May Desktop Calendar

Well hello, and check me out being ON TIME with this month's calendar!
I know, I can barely believe it myself ;)

This month's challenge to myself, was to create a pattern brush in Adobe Illustrator using one of my own doodles, and to then use that to write May using the brush.

Above is a scan of the original drawings from my sketchbook - after these were scanned, the one top left was brought into Illustrator to be turned into a vector image to be edited and used to create a seamless pattern brush.
I used this course from Skillshare, which is so good - really clear and thorough, and easy to follow.

I was watching and working simultaneously - with the course open in Chrome, and Ai open at the same time - after each section, I then put what I'd learned into practice, rewinding and referencing the course as needed.

Anyhoo, a little playing around with the design later, and I created the pattern brush and then used it to write the word May for the calendar - another trick learned!

I added a few berries with the blob brush tool, a light coloured background, and the calendar itself - it's a clean and simple design this month, a rather calming change from the bright colour that was the April one :)

Simply click on the image below to download the calendar for your desktop.

Have a super May!!

Cheerio for now,

Sarah
♡

April's desktop calendar

hello to you!

I set myself a bit of challenge this month - I wanted to design the calendar digitally, creating it all in Illustrator and/or Photoshop.

I'd already doodled the lettering for April, in my sketchbook, so it made sense to use that as a starting point.

I scanned the doodle and then pulled it into Illustrator to clean it up and make it usable as a digital design element.

I then set to, recolouring it, working out to add texture to it, and adding the chicks and butterflies. These last two were done in different way - the chick was on the same sketchbook page as 'April', so that was scanned, traced and recoloured...then copied and pasted in different sizes around the page. The butterflies were drawn by hand directly in Illustrator - not something I've done very often but it was fun, and a good way to practice using the program. I drew one butterfly, and then copied it to create a second one, and recoloured that one so they looked slightly different.

Confession - AI crashed on me...twice!...but I refused to give in, as each time it had crashed, I'd learned how not to do something immediately before the crash. This way I got to redo the work, taking into account what I'd learned and how to do it better the second time around.

There is so much more I could have done with this, but honestly it took me hours! and at some point, you have to just go with what you have.

So, here it is, this month's desktop calendar...

I hope April is a good month for you!

Until next time...

Sarah
♡