Inspiration

Expand your personal library of references and get to know the work of creatives from various disciplines.

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  • 7 Live Art Sessions to Spark Your Creativity
    Teacher Illustration

    7 Live Art Sessions to Spark Your Creativity

    Watch illustrators create live different art pieces while you learn from their processes The Domestika Live Art series emerged as part of Domestika Live’s live stream series, where illustrators, designers and artists from different disciplines share with you their secrets and tips to create unique projects, and answer questions from the audience while creating a piece live. Here are 7 of the best broadcasts from this series. To watch each video, just click on its red title. Enjoy!

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  • Writing Maps: Writing Prompts That Will Inspire Your Next Story
    Writing

    Writing Maps: Writing Prompts That Will Inspire Your Next Story

    Prompts that will inspire you to transform people, places, objects, and memories into stories Shaun Levin (@shaun_levin) is a writer, artist, editor, bookbinder, and creative writing teacher. He is also the creator of Writing Maps: a platform sharing illustrated maps filled with creative writing prompts to inspire writers to transform people, places, objects, and memories into stories. Since the release of his first novel, Seven Sweet Things, in 2003, Shaun has published a number of books and creative writing resources including A Year of Two Summers, Isaac Rosenberg's Journey to Arras: A Meditation, and Snapshots of The Boy. He has taught creative writing for over twenty years in colleges, schools, and adult education centers, and run workshops in public spaces. He also founded and edits The A3 Review.

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  • Basic Settings for Editing Photographs
    Teacher Photography

    Basic Settings for Editing Photographs

    Photographer Nicanor García shares some fundamental editing settings to apply to all your photographs Adobe Photoshop was one of the first programs created for editing digital images; it became popular because it enabled the user to change and manipulate images for creative purposes and to fix mistakes. Editing, or post-production, allows photographers to go a little further than merely taking a photo. Besides lighting and framing, you can take advantage of other basic editing settings to achieve optimal results. You can refine a picture by correcting the perspective, geometry, exposure, contrast, or highlights. Expert photographer Nicanor García runs us through the basic editing settings that can help us achieve amazing photographs.

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  • Materials: Paper Flowers
    Teacher Craft

    Materials: Paper Flowers

    Discover the materials you need to create a wide range of flowers and incredible botanical art with artist and maker Eileen Ng

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  • Explore Escher's Engravings in High Resolution
    Teacher Art

    Explore Escher's Engravings in High Resolution

    The Boston Public Library has digitized several dozens of Escher prints Enigmatic and brilliant, the work of M. C. Escher is worthy of admiration. That's why institutions that keep some of his engravings safe often exhibit them publicly so that we all can enjoy them. One of these institutions is the Boston Public Library — the largest municipal library in the United States — who has digitized almost a hundred of his engravings. Anyone who accesses its archives can explore them in great detail and get to know all the nooks and crannies of the impossible constructions that Escher devised and drew throughout his career.

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  • 20 Craft Artists to Follow in 2025
    Craft

    20 Craft Artists to Follow in 2025

    Get inspired by the most successful craft artists of the Domestika community in 2025 Craft has acquired many followers, but the image it evokes can be old-fashioned and doesn’t reflect the many possibilities it offers. For this reason, crafts are often considered an unsung category of the creative world. The best way to learn about this art form is by exploring what contemporary craft artists are doing to innovate and rejuvenate old techniques like embroidery, ceramics, collage, and crocheting. The possibilities are endless, and we are here to prove it. Reset and change your Instagram feed, with images from creatives from around the world that will surprise and inspire you to take on a craft. Kathrin Marchenko (@kathrin_marchenko) Inspired by fashion and haute couture, Moscow textile artist, Kathrin Marchenko, uses tulle and colorful threads as a canvas and creates art pieces with 3D effects.

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  • 12 Basic Principles of Animation
    Teacher 3D & Animation

    12 Basic Principles of Animation

    Whether done by hand, using software, in 2D or 3D, these rules apply to all types of animation There are several ways to bring a drawing to life, but one in particular has become a reference over the years. In 1981, Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas published a book compiling 12 basic principles of animation for making characters seem more realistic, with a focus on physics and emotions. Although these rules were applied to classic animations such as Snow White (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fantasy (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942), they are still relevant today, despite technological advances and the advent of 3D. They are constantly being expanded and updated to include new styles and techniques.

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  • 15 Reasons to Use a Sketchbook by Sergio Bleda, Miguel Gallardo and Puño
    Teacher Illustration

    15 Reasons to Use a Sketchbook by Sergio Bleda, Miguel Gallardo and Puño

    We ask three illustrators why they use a sketchbook and why you should too Sergio Bleda (@sergibleda) is a professional cartoonist and illustrator from Valencia (Spain). In his Domestika course Inking Techniques for Comics and Illustration, he explores the technical and creative possibilities of inking. He is also passionate about sketchbooks and always carries one around. He sees his job as quickly translating ideas into images so that they go from being an abstract concept to something readable. Sketchbooks, therefore, are handy tools. Here are his five reasons why you should use one as well: #1 Every drawing that starts in a sketchbook can be defined as a clumsy "graphic babbling": a small step that makes you lose your fear of the unknown. The first word of a new language. #2 It allows you to work without pressure. Sometimes you draw without knowing precisely what you are looking for, and a sketchbook is perfect for that.

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  • Naming a Brand in 5 Easy Steps
    Teacher Marketing

    Naming a Brand in 5 Easy Steps

    The right name transmits what a company does and has communicative value for the user The process of choosing a name for your brand can be summarised in five key points. Xavier Grau (@xgrau) has over 20 years of experience in this field. Today, he presents the questions you need to be asking yourself when you undertake this task.

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  • Top 10 Creative Projects of 2020 on Domestika
    Teacher Domestika

    Top 10 Creative Projects of 2020 on Domestika

    We have compiled a list of the most-liked projects to be shared by the Domestika community in 2020 There are only a few days left of the year, so we want to present the projects that have received the best feedback from the community out of all of those published in 2020 on Domestika. As was the case in 2019, the projects of the year are dominated by the medium of illustration. Final projects for different courses have also made the list, while fantasy and poetry have been celebrated as much as hyperrealism. Illustrator Adolfo Serra also gets a special mention for having authored two of the ten final projects to make the list. These are the top ten creative projects of 2020 to be published on Domestika: My project for the course: Watercolor Illustration with Japanese Influence, by Jessica Alvarez (@vanila_ryder) This final project, which was created for Flor Kaneshiro’s course, is titled Mandado. In this artwork, Jessica–the author–draws on Japanese influences, yet takes it a step further: she combines oriental techniques with a Latin American aesthetic inspired by Mexican markets.

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  • Copywriting vs. Content Writing
    Writing

    Copywriting vs. Content Writing

    Learn some of the key differences between these often confused terms The roles of a copywriter and that of a content writer are often confused. Both figures are equally important in building a brand or product. We have gathered information from Domestika experts to define these two marketing processes and understand their main differences. They may be different, but both aim to connect with customers by using important messages about a particular brand. The common part of these two disciplines is the word writing, and indeed they both exist to tell a story about a brand or a service. However, their style, purpose, and strategy deployment are quite far apart. Let’s see in detail what their differences are.

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  • Improve the Quality of Photos and Videos With Artificial Intelligence
    Web & App Design

    Improve the Quality of Photos and Videos With Artificial Intelligence

    Discover how artificial intelligence has learned to interact with information contained in an image so it can improve it Artificial intelligence, a term that not long ago brought to mind scenes straight out of science fiction films, is today a reality. The good news is that it has lots of practical uses, such as medical diagnosis, remote control of devices, finance, transport. Interestingly, it is also being applied to creativity. These artificial intelligence apps make it possible for filmmakers, animators, and researchers to get high-definition results from images and videos in low-resolution or that have been recorded using old equipment. A.I. Gigapixel This app for both Windows and Mac claims to enlarge photos by up to 600%, while perfectly preserving the quality and detail of each image. It also includes features such as automatic face refinement. Artificial intelligence "recreates" the pixels that would get lost using an automatic enlargement process, such as those you can perform in Photoshop. Artificial intelligence has learned this process by analyzing thousands of sample images. A.I. Gigapixel offers a trial version. The app usually costs $99.99. This video explains how their technology works:

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  • 21 3D Artists You Should Know in 2025
    3D & Animation

    21 3D Artists You Should Know in 2025

    Meet some of Domestika's Instagram top 3D modelers and animators 3D modeling and animation are disciplines with a bright future ahead. Used in cinema, advertising, social networks, and even art galleries, these three-dimensional sculptures that come to life continue to leave us all in awe. Each artist has their own different techniques and style, but they all have one thing in common: they put countless hours (sometimes even days) into the smallest details in order to achieve perfection. Even the most minimalist work has a high level of complexity and requires focus and expertise in several creative areas. Do you want to discover the many faces of 3D and animation? This list of artists who stood out on Domestika's Instagram is the place to start. They create characters and entire worlds using only software and incredible skills! Alex Z (@ghost3dee) Alex Z is a 3D animator who creates fantastic scenes with organic and natural movements, confusing even the most skeptical observer.

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  • The History of Typography: From 11th Century China to the Digital Age
    Typography, Calligraphy and Lettering

    The History of Typography: From 11th Century China to the Digital Age

    Discover how, throughout history, typography has been used to communicate more than just the words it spells out Typography is sometimes easy to take for granted: you’re reading these words, absorbing their meaning, but probably aren’t paying close attention to the letterforms that compose them. Other times typography can be impossible not to notice, like when a wedding invitation is written in Comic Sans, or a sign is hard to read because of an unfortunate font choice. The history of typography is about more than how easy something is to read or write. It reveals how the design of letterforms has shaped societies and transformed the meaning of the written word. So, where did typography come from and what do typefaces have to tell us?

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  • 5 Socially-conscious Artists Creating Art Out of Waste
    Art

    5 Socially-conscious Artists Creating Art Out of Waste

    Turning waste into works of art: meet inspiring artists from around the world For centuries, humans have exploited nature. The monstrous amount of waste we produce is an issue that socially-conscious individuals have turned their attention to. Today, creative people around the world are making art out of waste. This choice of material causes us to reflect on what items we discard and push as far away from our lives as possible. In this sense, an artist's decision to put these items into a museum as part of exhibitions is very provocative. We have selected five artists whose work you ought to explore: Vik Muniz Brazilian artist Vik Muniz is one of the most well-known artists working with waste, with his work having been exhibited in MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York. In the documentary, Lixo extraordinario (Extraordinary Garbage), Muniz recreated masterpieces from art history, such as the Mona Lisa, with peanut butter and jelly. He used leftovers from a macarronada (a typical Venezuelan dish) to recreate Medusa’s panicked face in Caravaggio's famous painting, and used scrap metal to create a world map. The pieces are full of irony, forcing the spectator to question what can be labeled “sophisticated” art.

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  • How to Use Textures in Photoshop
    PLUS Teacher Illustration

    How to Use Textures in Photoshop

    Illustrator and designer Willian Santiago teaches you how to create different textures in Photoshop Programs like Photoshop open the door to infinite digital illustration processes, such as adding effects and textures created using traditional techniques. Textures, in particular, can add a rich layer of detail that make your drawings have more of an impact. In this tutorial, illustrator and designer Willian Santiago (@williansantiagodg) will show you how to use different textures in Photoshop to bring your creations to life. Watch the video below:

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  • 10 Tips to Market Yourself Better on Pinterest
    Teacher Marketing

    10 Tips to Market Yourself Better on Pinterest

    Natalia Escaño shares some simple tips to boost the position of your pins among the top search results Pinterest is one of the most visual social networks, with a search power comparable to that of Google, but basing its content strategy on aesthetics and being a tool to find inspiration. This makes it a handy tool for creatives, artists, designers, illustrators, photographers, and even companies who want to share their products differently. Natalia Escaño (@nataliaescano) is a designer and illustrator and one of the most prominent Pinterest influencers in Spain, with more than a million followers and a portfolio of clients that includes brands such as L'Oréal Paris and Disney. As a great connoisseur of this platform, at both a user level and business level, she knows what it takes to stand out with attractive, eye-catching, and extremely visual content that will surely resonate with the audience. Here are the 10 fundamental tips from Natalia Escaño to improve the SEO of your Pinterest pins:

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  • Find Inspiration for Your Next Tattoo
    Illustration

    Find Inspiration for Your Next Tattoo

    Discover the trajectory and references of Chilean tattoo artist Polilla Tattoo Edward Lorenz's Chaos Theory states that small decisions can have profound consequences in our lives. Florencia Landaeta, better known as Polilla Tattoo (@polillatattoo), is living proof of this. After her husband — back then her boyfriend — gave her her first tattoo, the graphic designer became interested in this discipline and found a calling she continues to follow to this day. Moth fell in love with the trade, which allowed her to keep her interest in drawing. Three months after that first session, she held her first tattoo machine.

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  • What Is Ikebana?
    Craft

    What Is Ikebana?

    Discover the ancestral Japanese art of arranging flowers and the best-known styles Ikebana, also known as Kado, is an art form that uses floral arrangements as a medium, following pre-established rules and symbolism. In Japanese, the term means both "to give life to the flowers" and "floral arrangement". The other denomination, Kado, means "the path of flowers."

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  • Flash Ends: The Rise and Fall of The Internet’s Most Loved and Hated Software
    3D & Animation

    Flash Ends: The Rise and Fall of The Internet’s Most Loved and Hated Software

    The history of the multi-billion dollar software that transformed the internet and forged a gaming universe, only to become one of its most hated softwares In the late 90s, two tech entrepreneurs decided to turn their failed drawing software into an animation program for the internet. Charlie Jackson and Jonathan Gay had thought that PenPoint-technology, tablet and stylus drawing and writing technology, would be the next big thing. They were wrong. "I think we sold two copies", Jackson told Ars Technica. "And one was to the architect who was designing Bill Gates' house".

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  • 5 Free Make-up Classes for Photo Shoots
    Teacher Photography

    5 Free Make-up Classes for Photo Shoots

    Available for a limited time only, these classes will teach you make-up techniques for a photo series Make-up often plays a fundamental role in the creation of a photograph. Whether you’re working on a self-portrait, artistic photo series, or fashion shoot, the right look can save hours of post-production work. We recommend that everyone working both in front of the camera and behind it learn the basics of working with make-up so that they can efficiently solve any problems that might arise on set. These five free classes will guide you in what you need to know, whatever your studio role. Free Class: Make-up for Conceptual Self-Portrait Photography In this class, from the Conceptual Self-Portrait Photography course, photographer Krishna VR shares some simple tips for doing one’s own make-up. The expert explains how she has learned different techniques online. In this lesson, she advises how to match skin color and avoid a lengthy post-production process.

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  • The 10 Funniest Lorem Ipsum Generators
    Teacher Design

    The 10 Funniest Lorem Ipsum Generators

    "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..." Forget the boring classic fake text and use one of these instead. A Lorem ipsum, as you probably already know, is a text commonly used in design and layout, which allows you to check that the spaces are well distributed and the fonts work correctly. It is a Latin passage extracted from a text by Cicero, De finibus bonorum et malorum. However, you don't need to stick to it in your projects. New fake text generators are constantly popping up and can help you give your designs a twist, even for provisional text boxes that are not meant to be read. If you are one of those who wants to have fun with Lorem ipsum, here are some ideas: Strangeripsum Our obsession with Stranger Things, the Netflix show that dusts off our eighties memories, has led us to Strangeripsum, a Lorem ipsum generator inspired by some of the show's scenes.

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  • 10 Great Television "Bottle Episodes"
    Teacher Film & Video

    10 Great Television "Bottle Episodes"

    This formula works! Check out this selection of great bottle episodes that have shaped television history The term "bottle episode" refers to a type of episode in a television series that has particular characteristics: –The episode focuses on a particular problem, usually being faced by one character. However, all the other elements of the series become entangled in this problem. –The episode usually takes place in one location. –Production is kept simple. There are no effects, perhaps no soundtrack, no props, just the characters and a conflict, which develops through dialog and long scenes.

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  • Krizia Robustella’s Upcycling Tips to Renew Your Sportswear
    Craft

    Krizia Robustella’s Upcycling Tips to Renew Your Sportswear

    Get inspired, learn to customize your sports garments, and create stylish clothing through upcycling Barcelona-born Krizia Robustella (@kriziarobustella)has been working as a fashion designer for over ten years. Her mother was a fashion wholesaler and named her after the Italian fashion brand she had seen in Vogue in the 70s. Her fate was decided on that day. She presented her recycled 90s tracksuits in the Ego de Cibeles catwalk in 2007. The press called her style Sport Deluxe. From that moment, her collections have been part of the Mercedes-Benz Madrid Fashion Week and the 080 Barcelona Fashion. She also sells them in her shop in the Catalonian capital. Read on to discover how she creates two sports outfits out of an old sweatshirt, using upcycling, and see a gallery of her pieces.

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  • 15 Contemporary Designers Working with Prints
    Craft

    15 Contemporary Designers Working with Prints

    Be inspired to create unique and charming clothes with the beautiful print work of world-renowned fashion designers Julia Pelletier (@julia_pelletier) is a textile designer who has specialized in silk screen printing, drawing, and teaching for over 15 years. In her Domestika course, she will teach you to combine creative techniques to design unique garments. Creating art that you can wear is a great way to show off your style and personality. Before you get started on your creation, she encourages you to look to some of today’s most creative contemporary designers working with prints for inspiration. Find the list below:

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  • How To Cut a Movie Trailer
    Teacher Film & Video

    How To Cut a Movie Trailer

    James Edgington takes us behind the scenes at one of the top movie trailer agencies in Hollywood For as long as he can remember, James Edgington was always drawn to working on feature films. After moving to London in his early 20s, he landed a job as a runner at a post-production company working on prime time British television shows, such as The X-Factor, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, and The Jonathan Ross Show. Back then, James wasn’t yet aware that an entire industry dedicated to cutting movie trailers existed: “I just thought that the director or the film editor cut the trailer”, he says. It wasn’t until a few years later, when he was invited for a trial shift at the Editpool–a trailer agency based in the UK capital–that he discovered it was possible to make a career out of specializing in this particular branch of video editing.

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  • Hilma af Klint: The Fascinating Story of an Abstract Art Pioneer
    Art

    Hilma af Klint: The Fascinating Story of an Abstract Art Pioneer

    Ahead of her time, this artist created hundreds of enigmatic paintings where the invisible became visible. Unseen for many years, her work has now vindicated her as one of the pioneers of abstract art It was 1935, and Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky wrote a letter to his New York gallery owner, where he claimed the authorship of his first abstract painting: a piece painted in 1911. “Without doubt, it is the first abstract painting in the world (...) it is, in other words, a historical painting”, said the letter. Nonetheless, in Sweden, in 1906, a woman called Hilma af Klint had already been painting abstract compositions in which line, color, and geometrical shapes had been the main subjects. However, her story and her contribution to abstract art remained unknown until the 1980s, when an exhibition taking place at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) finally vindicated her role. Why doesn’t her name resonate when we think of this art movement? What happened that kept her prolific production unknown, unlike Mondrian, Malevich, or Kandinsky’s works? Here is the fascinating story behind one of the pioneers of abstraction.

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  • What Is Photogrammetry?
    3D & Animation

    What Is Photogrammetry?

    Discover more about this 3D creation technique and how it is applied to video games, VFX, and more We are living in a technological era in which humans are able to generate 3D objects and environments that are difficult to distinguish from reality, demonstrated by the most cutting-edge video games and movies. This is done using different methods, and photogrammetry is one of the most common and most interesting of them. To help you get to grips with this technique, which is often used in the VFX and video games’ industries, here are the essential points you should know according to 3D artist David Chumilla (@amnoon), who has worked on projects like Forza Horizon 3, Need for Speed: Heat, and Call of Duty: Black Ops IV.

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  • 5 Watercolor Time-lapses That Will Inspire You to Paint
    Teacher Illustration

    5 Watercolor Time-lapses That Will Inspire You to Paint

    Paint and water embrace in these inspiring works by five watercolor artists Watercolors are a world of possibilities–you can explore infinite subjects using this medium. These five time-lapses are proof that water, when mixed with paint, is mesmerizing. The following five artists show us how they each create a piece at great speed. Watercolor portrait, with Carlos R. Casado (@carlosrodriguezcasado) Carlos R. Casado mainly uses watercolors for caricatures. Carlos uses watercolor's unpredictability to his advantage when he draws and paints well-known characters. Here, he shows us a different way of working with watercolors to what we are used to seeing.

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  • 5 Design Trends to Look Out for in 2021
    Design

    5 Design Trends to Look Out for in 2021

    Discover which trends will impact photography, editorial design, and typography in 2021 Silvia Fernández Palomar, also known as Silvia Ferpal, is a designer and artist with a well-trained eye. She won the 2019 National Design Award for the young designers category; has worked at companies such as Ogilvy & Mather, Paseo, Designit Madrid, and Designit New York; and is a design teacher at IED. While Silvia believes that our perception of trends is subjective, when you listen to her make observations, you start seeing how new patterns emerge where you hadn't noticed them before. Her opinion, she says, is based on requests from clients, the projects she’s recently worked on, and her personal judgement. "The important thing about trends," she warns, "is to use them as a guide. These are, for her, five trends that will make an impact on the design world in 2021.

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