A First Encounter with Skillshare

Have you ever clicked on an ad that pops up in your Facebook feed? I tend not to, but a while back, I started seeing irresistible ads for Skillshare classes. They offer very specific, online courses for creatives. You go at your own pace, they are affordable at $15-30 a pop, and there is a very diverse range of topics, taught by other experienced creatives. I decided to give it a try, and enrolled myself in Mary Kate McDevitt's The First Steps of Hand-Lettering course.

The way the classes work is that you watch the instructor's videos, look through his or her example material, and then apply the lessons to your own project. The classes are broken down into digestible sections, and you can go at your own pace. You start a project page to share your own steps and final product, and you can view (and comment on) other students' work as well.

For better for for worse, I was hooked on this project. I spent hours doing sketches and brainstorming. I developed a few ideas, drawing and redrawing. It felt wonderful to be totally invested into a project just for me. Now my house will tell you it was a little neglected during this process, but we've made amends :-P

For a theme, I wanted to focus on the homey, comforting ritual of sharing a cup of coffee. In my family, coffee is a vehicle for conversation, sharing and relaxing. I look forward to coffee time every day, and aimed to capture these ideas in my project.

My word list, if you can read my chicken scratch

Mood board with old-timey, farm house vibe

Lettering warm-up

Thumbnails

Thumbnails

Refined sketch

Refined sketch

At this point, I was struggling a bit, but I pushed through, did a lot more sketching, rearranged my composition, and wound up with this:

Finalized sketch, ready to ink

Inked sketch, ready for scanning and color (which I'll learn more about in the follow-up course)

In the end, I wound up with a piece that I like. But more important than the final drawing was the experience of the project in its entirety. I've found myself sketching a lot more often as a result, and look forward to learning more. I'm currently enrolled in Mary Kate's follow-up course to the first one, and hope to dive into that once I finish up some freelance projects on my plate. But that's the beauty of Skillshare: the course doesn't expire. So I can log on to the course whenever I want...next week, next month, next year, and complete the project as I have time.

Have any of you tried Skillshare yet? How was your experience?