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It’s easy to look at an artist you admire and assume they’ve always known everything about everything — that they somehow came out of the womb holding a paintbrush in one hand and the perfect palette of paint in the other.
Trust me, I used to think the same thing.
I used to think that because I wasn’t Picasso from the get-go I wasn’t talented enough to do it EVER. That I should just pack it in and try something else.
Then I started to learn the real secrets to art success: Practice. And process.
You can practice on your own all day every day. But the process … well, how do you learn the process?
That’s why I signed up for a Skillshare account, to get the behind-the-scenes scoop from the artists themselves.
I love that my favorite artists in the field seem to be sharing their processes here, and that I can watch each course fairly quickly (seriously, you can increase the speed of the video! I watch at 1.5x) and implement what I’ve learned WHILE I’m watching.
Here are five of my must-watch creative process Skillshare courses.
1. From Paper to Screen: Digitally Editing Your Artwork in Photoshop
I’m a huge fan of Cat Coquillette‘s watercolors and line art. I highly recommend following her on Instagram to see how she lives the nomadic artist lifestyle all around the world. It’s truly inspiring!
She has several Skillshare courses where she expounds on different aspects of her business, and this course is one of them.
I enjoy watching how she edits her artwork for print-on-demand sites and changes her color palettes. It’s all very relatable, as is she.
2. Graphic Illustration: Boldly Design with Color and Shape
Speaking of artist crushes, it doesn’t get more fangirlish than my love for Olimpia Zagnoli.
Her bold, colorful illustrations are inspiration for me every time I draw and paint (including when I made this coffee girl art), so I loved this course because I could see the creative process behind it all.
The most interesting parts of this course are hearing Olimpia’s view on colors and watching her select a color palette.
Don’t forget: If you want to check out any of these creative process courses on Skillshare, you can do so for free using this 2-month free link.
3. Expressive Illustration: From Ideas to Execution
Before I set out to be an entrepreneur, I had a career as a magazine designer. I art directed editorial illustrations and worked with many talented artists to make these illustrations come to life.
Of the huge arsenal of great editorial artists out there, there were only a handful who made the “conceptual” short list — meaning that if we, the art team, were coming up short on ideas for the illustration, we could trust these artists to come up with some brilliant concepts for us.
In this course, illustrator Roman Muradov details a method of conceptual illustration that goes through several layers of word association. Gotta tell you, it’s extremely satisfying to watch his process.
4. Pattern Play: Combining Illustrator and Photoshop
Dylan Mierzwinski may be my favorite Skillshare teacher ever.
She has a range of excellent art courses, including this one where she teaches how to create a pattern using both Illustrator and Photoshop (this happens to be my favorite method, too!).
Her teaching style is incredibly intuitive, and she explains things in detail so they’re easy to follow (even while watching at 1.5x).
5. Intro to 3D Lettering in Procreate
Back when Procreate was a newborn iPad app, I first heard about it from Teela Cunningham, letterer extraordinaire.
She also has a lot of great Skillshare courses to check out. This one is perfect for beginning letterers or letterers who are looking to pack more punch via shadowing.
Not only does she give you one easy shadowing method for the Procreate app … she gives you something like seven or eight!
Don’t forget: If you want to check out any of these creative process courses on Skillshare, you can do so for free using this 2-month free link.
