I’m a huge supporter of enriching your creative hobbies with online learning, both free and paid, and today I want to talk about my experience with free options. I’ve had some great experiences that include learning how to watercolor and the ins and outs of Procreate.  I’ve had some smarmy experiences as well.   While I won’t list off the bad classes I’ve taken or the teachers that taught them.  I will say that if your free classes is basically an advertisement to get me to buy the VIP access to the course you’ve done nothing to earn my money.  Let’s talk about some excellent resources I’ve found and the great people I’ve learned from: Very Pink Knits - This is my go to for leaning anything related to knitting, it’s rare that Staci won’t have a tutorial on whatever I’m trying to learn. Let’s Make Art - Sarah’s weekly Youtube tutorials taught me how to watercolor without making me feel like I needed fancy supplies. Paul Clark - Another MVP in the world of watercolo...

Oh the rabbit trails I’ve traipsed down. Some were great until they burned out…handmade cards. Some are still running wild in the woods…sticker designs.  I touched on sticker design in the Cups of Joy post , which tickled an idea in my brain, read to the end to find out about the idea.  First humor me, and get in the way back machine to take a wander back six years; to a conversation over a gift shop counter in a small town in Alaska. If you’ve been around for a hot minute you’ve heard me mention my friend Piper, who fed the monster that became the handmade card business. We’ve put that monster out to plaster, but if you wanna read that story you can check out this post .   Today we’re here for the sticker story and the influence Piper played in the fun I have designing stickers.   The sticker journey started with a one question in a casual conversation one afternoon… “Have you about making stickers?”   I know I looked at her like she had three heads.  M...

In addition to the bouquet study I did in February I also created a few other collage experiments. One of the things I love about Procreate and digital design is the ability to create a piece and then take remove layers to create a second and maybe even third design. Cups of Joy turned into one of these types of pieces. Cups of Joy - Original The original piece is an experiment with laying elements of texture and color to create a finished collage. With watercolored cups, bits of old paper and washi tape layers on textured paper.  Stamped rings to lead the view to imagine the inspiration for the cups leaving the marks as the art was created. I really love the brightness of this pieces and all the juicy textures that were created in the layers. Cups of Joy - Version Two In version two, i removed some of the old paper bit, work with the idea of a possible sticker design. I pulled out a couple of the collage layers to create an effect that the washi was holding the sticker in p...

Here we are at the end of February and the end of my clip art bouquet study. I’ve really enjoyed challenging myself with these and will be doing more immersive challenges like this in the future. Before we talk about what next let’s talk about Bouquet #8. Bouquet #8 Inspiration for Bouquet #8 was all about the color palette and the textures of  this mixed media piece .  I was really drawn to the color palette with the rusty oranges and denim blues.  The textures on the papers the creator used for the collage were also very intriguing.  I wanted to see if I could create similar textures in a digital format.  The other half of my inspiration for this piece came from my own work.  I really loved the end result of Bouquet #5 with paper layering techniques and wanted to create another pieces with a similar look on a rough texture background.  I’ll definitely be creating a series with this style, so watch for that.   What’s next?  My plan is to ...

I have no concrete inspiration that sparked this idea, but once it came I had to run with it. I was intrigued by the idea of a newsprint background with bold flowers and limited pops of color.  What’s more classic than black and white with a bold pop of red? Bouquet #7 In my brain the red was going to be the only pop of color, that pop of color was going to be the flowers, but I loved the look of the outlines on the print so much I couldn’t bring myself to color them red. Enter the bold red vase.  Once I had a bold red vase, it looked out of balance somehow.  I needed more weight to balance the bouquet.  Leaves were gonna be a must.  They didn’t look quite right in black, so they had to be green to complement the red.  For further composition balance I added the little flecks of yellow.  In the end this bouquet became all about the texture, with bold pops of color to for balance..   Bouquet #8 will be the final bouquet of the month…will I stop th...

If you’ve been around long enough to travel the card making journey you’ll understand why I was drawn to the inspiration for this bouquet . Not only does it have some paper piece ig hallmarks, they’ve been watercolored. What’s not to love about that kind of inspiration.  The color palette is full of muted almost pastel colors and the text backgrounds is heaven.     Bouquet #6 For this creation I used the skills I learned in the advent calendar class to watercolor the cup, using brushes from Brush with Bree .  The background canvas texture is from Alaina Jensen , with the cup text and some of the florals coming from the Brushes App and Kelly Burke .   I had fun play with the contents of the cup, since it’s a bouquet I filled my cup with a lovely ocean blue color to lead the eye into water for the flowers. Bouquet #7 will lead you a bit farther into my imagination…see you over there.

Limited color palettes come naturally to me.  When I saw this inspiration piece  I was attracted to the many textures and patterns and drawn in by the many shades of green.  I was intrigued by the layers of patterned paper, but knew I’d have to put my own spin of the vase and flowers, I wanted a bolder vase with more delicate flowers, almost a derided flower arrangement look. Bouquet #5 The brushes that gave me the amazing paper textures in this pice came from Always Be Coloring and Les Frolova .  Since learning to use layers and blend modes I’ve  opened up more possibilities for adding texture and depth in my digital art. Bouquet #6 was inspired by my roots in paper crafting and card making…I’ll see you then.