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  • Abstract Painting Tutorial: How to Balance Composition in Abstract Art
    Teacher Illustration

    Abstract Painting Tutorial: How to Balance Composition in Abstract Art

    Learn the Art of Balancing Chaos and Order to Create Abstract Paintings That Captivate Abstract art is a realm where creativity flows freely, unrestricted by the constraints of traditional forms. However, crafting a visually striking piece requires more than splashes of color and random patterns. It demands a well-balanced composition that guides the viewer's eye and evokes emotion. In this blog post, abstract artist Josh Jensen shares his insights into creating harmonious compositions, exploring the delicate interplay between order and chaos, and using techniques to achieve visual depth.

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  • Balloon Deco Tutorial: How to Make a Balloon Bouquet Like a Pro
    Teacher Craft

    Balloon Deco Tutorial: How to Make a Balloon Bouquet Like a Pro

    Discover the art of balloon decoration and learn to create stunning, professional-quality balloon garlands and bouquets for any even Balloon decorations are an essential part of modern event décor, adding color, style, and a festive touch to any celebration. Whether it’s a birthday party, a wedding, or a corporate event, a stunning balloon bouquet can instantly elevate the atmosphere. If you’ve ever wanted to create professional-quality balloon arrangements, we’ve got you covered! In this blog post, we’ll introduce you to the basics of balloon decoration, tips for crafting a beautiful balloon bouquet, and an exclusive opportunity to learn directly from balloon artist Claudia Racanelli in her course, "Creating Stunning Balloon Garlands for Event Decor", available on Domestika.

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  • Drawing Tutorial: Learning the Properties of Licht and Shadow
    Teacher Illustration

    Drawing Tutorial: Learning the Properties of Licht and Shadow

    Learn essential techniques to create lifelike self-portraits by understanding light, shadow, and form When it comes to creating realistic drawings, understanding the relationship between light and shadow is crucial. Whether you’re an aspiring artist or a seasoned creator, mastering these principles will elevate your artwork, bringing depth and dimension to every piece. In this tutorial, visual artist Gustavo Ramos shares his step-by-step approach to capturing the nuances of light and shadow through a simple sphere exercise. This foundational practice can prepare you for more complex projects like self-portraiture.

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  • 18 US and UK Museums You Can Visit Online in 2025
    Art

    18 US and UK Museums You Can Visit Online in 2025

    Take virtual tours of some of the best galleries the US and UK have to offer to celebrate International Museum Day Museums are slowly reopening their doors, and art lovers are all extremely thankful for it. However, it may still be difficult to book a visiting slot, and while we patiently wait for things to truly go back to normal, we may still want to access collections from the comfort of our homes. When the first lockdown happened a year ago, museum experts, historians, curators, and photographers around the world took it upon themselves to ensure we could go online and visit art and history collections while we were confined to our four walls. International Museum Day seems like a great opportunity to invite you for a virtual tour of our selection of British and American museums. Enjoy, anytime, anywhere! Science Museum, London This world-class museum has a collection of 325,000 objects and archives and ever-expanding digital resources. You can find all the stories behind the most fascinating, historically significant. and awe-inspiring objects that have shaped the world as we know it.

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  • Our Community's Top 23 Downloads in 2025
    Domestika

    Our Community's Top 23 Downloads in 2025

    Discover Domestika's 23 favorite downloads of 2025! From watercolor exercises to Procreate brushes and free PDFs on design thinking, these downloads by renowned artists and experts are your key to unlocking creativity. Hey, creative souls! 🎉 Ready to supercharge your artistic journey? We've rounded up the absolute best freebies of 2025 – a treasure trove of resources to ignite your creativity. Crafted by leading professionals in design, illustration, embroidery, and more, each resource is a key to unlocking your creative potential. Whether you're a seasoned artist or a newcomer to the world of creativity, these offerings are here to inspire and elevate your craft. Join us in exploring these gems designed to set your creative spirit ablaze.

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  • 5 Design Trends
    Design

    5 Design Trends

    Experimental typography, minimalist style, dark mode, and 3D design set the aesthetic for the New Year 2025 is just around the corner, and the most forward-thinking among us are already starting to prepare lists of resolutions and upcoming creative challenges. This is why it is important to gather information and make a forecast of what the year will bring in terms of trends. According to Natalia Escaño (@nataliaescano), the designer and illustrator behind the Nia brand, "being aware of what's up and coming to be able to implement it in our projects and not be left behind is a must". She spoke to us about the design trends for the year 2025.

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  • The 23 best tutorials of this 2025 on Domestika
    Craft

    The 23 best tutorials of this 2025 on Domestika

    Are you short on tutorials? Do you need 23 to feel sane today? Are you really about to go through all of them, right now? I know… We are enabling your tutorial addiction with this article… I guess I can only hope you get some rest afterwards!

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  • Macramé Tutorial: How to create the elegant Josephine Knot
    Teacher Craft

    Macramé Tutorial: How to create the elegant Josephine Knot

    Learn how to create the elegant Josephine Knot and elevate your macramé designs, from plant hangers to jewelry The Josephine Knot is a classic decorative element that adds sophistication to any macramé project. Whether you’re crafting plant hangers, jewelry, or wall hangings, mastering this knot can take your creations to the next level. Alisha Ing, a talented macramé fiber artist, shares her tips and tricks for creating this beautiful knot with ease. Follow this step-by-step guide to perfecting the Josephine Knot and incorporating it into your designs.

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  • Stig Legrand's Journey: Turning Daily Gratitude into Illustrated Masterpieces
    Illustration

    Stig Legrand's Journey: Turning Daily Gratitude into Illustrated Masterpieces

    Discover how Stig Legrand found art, mindfulness, and community through daily sketch journaling inspired by Domestika courses For Stig Legrand, a Domestika enthusiast, creating an illustrated daily journal started as a simple project and grew into a life-changing practice. With influences from renowned artists and courses, Stig has turned everyday moments into vibrant visual stories, blending gratitude, art, and reflection. Her journey reminds us that even small creative steps can lead to transformative experiences. What initially inspired you to start an illustrated daily journal, and how did you keep yourself motivated to continue this practice for three years? I first heard about sketchbooking and illustrated journaling through Domestika. Even though I always liked illustrated travel journals from various artists, I didn’t know I had it in me to want to draw this much and share personal stories this way. I begun Domestika courses with Mattias Adolfsson’s “The Art of Sketching”, then first tried watercolor with different teachers, discovered wonderful artists that I learned so much from, and one day in 2021, I came across Kate Sutton’s “Illustrated Life Journal: A Daily Mindful Practice”. I did the exercises she had devised, drawing tables loaded with what we ate, cutting up short stories into squares, picturing things that inspired me… In the end, I prepared my course Project, and little did I know that it would snowball into this daily rendez-vous that deeply changed my life in these three last years. Actually, I don’t have to keep myself motivated. It has become an essential part of my life without my noticing. The only problem is that it takes a few hours each day, so I would love to have a PAUSE button on my timeline, to be able to use extra time for other creative ideas… But compiling these gratitude moments is important and therapeutic for my balance. Due to health problems, I don’t go out much, or see people, so drawing the moments that I find precious at home allows me to share my outlook, to build a memory of life at Maison Legrand. It isn’t the same with photography, even though I use a lot of photos to capture the look of these moments. Drawing is an alchemy that materializes my singular perspective into a personal artistic production, with its flaws, its qualities, its uniqueness. And it sharpens my perception of the intensity of life’s little moments! Can you walk us through your creative process? How do you decide what to illustrate each day? First, there always is a delay of 5 to 6 days between real-time and the moment I draw a page. I like to keep it that way as it gives me a buffer, and time to settle my feelings. I keep a journal of written notes where I jot down moments when I felt conscious, or poetic, or touched by events, or even distraught. I also take lots of photos to help me remember how it felt and how it looked. It can be pictures of our 7 cats being sweet or silly, of recipes that I just prepared, or how I felt freshly dressed in the morning, what music I listened to… When I am in front of the blank page, I always begin by writing at the top a title that comes from Kate Sutton’s course : «Today, I’m grateful for». It’s like a magic formula but it’s also true to my purpose. Then, I look at my notes and photos, to remember everything and select what will end up in the illustration of the day. Most of the time, I have to trim things down, I’m lucky to have so much to be grateful for, or items I want to share. When I have chosen the elements, I imagine them assembled on paper, I give them each a space in my mind, and often, I run my fingertips over the page, to kind of press them there symbolically. Then I first draw a light sketch in graphite (Faber Castell, and Pentel Graphgear 1000). I would like to be able to skip this part and draw directly with fineliners and color, like lapin encouraged us to do in his courses; it felt so liberating… I know I would also gain much time, and hone my skills for urban sketching which takes place in a tighter timeframe… But I’m still too line-shy somehow and can’t always find ways to play around obvious mistakes. Yes, I use an eraser. When I’m done with the graphite, I use fineliners to ink the illustration. My favorites are Uni Pin in Dark Grey, Black and Light Grey, my most common weight is 0.5, but for details I go down from 0.1 to 0.003 ! One must remember that my Carnet de gratitude sketchbook is small (9x14cm, Art Creation by Talens). This is the perfect size for this project, even though details become really very tiny and my eyes aren’t this sharp anymore. Sometimes, I try to zoom with my fingers just like on a screen… LOL Then I add color last. I use water-based Tombows and Lyra brush pens. I like to blend colors on makeshift palettes, to mix shades, lighten them, and create color gradients. When color is finished, I sometimes add shadows with graphite blurs and highlights with gel pens. Then I photograph the page, always on the same table. I like to keep a coherence and try to have the same light, setting, etc. But it’s amateurish compared to what industry artists do when they maintain a graphic charter. Another of my kinks for this project is to keep the same color for my little sketchbooks covers, a light blue, called Fresh Mint. I have bought many in advance but am already finishing the 6th.

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