There’s no casual way to start this blog, other than stating the fact: we’re all going to be home for a long while due to Covid-19. If you’re reading this and it’s not Spring 2020, I hope the world is now a better place. But for now, while we all practice social distancing and staying at home, let’s take advantage of our time at home and learn something new! My goal is to learn 8 new skills in 8 weeks.
I did something like this a few years back, but I did a new skill every month. Those all involved much more human interaction (Glass Blowing, Wood Working, Snow Shoeing) so instead, I’m taking on smaller skills I can do at home. Lucky for me, I have plenty of random craft supplies at home, and a list of projects I want to try.
This first week I took on Digital Illustration with the help of a class from Brit + Co. I signed up for a 7-day trial of Adobe Illustrator and had some fun.
Here’s my illustration from the class. I learned how to create layers over an image, adding details and using basic tools in Illustrator. My goal for this challenge was to be able to create a digital portrait of Ollie using the techniques I learned in the class.
For my portrait of Ollie I picked a photo where the details of his face were clear and had a flattering angle. I realized that most of my photos of him are of him being crazy and are usually blurry. But I really like this photo of him from last year:
He’s super cute here and I really like the color of the photo. I worked on his portrait over a few days and I couldn’t get the sheet right, so I ended up just doing him and the bed. Shout out to my friend Carolyn for giving me all the constructive feedback and helping me with this. I know it’s not perfect, but I’m super happy with how it turned out considering this was my first project:
I have so much more respect for digital artists now – I was just tracing a photo and it was hard. The talent artists have to create images from just their imagination is amazing. If you’re interested in taking the class, Brit + Co is offering all of their classes for free through the end of March with the code “SELFCARE”.
Next week I’m taking on watercolor!
Minted Bold 