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MATS Bootcamp

Last year I took Lilla Rogers "Make Art That Sells A and B"  online courses.  This was the best online course I've ever taken.  It was such an intense and inspirational course.  The course was loaded with information on making and licensing your artwork, wonderful videos with her artists and herself.  Each week we got a mini assignment on Monday, the main assignment on Wednesday with the final due on Sunday.  This was what really made this class rock!  I've never worked so hard on my art ever.  Tons of sketching, researching, pushing my limits and brainstorming in a short amount of time.   Lilla is an amazing teacher.  After watching her videos and reviews I would walk away feeling more inspired and confident.  She really knows how to get the most out of her artists.  The Facebook community that came from this has been such an inspiration and also a wonderful source of information and support.

I was pretty sad when it came to an end, but then came Lilla's  MATS Assignment Bootcamp, yeah!!!  It started at the beginning of February.   Bootcamp is for 6 months with an assignment a month, (a much easier pace).  We get our mini assignment the first week, main assignment the next week and then it is due in 2 weeks.  We get a week off in between.  It doesn't have all the class content like the other course or reviews, but she does include color trends and other inspirations.  When the assignments are finished we upload them to her online gallery for everyone to see.

After taking MATS A and B I decided I really needed to learn Photoshop and Illustrator, so I've been watching lots of tutorials on Lynda.com.   It's pretty overwhelming the amount there is to learn and how long it is taking to figure things out.  I'm finding Illustrator easier for me than Photoshop.  It can be so frustrating because I know what I want to do in the programs but I don't know how to do it.  Sometimes I just want to throw in the towel but then I realize how bad I want to learn them and I keep going.

The first assignment for Bootcamp was to design a cell phone cover for the gift market using our cuckoo clock sketches from the week before.  I was so thankful to have 2 weeks, because I really needed it!

I initially tried to do it in Illustrator but my sketch looked so generic that I gave it up and went to what I know, collage. I liked this piece,  but I couldn't get it to look right on the case and the colors weren't quite right and wasn't feeling how I wanted it to look.  The birds and hearts are supposed to be more pink.  Here they look red even after some color tweaking.

I then decided to give it a go in Photoshop.  I'm not sure why since I barely knew what a layer was when I started, let alone try to color a piece of artwork in it!   I surprised myself with what I was able to do, but it didn't turn out quite like I wanted it to.  Once I learn more I would like to revisit it and try again.  I like it, but I didn't get the pop of the colors that I wanted.  It's soo close though! I was going to submit this one, even though it wasn't quite how I wanted it.  I had spent so many hours on it but felt like I was at a road block with my level of skill.

I had a lot of fun with the cuckoo clock theme and playing around in the programs so I decided to use some of my simpler sketches and create a design.  So Saturday evening I worked away in Illustrator and came up with a design that I liked even better and ended up submitting it the next day.  I'm a lot happier with this one, it feels cleaner, the lines are fresh and the colors are playful.  This was how I wanted my little girl to look, but my skills aren't at that level yet to where I can do it. And now with a week off,  I'm going to use it to watch more tutorials!
Posted by Tammy Olson at 1:50 PM Labels: Bootcamp, cuckoo clock, Lilla Rogers, Make Art That Sells
 
oh wow! You've created so many great pieces from the assignment... fabulous! i think they all have their place... the collage version is fabulous! thanks for sharing through my blog parade linkup, it's great to discover other artists through MATS! yay!

March 1, 2014 at 7:56 AM