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Recommendations: Art and Design Classes & Tutorials

Art and Design Tutorial Recommendations

Today I want to share some art tutorial recommendations. The Alchemical freebie is still on the way, but progress has slowed slightly because I started a new day job, so please bear with me. (You can checkout Alchemical Design Resources in the meantime to see the style of the designs.) I’m a couple of months into my new day job and although there is a lot of info and stuff to learn, I’m really liking it so far and my co-workers are all lovely.

The real point of this post is to share a few creative classes and tutorials I’ve watched lately, across both Skillshare and YouTube. Because I watch a lot of classes I’m only hand-picking the ones I’ve found particularly useful for my own business, but I highly recommend searching for classes that suit your needs if these aren’t quite what you’re after. It’s amazing how much knowledge and how many skills are available these days and I know it can be overwhelming!

Note: Please bear in mind that Skillshare is subscription-based while the YouTube videos should be available for free.

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Grab your Free Social Media Templates

Freebies now available

I’m really excited to share a handful of new free social media templates that are available on my Freebies page! These designs are based on some of my best-selling digital products, and they are free for you to use (for personal use) on your Instagram or Pinterest pages.

Check back often for new designs, templates and graphics for your personal use.

  • Celestial Instagram Story Templates – 7 unique celestial designs in a warm-neutral colour palette.
  • Summer Party Themed Instagram Story Templates – 7 unique designs in bright, summertime colours.
  • Occult Themed Pinterest Pin Templates – 4 moody arcane designs in two different sizes (regular and tall).

Keep reading to see previews of each set, or head straight to my Freebies page to download.

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Prints and Merchandise on Society6

Prints and merchandise at my new Society6 store

New announcement: you can now find physical products and merchandise on Society6 featuring my designs. I’ve wanted to open a print shop for such a long time, but I could never find the time to set up properly. Well, this weekend I finally set up my store and added a number of designs. Product ranges include:

  • Home decor and soft furnishings
  • Apparel and accessories
  • Tech accessories
  • Office equipment
  • Prints and wall art
  • Outdoor and lifestyle

… all created specifically for my new shop. I’ve spent the past couple of days hand-picking and uploading some of my favourite hand-drawn art (most of it was made in Procreate on the iPad Pro). This stuff is not available in my digital design products and is entirely unique to Society6. That might change in the future, but for now I’m keeping it exclusive. Prints include seamless patterns and beautiful motifs.

If you’ve never heard of Society6, it’s a print-on-demand site that allows artists to sell their designs on a range of different physical products. They handle the printing, shipping and customer service, but if there are any designs or concepts you’d really like to see on physical products drop me a message and I’ll see if it’s something that would fit my collection.

Big shout out to Cat Coquillette whose Skillshare class Building a Career in Illustration: Explore Print-on-Demand | Learn with Society6 motivated me to get my butt in gear.

Visit my shop on Society6 for prints and merchandise featuring my designs

I’ve activated loads of different products and will add more designs on a regular basisโ€”check back often to see what’s new! (Don’t worry, I’ll also update here on the blog when new designs go live.) If you want to view more examples of what’s currently on offer in my print shop, keep reading…

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Design Tool | Alchemical Graphics

Most people associate alchemy with the philosophy and proto-science of transforming base metals such as iron into precious metals such as gold and silver. But it goes back a lot further than that, and there are other reasons why alchemists throughout the ages have obsessed over this arcane art. Alchemy is also believed to cure diseases and (most fancifully) lead to immortality. Can you imagine!

Alchemy as a philosophy has appealed to people throughout time. Immortality aside, don’t we all love the idea of being able to cure any disease? The gold thing is a nice material gain, sure, but the search for a healthier, longer life roots deeper in our collective consciousness and has done for centuries.

This has inspired my latest product, Alchemical, which you can find available now in my shop, at Creative Market, Design Bundles, The Hungry JPEG and Creative Fabrica. This product features many illustrated icons inspired by alchemy, plus a huge set of Photoshop brushes and ten gorgeous seamless patterns.

Learn more about Alchemical Design Resources here!

Read on to see previews of the product and learn more about how you can use these designs in your own projects. You can also check out my Instagram feed for ideas.

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Flodesk: The Best Email Marketing Platform

Flodesk: The Best Email Marketing Tool for Creatives

This post contains Affiliate Links. This means that I earn a small commission if you purchase through my links, at no additional cost to you. Please read my Affiliate Policy to find out more.

I recently switched my email marketing provider from MailChimp to Flodesk and I can honestly say I’ll never look back. There are a few reasons why I made the move and I wanted to share them with you, particularly if you’re a creative or provide some kind of product or service that you need to promote to an email list. While I’m still fairly new to Flodesk, setting up my account was incredibly easy and because I used a referral link I got a lifetime 50% off my subscription. You can get the same saving too! Just use the referral link in this post.

Now I’m not saying there is anything terrible about MailChimp (or other email marketing services), but I never felt that the platform was quite right for me. I struggled to get my emails looking exactly how I wanted, and I was limited on how many subscribers I could have before the price went up.

So without further ado, my top six reasons to choose Flodesk over other email marketing tools.

One monthly price (with a huge discount for referral customers)

You get unlimited subscribers, no price hike as your email list grows. You could have 10 subscribers or you could have 100,000 and you’ll still pay the same monthly price. And as I said above, if you use a referral link like this one you get a whopping 50% off your Flodesk account for life. This means that you will pay $19 for Flodesk each month, rather than the full price of $38 p/mo. This is an amazing bargain, especially when you look at what you get (and how beautiful the emails are!).

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Paper Crafts and Calligraphy at Home

Paper Crafts at Home Title

Paper crafts are a wonderful way to express yourself if you have artist’s block or you’re struggling to be productive. The first few months of 2021 were tough for me and mine and it really screwed with my creativity. My father had a small stroke back in February (he is OK now, thank goodness) and COVID continued to loom over us all. The European side of the company I worked for closed, and I was made redundant. I’m currently job hunting which can be a long process. None of these things could be helped, but it was important not to let them overwhelm me and prevent progression in other areas of life.

Usually when I struggle with creativity, the first thing I do is try something newโ€”whether it’s a course or class, a new art medium or just reading books and articles to pick up inspiration.

I chose three paper crafts to help me push through these uncertain times: watercolour painting, calligraphy and origami. You can start all of these at home and relatively cheaply. I also subscribed to Skillshare for its broad range of classes that will help me develop my skills. (You can find many free tutorials on YouTube and across the web, too!)

Bear in mind I am a true beginner in both watercolour and calligraphy and many of my early attempts are totally cringeworthy. ๐Ÿ˜Š Still, I’d like to share my progress here on the blog so people can see how easy it is to develop with a bit of dedication and practise. I’ll also provide links to resources if youโ€™re looking to try watercolour painting, calligraphy or other paper crafts.

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New Shop on Creative Fabrica

Recently I launched a new shop on Creative Fabrica and I wanted to talk a little about it, as it works slightly differently from my other shops on Creative Market, Design Bundles and The Hungry JPEG (and here on my website).

Creative Fabrica is a European start-up creative resources market launched in 2016. They pride themselves on having a unique business model compared to many other marketplaces out there, with a subscription-based service making up the majority of their user activity. They are also as equally geared toward physical crafts like embroidery and die cutting as digital design assets like illustrated graphics and fonts.

Visit my shop on Creative Fabrica here

Reasons to Love Creative Fabrica

The Craft Club – This is such an awesome idea. Basically, you can join the Craft Club and have access to your own personal designer. Aimed at people who want to create but don’t yet have the skills or software to make their own designs, your personal designer can tailor-make your vision and turn it into a reality. Designers take projects based on community votes, with the highest voted ideas prioritised.

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Creative Necessities | What Can’t You Live Without?

Blog Essential Creative Tools

Most artists and designers will have creative necessities that they just can’t live without. I’m curious to learn what other people use on a dailyโ€”or at least regularโ€”basis; those tools you depend on for your work and don’t think you can do without. They can range from hardware like computers and tablets, and software like programs and apps, to hand-drawing tools and must-have comfort items in your workspace. I’ll share my creative necessities below, with links, and I would love it if you shared yours! I am always searching for new tools and tips to make my day-to-day work more comfy and efficient.

Hardware & Software

  • iMac – This is my most important tool because even without any of the other stuff, I could still draw and create new products and artwork, share on social media and communicate with friends and family.
  • Adobe Creative Cloud – My second most important tool for creating. My main apps are Illustrator and Photoshop, but I occasionally use InDesign, Premiere Pro, Audition and After Effects.
  • iPad – Where I often sketch ideas and store products-in-development. All of my iPad sketches are rough and generally for my eyes only, but I love how easy it is to share artwork drawn on the iPad directly to websites and social media. The convenience is insane! Apple Pencil – Not a true necessity, but it makes drawing on the iPad a lot easier. As an addition, I’ll also add the Paperlike Screen Protector, which makes it feel like you’re drawing on actual paper.
  • Procreate – The app that I most use for drawing / creativity on a tablet.
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Creative Resource Recommendations | Part Two

Creative Resource Recommendations Part 2

This post contains Affiliate Links. This means that I earn a small commission if you purchase through my links, at no additional cost to you. Please read my Affiliate Policy to find out more.

Part two of my resource recommendations series. A while ago I posted a selection of products by other creators that I think you would like: Creative Resource Recommendations | Part One. Since then, many stunning products have launched and I have to share some of my favourites from what I’ve seen lately.

While I canโ€™t personally vouch for every single product, I will only share resources from designers and artists I know of and whose quality I trust. I will also only share resources from the marketplaces where I sell my own products (i.e. those I trust!).

Keep reading to discover my Creative Resource Recommendations (Part Two).

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Freebie | Summer Party Mini Graphics

Summer Party Freebie

To celebrate the launch of my latest product, Summer Party Graphics, I’m giving away a mini set of FREE resources for you to use in your personal projects. This freebie features six illustrations, two seamless patterns and one premade invitation / flyer template themed around summer parties and celebrations.

Files come in .ai, .eps and .png with transparent backgrounds so you can use them across a range of different media, from printed materials to social media and websites.

The download link will be in your welcome email (if you don’t see it, check your spam folder). Keep scrolling to see previews and ideas for how you can use Summer Party Mini. ๐Ÿ–ค

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