Skillshare Classes Roundup: 8 Most Popular of December 2021

Is your goal for this new year to learn a new skill or start a new hobby? Skillshare classes can be a great way to support your resolutions, especially during these chilly months when none of us really want to leave the house. Cozy up with your favorite blanket and warm beverage, and open up a whole new world of ideas and abilities.

We’ve seen thousands of Skillshare students learn online from the comfort of their own homes. But what are the best Skillshare classes to get you started? How can you make sure to pick classes where you’ll seriously learn new skills? 

Well, a lot of that is going to be personal depending on what you’re hoping to learn—but to help you out, we’ve gathered the most popular Skillshare classes from last month. Here’s the best of December to start your new year off with a creative bang. 

Sewing Classes

1. Hand Sewing Basics: Work Wonders With Fabric, Needle & Thread

Want to learn a new hobby that will also give you a useful life skill? Look no further than this class from YouTube star and dress historian Bernadette Banner, which teaches you all the foundations of sewing by hand. 

From basic stitches to sewing on buttons, you’ll finish the class with the ability to mend a favorite piece of clothing, tailor a vintage find, or even tackle a sewing project from scratch. Grab your needle and thread, and get started!

Illustration Classes

2. Anyone Can Animate: Easy Animation for Social Media

You may think animation is impossible for beginners to learn online, but TikTok star and self-taught animator Danny Casale (a.k.a., @coolman_coffeedan) is here to prove you wrong with his first of hopefully many online classes. 

Throughout these fun lessons, he breaks down the easy steps to creating your first animations. From developing relatable concepts, to illustrating and animating simple characters, to exporting it for the world to see, you’ll end class with your very own 15-second looping animation video—and all the tools you need to start a new hobby of animating for social media today.

3. Illustrate for Merchandise: Transform Your Artwork Into Products

This one’s for the folks out there dreaming of turning their love for drawing into something more. Illustrator Alicia Souza has been creating merchandise featuring her work for over a decade, and it’s become quite the lucrative business for her. 

In this class, she shares everything she’s learned along the way, from creating designs tailored to products to the ins and outs of manufacturing and best practices to get your products in the hands of others. Whether you’re hoping to make money by selling your illustration work or just want something tactile to gift your friends and family (head start on next Christmas, anyone?), you’ll be well on your way by the end of this quick class.

4. Relaxing Painterly Mandalas in Procreate

On the flip side, sometimes it’s nice just to make art for the sake of it. If you’re looking to learn a new hobby that will help you unwind at the end of the day, learning to draw these mesmerizing mandalas in Procreate could be a great place to start. 

Artist Jennifer Nichols will show you how to use Procreate’s symmetry tools to make it easy, giving you the freedom to just play with colors, brushes, and shapes. You’ll finish with some beautiful art and a more relaxed mind.

5. Working With Vectors on Your iPad

Looking to learn a new skill to take your illustrations to a new level? Try learning to work with vectors, which allows you to resize your work without losing a lick of quality. 

While there are a lot of myths that keep artists from working with vectors, Liz Kohler Brown is here to set things straight and get you over the learning curve to start using vectors today. Not only does she go over all the basics of creating vector art on your iPad, she shares three different methods so you can find what works for your process.

Graphic Design Classes

6. Logo Design: How to Create a Unique & Memorable Wordmark

Knowing how to create a unique and memorable wordmark—a font-based logo focused on the name of a company—is foundational knowledge for any brand designer. In this class, working graphic designer Khadija El Sharawy will walk you through every step to get there: understanding a client brief, creating a moodboard, choosing and perfecting fonts, picking colors, and finalizing the design. 

While the class is targeted to folks who already know Adobe Illustrator basics and want to learn new skills, beginners can learn so much about how designers think by following this process. 

Art Classes

7. Digitize Your Art to Sell Online: Prep Your Paintings for Print-On-Demand

Dream of putting your artwork on products but don’t work digitally? This class is the perfect way to learn new skills to make that dream a reality. Illustrator Cat Coquillette has sold hundreds of thousands of products using print-on-demand sites like Society6 and Spoonflower, and she’s here to share all the intel to help you translate your work from paper to screen to whatever printed product your heart desires. 

Painting Classes

8. Create Contrast With Watercolour and Procreate

Whether you’re looking to learn a new hobby of working with watercolor or improve your existing skills, taking a class with top teacher Ohn Mar Win is always a good bet. In her latest class, she goes back to art school basics but gives them a fresh perspective, offering a deep dive of how to create more contrast and depth in watercolor paintings. You’ll be amazed how much this series of simple exercises will impact your work.

Find the Perfect Online Classes for You!

None of these fit your fancy? Ultimately, the best Skillshare classes are the ones that teach something you’re excited to learn! Browse thousands of opportunities to learn online, dive deeper with our live Chroma courses, and keep exploring until you land on the perfect inspiration to start a new hobby this year.