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May 2021

  • Watercolor Tutorial: How to Create Shadow Using Color Theory
    Teacher Illustration

    Watercolor Tutorial: How to Create Shadow Using Color Theory

    Learn the basics of using Color Theory to create shadow in watercolor for beginners, with Sarah Stokes Sarah Stokes is a watercolor artist based in Worcestershire, UK. Known for her animal paintings, she uses tone and shadow to create movement, definition, and texture in her work. When working with color like Sarah, Color Theory is a great tool to use as it illustrates the relationship between primary, secondary, and tertiary colors and how to use them together. The color theory tells us that by adding a complementary color to a base color, we can create a darker, more neutral shade, and dull the original base color down. This new shade can then be used to aid composition, depth, and balance when applied as a color to create shadow. In this beginner's tutorial, Sarah Stokes explains how to use a color wheel to find the complementary color to your base color, and how to create a muddier version of this shade to add shadow.

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  • Free Guide: Basics of Composition in Photography
    Teacher Photography

    Free Guide: Basics of Composition in Photography

    Do you want to learn how to best arrange the elements of a photograph to capture the best shot? Check out this guide In photography, as much as in other art forms, capturing the perfect shot requires a good subject that can tell a story and some fundamental skills: one of these skills is getting the right composition. Photojournalist and documentary filmmaker Giulia Candussi (@giulia_candussi) can teach you how to take high-quality photos that can convey your unique vision. One of the essential skills is knowing how to guide the viewer’s gaze towards the most salient elements of your image; in other words, using adequate composition.

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  • 13 Free Tutorials for Creating at Home Using DIY Techniques
    Craft

    13 Free Tutorials for Creating at Home Using DIY Techniques

    From printing techniques to ceramics, these tutorials will get you creating with your hands These DIY tutorials invite you to take a break from the screen and try out different handmade techniques. From printing techniques to ceramics, you’re sure to find an activity that inspires you to turn your home into a crafts studio for the rest of the day. Our top experts will share top tips and guide you through their professional yet easy-to-follow processes. Give it a try! Ceramic Tutorial: How to make a rock-shaped flower pot from clay Rocks come in all shapes and sizes and can be a great source of inspiration. Xènia Bas (@xenia_bas) is a ceramic artist and co-founder of Bas, a ceramic workshop in Barcelona. She believes that a clay pot not only provides a home for your plant, but has the power to enhance its beauty. In this tutorial, Xènia guides us through moulding our own rock-shaped clay pot by hand, and shares tips to create the perfect finish.

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  • 4 Best E-commerce Platforms for Your Business
    Marketing

    4 Best E-commerce Platforms for Your Business

    Discover the best platforms available for your business with a little help from top experts Choosing the right e-commerce platform to best serve your business requires some basic knowledge of what is on offer. Ellie Rivers (@ellie_rivers) is a London-based e-commerce and digital marketing consultant who has been helping small business owners and major brands develop tailored e-commerce and digital marketing strategies for over twelve years. In her Domestika course, she guides you through creating your own efficient and professional online business and makes some informed recommendations so you can make the right decision. Read on to discover different available options and how you can decide which one is the best for your brand or business.

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  • How to Combine Watercolor and Oil to Get the Best Results
    PLUS Teacher Illustration

    How to Combine Watercolor and Oil to Get the Best Results

    Ale Casanova explains how to improve your creations by combining watercolor and oil painting techniques Ale Casanova (@casanova_ale) is a painter and teacher with a degree in fine art. He works mainly with oil paints and watercolor to create striking portraits and nudes. His work has been exhibited in cities across Spain and Europe and has enabled him to build a career as a teacher, carry out workshops around Spain, and develop a technique where color and light become focal points in his paintings. In this exclusive tutorial for the PRO community, Ale challenges what we have always been told: we shouldn’t mix watercolor paints with oil paints given that they are oil- and water-based. He shows us how to combine these seemingly opposing techniques. How? Using an intermediary element. The painter guides us through his process so that we too can mix these techniques and use them to our advantage, no matter our level. He shares tips and helps us to discover new uses for our paints that will give us unexpected results.

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  • Free E-Book: 100 Creative illustrations By Weberson Santiago
    Teacher Illustration

    Free E-Book: 100 Creative illustrations By Weberson Santiago

    ArtBook features vibrant designs by an illustrator who specializes in children’s illustration Aside from lots of practice, illustration is a creative process that requires a vast library of references and influences. It is only then that an illustrator will be able to develop their own style and succeed in capturing our attention with lines and colors. Weberson Santiago (@webersonsantiago) is an illustrator, writer, and teacher who has published several projects and books for children since the beginning of his career. He has worked with major Brazilian and Portuguese publishers, as well as Veja magazine and Folha de S.Paulo newspaper.

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  • 10 Female Geeks Who Changed History
    Design

    10 Female Geeks Who Changed History

    Celebrate the lives of ten women whose nerdy obsessions changed the world Those who show a lot of enthusiasm for niche subjects, solve problems quicker than everyone else, or prefer to spend their free time furthering passion projects instead of socializing, often get labeled "geeks". It is a word that has been used as an insult to banish a person or group of people to a particular corner of the school cafeteria and make them feel ashamed of their talents and achievements. However, being a geek is something to celebrate, which is exactly why Geek Pride Day was created in the late 90s/early 00s, held annually around the world on May 25. Geeks are usually gifted and unfazed by the idea of being different. Throughout history, their dedication to their specialist subjects has resulted in outstanding contributions being made to society. Today, we’re celebrating ten real-life women whose nerdy obsessions changed the world.

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  • How Ken Garland's Manifesto Impacted Generations of Designers
    Design

    How Ken Garland's Manifesto Impacted Generations of Designers

    We celebrate the British designer, writer, photographer, and teacher who wrote the legendary First Things First manifesto in 1964 As the world mourns the loss of Ken Garland (1929–May 20, 2021)–an influential talent who famously took a stand against consumerist culture–we look back on his legendary First Things First manifesto, which spoke about the importance of making a difference. Published in 1964, First Things First had 22 signatories and called for “a reversal of priorities in favour of the more useful and more lasting forms of communication”. The designer wrote that using one's talents to sell trivial things like cat food, slimming diets, and striped toothpaste, “which contribute little or nothing to our national prosperity”, was wasteful.

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  • Women Photograph: A World Catalog of 1300 Female Photographers
    Photography

    Women Photograph: A World Catalog of 1300 Female Photographers

    In a male-dominated industry, this website showcases female and non-binary talents in photojournalism Women Photograph is a non-profit organization launched in 2017 to give exposure to women and nonbinary individuals working in photojournalism. Its catalog includes more than 1300 independent photographers based in over 100 countries and serves media companies promoting equality and diversity within their workforce. Women Photograph offers financial support to various projects and tutoring programs and a yearly workshop for developing skills. It also provides a traveling fund to improve opportunities for professional development for underrepresented groups in the media industry. Read on to learn how this female photographers' organization came to be and how it is making an impact in photojournalism.

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  • Watch These 4 Animated Shorts By Belgian Filmmakers
    3D & Animation

    Watch These 4 Animated Shorts By Belgian Filmmakers

    These four stop-motion shorts are free to watch and present the magical world of animated storytelling One of Irish illustrator Kevin Waldron's (@kev_wally) favorite go-to sources of inspiration is a long list he has created of animated shorts from all over the world. These projects demonstrate a variety of styles and approaches and tell entertaining, moving, and inspiring stories–they are sure to spur your imagination, whatever format you usually work in. Today, Kevin spotlights four stop-motion shorts from his list, made in Belgium by director Guionne Leroy and directing and writing duo Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels. Watch below!

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  • 75 Sketch Shortcuts for UI Designers
    Web & App Design

    75 Sketch Shortcuts for UI Designers

    Learn these basic keyboard shortcuts for Sketch and speed up your UI design workflow in Windows and Mac Sketch is a pioneering program for UI design. Very intuitive, it offers endless possibilities, such as scaling graphics to different screen sizes or testing out your design directly on a device with just a few clicks. To fully master this program you will need to constantly practice. To make learning easier, you can use these 75 keyboard shortcuts. They will optimize your workflow and help you achieve professional results.

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  • The 6 Most Expensive Comics in the World
    Teacher Illustration

    The 6 Most Expensive Comics in the World

    Check out original artwork and first editions of comics that have sold for over a million dollars each The current NFT craze (NFTs are collectible certificates that certify the authenticity and exclusivity of a digital artwork, some of which have been selling for tens of millions of dollars over recent months) grew out of the obsession humans have with owning something unique and special. This, of course, also applies in the world of physical art. In January, the 1936 original Tintin cover for The Blue Lotus–the fifth volume in the legendary comic book series created by Belgian writer and illustrator Hergé–sold for $3.84 million. The drawing–painted in gouache, watercolor, and Indian ink–is a much more elaborate version of the final printed cover, including Chinese characters, textures, and other details that were eventually removed. Hergé gave it to the seven-year-old son of his editor at the time, Jean-Paul Casterman, as a gift. It remained "forgotten" in a drawer for decades until it was discovered in the 1980s.

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  • Free SEO Checklist for Optimizing Your Website or Blog
    Teacher Writing

    Free SEO Checklist for Optimizing Your Website or Blog

    Do you want to make your website or blog search engine ready? Check out this checklist and start creating content When creating content for your website, whether it be blog posts or pages, you want to ensure it’s optimized for search engines. Following this checklist will ensure you do that. Alice Benham (@alice_benham) is a multi-hyphenate marketing and business coach who helps business owners grow their online presence using a value-driven strategy. In her course, she guides you through each step of crafting the ideal online strategy to level up your business for exponential growth.

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  • 5 Bullet Journals Accounts that Will Inspire Your Work
    Illustration

    5 Bullet Journals Accounts that Will Inspire Your Work

    Discover some inspiring bullet journal approaches to help you organize your life creatively Bullet journaling is a simple and creative way to help you organize your life. They are also a powerful tool for mindfulness and help you channel your creativity while keeping you centered, grounded, and productive. Annie Weir (@_a_journal_by_annie) is a Scottish artist who specializes in bullet journaling, a craft she discovered by chance on Instagram. Her background is in graphic design, which is where she learned that you could combine words, lettering, and images together on a page to create something striking and meaningful. Bullet journaling turned out to be another happy space for her love of lettering, illustration, and art, so much that she decided to start sharing it online in 2017. She created her first Instagram account, @ajournalbyannie, and quickly became one of the leading voices in the bullet-journaling online community.

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  • The 11 Most Popular Courses in May 2021
    Domestika

    The 11 Most Popular Courses in May 2021

    Discover the favorite courses of the Domestika community to learn and awaken your inspiration Every creative course spurs new ideas, but which ones have had the biggest impact on the Domestika community this month? It’s always interesting to find out the answer to this question as the results say a lot about current trends. Also, if you still haven't discovered your favorite artistic discipline, it's never too late: this blog post spotlights eleven practices you might like to try for yourself. This list explores illustration, embroidery, watercolor, and cake design techniques. If you prefer to work digitally, it also features courses for mastering programs like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Domestika's expert teachers will guide you every step of the way and share top tips and resources. Discover your passion and explore the latest creative techniques with the Domestika community’s top picks! Cake Design: Modern Decorating Techniques, a course by Julián Ángel Step into the fascinating world of creative pastry and cake decoration. Under the guidance of international cake design instructor Julian Angel, you will learn everything you need to know: sketching and designing, combining colors, creating textures, and decorating. You will also practice lighting and photography tricks that will help your cake stand out on social media.

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  • Free Guide: How to Draw the Oblique Projection Perspective
    Teacher Illustration

    Free Guide: How to Draw the Oblique Projection Perspective

    Do you want to add volume to your drawings using a simple perspective method? Check out this guide Mattias Adolfsson (@mattiasadolfsson) creates illustrations for magazines like The New Yorker, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times, and animation studios like Nickelodeon, Dreamworks, and Disney. His artwork is filled with playful characters and detailed objects. His sketches are intricate, yet he manages to create harmonious and balanced compositions that invite the viewers to observe each little detail up close. Mattias found inspiration in Chinese art and oblique proportion perspective to help him achieve volume in his drawings.

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  • What Is Documentary Family Photography?
    Photography

    What Is Documentary Family Photography?

    Discover a photography style that captures the intimacy, routines, and relationship ties of a family If you are over 30, you will remember when your parents and grandparents used to pull out and show family albums to visiting family and friends. Together with many staged pictures, those albums are also full of spontaneous and unexpected snapshots. In the days of analog photography, you could not see the result of your shots before developing them, which allowed for a lot more spontaneity. And spontaneity is one of the main features of celebrated Brazilian photographer Grazi Ventura (@graziventura), a documentary family photography specialist.

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  • Free Great Examples of Invitation Design
    Teacher Design

    Free Great Examples of Invitation Design

    Do you want to design some great invitation cards? Check out this examples shared by graphic designer Sarah Lewis Whether you're hosting an event yourself or working for a client, the right invitation can set the stage and prepare guests for what's to come. You can learn how to blend color, typography, and texture to create professional printed invitations to promote any event. Graphic designer Sarah Lewis (@sarah_lewis) specializes in print and identity projects, and runs Alphablots, which makes graphic greeting cards and playful prints for kids and color-loving grownups. She has created a free guide providing ideas for designing original invitations for any special event.

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