Around the end of 2019 I watched Liz Kohler Brown’s Skillshare class – Create an Illustration Series: From Inspiration to Print and I really loved it. I don’t know why, but it really resonated with me. And so my Christmas Top Hat series was born, I created it for the class project and had so much fun.

The goal is to create more series like this, practice makes progress and when practice is fun it’s so much better.

For the class we had to create a moodboard, a colour palette and decide how many pieces we were going to make for the series. I decided on 9 as it fits nicely on a square and it also meant that I could share a piece daily for nine days and on the tenth day I could share a collage of the nine pieces. I shared all about my process in the project I created for the class, you’re welcome to go have a look here if you’d like, but I’ll be sharing all the details here as well.

Below you’ll see my moodboard I created. I found a few colour palettes on Pinterest and some images that inspired me and drew a few doodles to see if what I was thinking was possible, turns out it was.

The rest was simple… Draw a new drawing everyday and create a series of nine Christmas Top Hats. Here’s the full series.

What did I learn from making this series?

I love drawing Christmas Top Hats! But in all seriousness, it encouraged me to draw everyday and to have fun when I’m doing it. It turns out I make better pieces when I have fun and don’t think about it too much.

I wish I could say that I’ve made loads of series since this one, unfortunately, I have not. In fact, I’ve been so busy focusing on other parts of my business that the most important part, you know, the making products and pieces and practicing have been taking a back seat. Please tell me you’ve been there too.

Well, right now I’m focusing really hard on making time for ALL the parts of my business. It’s taking a lot of discipline from my side, I tend to get lost in what I’m busy with, whether it’s creative or geeky, but slowly but surely I’m managing to do a few things everyday. Some days I get so much done and then I have some where I’m lucky if I get one thing done… Not going to feel bad about those, I’m only human, and it’s about progress, not perfection.

Practice makes Progress

— Lots of people

Okay, so this was my first series, I’m busy with another one right now – Teapots. It’s not a great one, but it’s practice and that’s what’s important. I’ll share it over here as soon as it’s finished.

I hope this gives you some ideas to start your own series, if you do please let me know, I’d love to follow along.

Till next time friends,

Riëtte xxx

PS. You can fin the Polaroid frame image I used for the Featured Image here – Technology vector created by freepik – www.freepik.com