My new goal is to start posting my latest drawings on my blog every month.
Some months, I don’t draw at all. That’s life. But this May, that was not the case. I took a few Skillshare classes that really helped me feel more comfortable concepting and creating digital illustrations.
Here are a couple I would recommend:
Fun with Faces by Charly Clements
Boldly Design with Color and Shape by Olimpia Zagnoli
Learn to Use Procreate by Jarom Vogel
I really appreciate these teachers sharing their process and advice. I’ve also learned a ton from the designers I work with at Superhuman everyday. If I didn’t work with graphic designers, I’d probably have a completely different (read: worse) style. Follow the Superhuman designers here.
This was part of the Fun with Faces Skillshare challenge. Charly shares a prompt for every day of the week and people interpret it in their own way. This one called for short hair and an animal. That’s gonna be a corgi from me, dog.
Another prompted drawing involving polka dots and bangs. I had fun playing with abstract shapes and negative space.
This one was about wavy hair and freckles, so I played with a sort of punk rock Little Mermaid vibe.
This prompt wanted a vintage outfit and hat. When I searched “vintage outfit” on Pinterest, everything was 90’s inspired. Apparently my childhood is vintage. I went for a windbreaker and MTV trucker hat, plus crimped hair.
Sunglasses and a leather coat. Added a Wayne’s World shirt cuz, zang.
Just a fun corgi drawing. I love drawing animals but I’m trying to play with doing so in a more minimalistic style.
Abstract art has never been in my comfort zone. But I LOVE seeing how the designers I work with create patterns using natural shapes and vibrant colors. This was my attempt to do so.
I love crazy fur coats, so I wanted to draw someone rocking a pink one.
Creating backgrounds for portraits has really challenged me. I love drawing people and animals, and really not much else. But making these has been fun, and shown me that I can pull it off! I’m really happy with how this one turned out.
This is just a goofy drawing of a cat I saw in Greece. I’m trying to use my own photos more as inspiration.
Another funky cat drawing.
This girl has rich lady golf course vibes. Not sure if that’s what I was going for, but that’s how it turned out!
Playing with simplicity and abstraction.
This was actually based on a bowl of carrots I took a photo of. Do you see it?
Another abstracted drawing of some tulips I saw on a walk with Josie.
I’m definitely a realist when it comes to drawing portraits, so this cartoon style is a challenge for me, but I enjoyed it. Definitely an area I want to get more comfortable with in the future.
I drew my mom for Mother’s Day. So happy with how this captured her lovely face and generous spirit.
Olimpia Zagnoli encourages self-portraits as a way to expand your style. Not my go-to, necessarily, but I had fun with this one. I just liked a photo I took of myself, so I brought it to life using a simple color palette.
This was inspired by a TV character who I thought looked cool in a face mask.
Wanted to draw some of my fave beauty products but use fake copy on the labels. I also like drawing products, but they’re not quite as fun as people and animals.
This was early in the month. I can definitely see how I grew from here over the past 30 days.
I think this is my favorite drawing I made this month. I realized I love drawing women whose hair is big and bold and is its own presence in the artwork. It was also when I started getting comfier with patterns.
I’m about done with the 7-day challenge, so we’ll see if I draw as much in June. I already have a couple in the hopper I’m excited about though.
I’ve really started to appreciate that portrait drawing involves many skills. For example:
–Styling: What is the person wearing? You have to hunt through different shirts, earrings and patterns to design an outfit, hairstyle, makeup look, etc.
–Color theming: Designing a color scheme for each portrait is tricky. Sometimes I take inspiration from pieces I like, other times I fly free and hope it looks good.
–Deciding on a level of abstraction: How many lines and features do you add or leave out? This is what I’m really working on, as a former realist.
-General concepting: What are you trying to say? What elements of life do you want to bring together to represent a person?
–When are you done? This is the hardest question. I think in a lot of artwork before, I kept going and going, far past the point of showing the humanity and process that people like to see in artwork.
I hope sharing this helps others who are working on improving their drawing, too!