how that goes. But, I've been waiting for an appropriate weather system to come through to finally share this:

Another technique from Pattern Camp applied to a painting I did back in 2010 during D.C.'s famed Snowpocalypse.

In addition, next weekend I'm taking Jen Hewett's Design, Carve, Print online class to learn more about hand printing fabrics. I've been going through all our previous forays in to block printing and found this fun bike Kevin had made. So I whipped that up into a repeat digitally:

For as much as I dislike snow, I'm actually working on another series of snow related patterns (go figure) so come back for that and for the results of our block printing efforts! Happy snow shoveling!

Llama Llama Llama

In the progression of my pattern design dabbling, I decided the next step was to try to put together a coordinated collection of patterns.

Since I started out with the Fancy Camel, the obvious next step was a llama I doodled a few months ago. I started a Pinterest board, and found lots of textiles, carvings and artwork from South America for inspiration. I did a page of hand-drawn doodles and got started...

Lots of colors, lots going on... it was a pretty great starting point. Unfortunately I had to do the whole thing twice because of my Illustrator novice, but then came the llamas!

I ended up making five different patterns total and varied them up with different colors from the same color schemes and some similar hand-drawn shapes.

My husband declared the this one looked like Christmas trees so at least its seasonally appropriate? Finally here's the whole shebang together:

My very favorites were the circles. Particularly the dark blue and white (obviously my favorites colors if you've ever seen this blog or my closet before).

All in all, it was more good practice figuring out what worked and what didn't work. I think the biggest lesson for me from this was really to take my time. As previously confessed, I have a tendency to rush something on to the page and call it "good enough," but never actually be happy with it.

I'm not saying all of these patterns turned out perfectly, but I really learned that taking my time with layout, spacing, colors, etc. really brought out a better result... (I know, I know, duh). I was overall please with the result and proud how far of come since some of my early self-taught efforts :)

Big upgrade and more from Pattern Camp

Since Pattern Camp in October, I have been practicing like crazy! You wouldn't know it though from the lack of updates and sharing. I have a pretty short attention span, so I have the habit of quickly whipping things up, then thinking, "oh, I'll go back and perfect this later before putting it on the interwebs." I'm sure you can guess what happens next...

BUT THEN my 6-year-old laptop died. I was pretty devastated that I had lost all of those "just practice" files. So after they were rescued and a new MacBook Pro was purchased, I decided to just go ahead and put 'em out there... perfect or not.

I made the above during Pattern Camp. It's originally this q-tip painting I did a few years ago, turned in to a repeating pattern.

Just a random recent doodle put in to repeat.

Another one from Pattern Camp. It was a little rushed but I was pretty happy with it.

So there you have it. I probably have a dozen more practice pieces so I'll share some more soon!

And can I just say how nice it is to have a computer that doesn't completely melt down when I'm running Photoshop and Illustrator at the same time?! It's a Thanksgiving miracle!!!

Guys, I'm So Fancy

I really haven't made any patterns in a whiiile. Mainly because I felt like I was always "doing it wrong." I knew there had to be an easier way! So I gave up...

But then I heard that Jessica Swift (I'm a documented fan girl, sorry) was hosting an online class on pattern design I immediately signed up!

Because I'm an overachiever, I took a class on Lynda.com on Illustrator to prep. Then I jumped in and spent the weekend with a group of very talented people (like, real designers) learning how to make patterns in Illustrator and Photoshop.
I decided to base my first attempts off this picture of a very fancy camel I found on Pinterest (here's my whole mood board). Mainly because I did a sketch of a camel last week soooo, yeah.

Above is one of my first attempts to make something a little complex. It looks so different that anything I've ever done so I was pretty happy with it.

Another pattern with a flower I drew on the tablet in a diamond layout.

This was definitely my favorite from my camel patterns in a half-drop repeat (don't I sound like I know what I'm doing!). I don't love the spiky boogers, but otherwise, pretty excited.

At any rate, definitely feeling pumped about this direction and will keep posting more! Super grateful to Jessica for sharing her passion for color and patterns (and answering all my crazy questions over the weekend). I'm totally making myself a camel cell phone cover ;o)