For the last month or two I've been all about Illustrator brushes over here. I'm gathering, researching and using them in my client work wherever I can. And I discover more uses for them all the time. In fact, the Pattern brush just saved me an hour on a project I was working on last month.
When I start designing an online class, I do a lot of drawing and experimenting and then writing to organize my thoughts. I'll start out with an idea, make pages of notes and sketches, stick post-it notes in my books and bookmark my online resources. Once I have a good notebook going I can start editing my wanderings into the form of a project. I want the artwork to be engaging, so that I or any of my students would enjoy spending several hours with it, and of course it has to be something I can break apart and explain. I look for an underlying Illustrator objective, so that in the time it takes to replicate the art project, there's an experience that hopefully will come to mind when you take on your own project in Illustrator. It's a time consuming process, but my hope is that it makes for a more useful class.
I also take in the comments and feedback I get from students in my previous classes and try to provide the kind of projects and tutorials that I hear people want. My next class is going to be a short workshop on brushes in Adobe Illustrator. I initially wanted to start with Art brushes or Pattern brushes because they are a lot of fun and provide plenty of opportunites to play with interesting art. But I've decided to save those for a later class, I need to back up a bit and start at the beginning.
The class I'm developing now is all about Calligraphic brushes. They aren't as flashy, but the more I explore, the more I get out of them. Calligraphic brushes are wonderful for creating smooth flowing linework in Illustrator, they are perfect for coloring and shading and they are unique to Illustrator; the lines you produce are completely editable and scalable.
I'm always getting asked to teach about using Illustrator with the Wacom tablet, and this is another reason I'm focusing my new class on Calligraphic brushes. We'll have the chance to practice changing tablet settings as we work to get the most out of the brushes and the Wacom tablet. I'm working on the videos now and I plan to launch the class in December. I hope you'll join me!
I've loved your previous classes, so I'm looking forward to seeing more about this next month!
Posted by: Beth M. | November 16, 2011 at 03:16 PM
Glad to hear it Beth! Thank you!
Posted by: coyleart | November 16, 2011 at 08:20 PM
I agree with Beth. I have LOVED your classes. They definitely have made me MUCH more confident about my Illustrator program. I would LOVE to see more!
Posted by: Lisa | November 18, 2011 at 06:08 PM
Wow! This looks great.
Posted by: Kathleen D | November 18, 2011 at 09:41 PM
Thanks guys - I'll keep you posted!
Posted by: coyleart | November 21, 2011 at 11:52 PM