November Wallpaper

My adventures in learning Adobe Illustrator continues with the creation of a November desktop wallpaper.

I happened to be in Vermont while making this one, so I was inspired by the fall leaves (and maple syrup). For the month of October I was trying too hard and it just didn’t look right to me, so I tried to keep things kind of simple for November.

This is also the first time that I thought to highlight a holiday on the calendar (in this case, American Thanksgiving).

Hand-drawing the maple leaf on the computer was a neat challenge. I used a stock image as a reference and added all of the anchor points individually. At first I thought I would use the smooth or simplify tool after to make the lines less jagged, but then I realized how perfect the imperfect lines were for a leaf and kept it as it was.

I made some new folder icons to match the different color scheme as well.

I’m pretty excited to cook up some new designs for December and January! With the holidays coming up I have some cute ideas for wallpapers and I’m determined to get some practice with holiday greeting cards.

Every year I tell myself that our family will send out a New Years card - I like that it’s an internationally-celebrated, non-denominational holiday, and it happens to be one of my favorites. I love a fresh start, and I tend to operate with the thought process that I get three fresh starts per year: Rosh Hashanah, New Years, and my birthday (in June). It gives me three opportunities for me to re-evaluate my life. What’s working? What’s not working? What changes would I like to make going forward?

Change can happen any day of the week, but sometimes it’s nice to have a checkpoint to stop and reflect.

September Wallpaper

I’m going to set the scene: we’re in the early 2000s, pre-2010. Britney Spears in on the radio, I just posted about my day on LiveJournal, and I’m double-clicking to open Paint Shop Pro to make another desktop background, this time with Aaliyah as the centerpiece.

Fast-forward to 2024.

I mentioned on a way earlier post that I want to share my creative endeavors to track and follow how I change and improve with time and practice.

Whilst learning to use Illustrator, I was given the opportunity to make business flyers for family, which I enjoyed. I’ve been making a few posters and such to practice, learn how to manipulate anchors, and figure out what looks nice. I think, hmm, what’s something new that I can try today?

Let’s make a desktop!

With matching folder icons!

This one allowed me to play around with text and type and the mesh tool. I got to fiddle with anchors and see what I could make. I tooled around with the zig zag effect on ellipses and tried different colors to see what I liked.

It’s very, very simple, but it was a fun first try at a calendar desktop! I’m excited to make a new one for October.

The best way to learn is by doing, and do I will!

Oil & Water

There’s something super humbling about trying something new. Allowing yourself to be an absolute beginner can be so messy; sometimes it can feel like a waste of time, a waste of materials, a waste of energy.

Yet still, I love it.

I love the “whoops” and the “what now?” and the “oh that worked!”, the trial and error of figuring it out and learning something new. I remind myself of when I first tried to crochet and wound up with a whole bunch of knots, but now I have scarves and hats. Every new hobby or skill starts out a bit clumsy,

This weekend I started playing around with oil paints. I’m not attached to this first canvas, I didn’t even know what to do with it, I just started mixing colors and saw what appeared. I watched maybe twenty minutes of YouTube videos about supplies needed, basic tips… the advice to paint “thin to thick” echoed in my mind as I struggled to keep colors from blending more than I wanted them to.

I’m excited to keep going and see what happens, little by little I’m learning something new. I had a few new years resolutions for 2023, two of them involved hobbies: learn to oil paint, learn to water paint. It took me ten months to dive in, but here I am, starting with oil before I move on to water. So I will continue to share this experience as I work through it.