Transcripts
1. Creating Calendars: Oh. I love giving yearly
calendars as gifts. But more than shopping for them, I love creating these calendars. I spend the whole year
collecting what I'm going to do. I love planning them.
Personalized calendars are the perfect Christmas gift. They're great for
giving your clients. After a year of them
being nice to you. You can give them a gift. It's a perfect way of
saying, thank you. Well, today in this
class, I'm going to be teaching you start to finish how to create your own personalized calendars
on Procreate. You can use any other
app to make this. This class is not
exclusively for procreate, but I will be using
Procreate to help you learn how to make
the perfect gift, your own personalized DIY. Calendars and show you how you can use your creativity for an asset that can even become a way for you
to earn some income. Hi, everyone. I'm Sang. I'm appropriate artist, a
children's book illustrator, as well as a mom and an enthusiastic gift giver and an even more enthusiastic
calendar creator. In this class, I'm going to be sharing all my tips with you, and hopefully by the end of it, you will learn how to
create your own calendar, from start to finish. Who is this class
for? Anyone who love language is gifting. As can also join in. But yes, if you love giving
gifts as much as I do. This class is for anyone
who likes creating gifts, planning calendars, homemakers, and small business owners. What are the supplies you need? You can use any medium
you're comfortable with. My focus will mostly be using procreate to
create my artwork. You're welcome to follow along in any way you'd
like to create it, but we will be creating 12
artworks for every month. So you're free to sketch ink,
paint, take photographs. The principles will be the same. I will be using Canva to design my digital calendar for
the printed calendar part. I'm using Lulu to design my calendar for my
international clients, and in India, I'm using Vistaprint to design
for my India prints. You can use your Canva PDF to print your own version of
your calendar on your printer or go to your local printer
to print your calendars to post to friends
families or clients. What you will need for
this class is creativity. Pinters for references
in case you want those. I will be using the
procreate app or 12 papers for 12
months of the year. For the project, Choose a theme for your calendar and
share the sketches, ideas, or thumbnails of your calendar and post it
on the project section. Feel free to keep coming back and updating
it as you go along. I'm excited to teach you my process of
creating a calendar. Let's get started.
2. Why are Personalized Calenders Important : Personalized calendars create
a strong emotional connect with the person
receiving your calendar. They feel like they have a part of you
throughout the year. I wasn't even that proficient as an artist when I made
my first calendar. My first calendar was a series of photographs from a trip. It began as a gift for
my family on Christmas. After that, I helped
my mom create her calendar for her photographs
from her Europe trip. Last year, to complete a
year after my mom passed, I took her artwork and created a calendar for my family to remember her
throughout the year. In these cases, the
people who received the calendars had an
emotional connect with me and my family. As artists,
personalized calendars are also a great way
to let us express ourselves and show our style to the world or at least with
those who engage with us. Creating calendars
is also another way to engage with your
audiences on social media. It's also a way to give
coupons and codes to your loyal customers to reward them for
their faithfulness in the end of the year. I created my digital
version of my calendar and gave it for free to the people who subscribe to my newsletter.
3. Understanding your Audience : Understanding your audience
is very important. Like, unlike the previous
years, this year, I created a linocut
animal calendar, and I didn't have
Bible verses on them. One of my clients who wanted
to bulk order copies of my calendar needed me to add Bible verses
into each month. So I tweaked the
original calendar to fit his needs since there
was a massive order. I felt okay for me to
make those changes. If your clients are
church friends, then adding verses
would make sense. However, if you
have a client who would want encouraging
quotes on their calendar, you can tweak those things according to your
client's needs. Although I personally
don't choose my themes for yearly calendars
according to my audiences. I plan what I want
to draw first. Mostly I focus on
what gives me joy, and then I tweak it later
according to my clients, like adding codes, color
tones, digital versions. The first thing you
need to do is dive into the art of identifying
your target audience. That is the compass that
guides your design journey. First things first, define. What is the purpose
of your calendar? Is it a family gift, a promotional item,
a niche creation, knowing your goals,
sets the stage. Demographics matter. Consider age, location, and interests of your
potential audience. Are they nature lovers, sports enthusiastics,
or perhaps art lovers? Tailoring your
calendar to align with their passions ensures it
hits the right chords. Reflect on past successes. What designs resonated well. Analyze feedback and
identify common themes. And if you can directly ask your audience through surveys
or feedback sessions, their insights are gold. Social media is your ally. Explore analytics to understand the demographics and
interests of your followers. It's like a treasure trove
of audience insights. Timing is key. So consider seasonal or occasional themes to connect with your audience
during relevant times. Make sure you look
at market trends. If your calendar is
associated with a brand, make sure it aligns with the brand values and appeals
to the target customers. After doing all that, it comes to choosing a theme or a
concept of your calendar. Even if you're not creating
your calendar for a business, choosing a concept
or a theme for your calendar is vital
for your calendar. So we're getting into
the exciting world of planning your
calendar design. First, pinpoint your audience.
Who are you creating for? Identify their interests,
preferences, and style. Then choose a theme
or a concept. This is your chance to get
creative, whether it's nature, travel, or quirky illustrations, pick something that resonates. Now, size matters. So selecting the right format and size for printing
is important. Consider where your
calendar will hang. Is it a desk calendar, or is it a wall centerpiece? By identifying your audience, choosing a captivating theme, and selecting the perfect size, you're set to turn
your calendar vision into a masterpiece. Get ready to design
with a purpose.
4. Make a List: In every case, the start of a calendar begins with
a list of topics. Making a note or a
list helps me a lot. Make a list of topics
that you love. If you love cars,
if you love birds, if you love travel, get at least 12 to 15
and make a list. I do it two ways. First, I make a list of notes where I keep building my themes. Second, after choosing a topic, I let my instinct guide me. So for my mom's Europe calendar, she had to pick 12 photographs. Similarly, you can choose a theme on what you
can communicate. The bird calendar that I designed started with
me making one bird. Loving the process. I drew
another one and another one, and suddenly I had
enough birds to create a calendar and a journal. In the next lessons, I'm going
to be taking you through how I illustrated my
not animal calendar. Okay.
5. January Procreate Lino Cut Deer: Okay. So in January, I decided
to create a deer. I thought it would
be a wintry theme. So the way I started was that I created the
shape of the deer, and then I got my
linocut brushes and I erased the
lines in the deer. Normally, in analog art,
you do it the other way. But when it came to the deer, I basically created a
silhouette of the deer, and then I started cutting into where I thought
the shadows would go. I consciously erased
and didn't just add white because I
wanted the background to seep through the deer. I retained the shape of the
deer in short that I didn't touch the silhouette or
any border of the deer. But by the end of
the whole deer, it was just linocut lines. The challenge in
this illustration wasn't the linocut effect. It was choosing the colors and the tones of the textures
in the background. I had chosen a more
abstract background with textures and stamps, almost like I had ink
pressed it into the paper. So one very interesting
thing happened. When I created the deer, I couldn't decide what color
to create the background in. I made the basic stamps, but I was stuck because I wanted to experiment
with different colors. So what I did was, I I chose the colors that I liked and
I went on social media, and then I asked my friends on my social media,
which do you prefer? So it was interesting
because then I put up a poll and then there
was a lot of interaction, and I was super fun to
understand what people liked. I personally liked
the black and white. Eventually, the version that everyone chose became
the final version. I had never done this before, but it was quite an
interesting process to do it. It gave me a lot of
confidence because I wasn't sure if the deer
was looking very nice, but seeing everyone's
responses and how they liked it gave me
the confidence to continue. It was a nice boost
of confidence. I think social media also
helped you in that way.
6. February Procreate Lino Cut Tiger: Many people think that a tiger would be one of the
hardest animals to draw, but in linocut, it's amazing because each
crevice gets a cut. At first, I thought I would do a symmetry based tiger with
patterns and all that. But as I was illustrating this, it looked more like folk art rather than something I wanted
to feature in my calendar. I'm sharing this
with you because I wanted you to
know that sometimes the artwork we intend to create doesn't come out
in the way that we want, and sometimes we need to restart things in
a new direction. So instead of featuring this illustration
in the calendar, I used it as a asset for
my society six space. A.
7. MARCH Procreate Lino Cut Scene: A few weeks ago, I had created
this lighthouse with fish, and I loved it so
much that I thought, let me try and emulate
the lighthouse again. But this time with possibly
just a whale popping out. So I created a boat and
the tail and the waves. So I created the lighthouse
with a cliff with some ocean waves in
an abstract style. Then I also added a
little boat on top. I want to add rocks
because it would be fun to have a little bit
of a transparent look. As if you're looking into a
glass with all these things. Lo cut is interesting. I love working with the shapes. But once I finished
it, I was very, very happy with
the illustration, but I felt something
was missing. The fun thing about no cut is you get to play
with the shadows, the cuts really make
a huge difference. Again, getting the colors
correct was a challenge. So after creating the
cliff that I wanted with the house and the
lighthouse and the ship, I created rays of light to
kind of go over the ocean. However, I felt something was missing in that little
corner on the right side. So I thought, Okay, let
me draw a whale steel. So then when I
started drawing that, I realized that I wanted a
little more than the whale. So then I decided to do the whole whale and create,
again, transparent look. Again, I created the
silhouette of a whale, and then I erased the lines out and the
shadows and the dots. I use linocut brushes to add depth and shadows onto
the silhouette of the whale. The concept was basically that, that the audience can
see through the ocean and look at what's going on inside as well as the
lighthouse and the ship. It was just a
concept. It was fun. I really enjoyed doing
this illustration. But again, I'm sharing
this with you to show you that you may begin
with a concept, like mine was a simple
fish and a lighthouse. But then it can go on to becoming something more
like an ocean floor or a whole look of a whale or a boat or different elements can come into your illustration, and then that can change the whole look of your
final illustration. I also had fun with this art
because for social media, I started experimenting
with its on and Lights. That was super fun to do. So don't be afraid
while you're doing your calendar to use your artwork to also
publicize your calendar, but also, you know, have fun with now Procreate
dreams has come out, so you can do fun things with lights and the fish swimming. The whole process of a calendar
really needs to be fun. And that's something that
I have really enjoyed.
8. APRIL MAY JUNE JULY Procreate Lino Cut Scenes: So now, I'm going
to leave you with time lapses of the artwork that I created for the calendar. So for the Giraffe, I took a few references from Pinterest. I took some cartoon references, some real references, and
I merged them together. And I like the concept of this
giraffe that was peeping. I loved the expression
of this and the shape. I looked at diff
different giraffes and what I wanted to take. For example, the tongue, I love the tongue sticking out. I brought the shape
of the giraffe, and then I twisted it. I brought the head down, but not as it was in
the previous one, but I also brought
the head down, and then I added the
tongue part into it. I made it look like it's
in the middle of a snack. Each cut that I've created
is in a linocut style. So again, it's a
different style of linocut with colors and looking more like a
whimsical illustration. But again, I had soup. I had a lot of fun
creating this one. Again, with the horse, there were two references
that I looked at. One was the body,
one was the hair, and I knew that I
wanted to have a very strong, very animate horse. But of course in linocut, so I knew that I
needed to have fun. In this one, I did
it differently. I didn't create a
silhoutte of the horse and then do the linocut. In this one, I created the
lines to fill the shadows. So in every illustration, it was different,
what I was doing. But eventually, it came
to a similar look. However, it looks a
little more bare body than the other liner
cut illustrations.
9. AUGUST Procreate Lino Cut Scene : For the cat, I really
enjoy drawing cats. And so for this cat, I wanted to create a symmetrical cat who had a lot of attitude,
who was in space. Again, similar to the tiger
when I made this cat, I started feeling
like it was more a folk cat than a linocut cat. I love the illustration. However, it didn't really suit the calendar from what
I wanted it to be. It was a little too intense, So what I did instead
was I focused on the shape of the face. This was nice, but it became a more intense piece and I wanted the calendar to be
a little more focused. Conceptually, what I did was, I focused on the face and the eyes and the
cuts on the face. And I did out as f.
And in this one, again, I didn't
erase the linocut. I created a blue tone behind while creating a
red and white background. I changed it and I created
a more symmetrical cat. Again, I filled it and
then erased the lines. But then I had a
framework to help me because I had a plan in terms of the lines
and the line work. I wanted the fur to be in
focus in the form of linocut. I really enjoy linocut and fur. And then I was trying to
experiment with patterns, but I realized that it was
getting a little too much. What I wanted to do was settle
into a different color. Again, I struggled
with the background. I really wanted to create
a background that made the cat stand out because the
cat was also very detailed. So eventually I
came up with that. But again, try and see where you're struggling
with and experiment. Don't be in a rush. You have
the whole year to do this.
10. September October Procreate Lino Cut: I really, really
enjoy drawing birds, and it was super fun
creating this bird. I began with the head. But then I realized
that I wanted to do a little more in terms
of the full body. Even if I had done
just the head, it would have come
out really beautiful. But then I thought, Okay, let me do the whole body because it'll be more
fun to create it. It's just based on patterns. So here's a look at my process. It begins with an idea, then it goes into the
work in the process, and that's the
final illustration. For me, it was about getting a concept of having
a bird and a bear. I don't know if you've
noticed, but there are lots of bears and birds. But I love the idea
of a mama bear and I thought it would be nice to have her little baby with
her with the bird. The bird becomes
like a baby sitter sometimes literally sitting. So that was the idea of this. I wanted to draw a bear a baby bear with a little
bird on the bear's head.
11. November December Procreate Lino Cut: Backgrounds are important.
And in this one, I focused on the background
more than the silhouette. In this one, I gave the
tree some linocut as well, because I thought it
would be nice to have the tree as a third character, not just the two cranes. Finally, the rhino. I had a few references that I
wanted to do the rhino in. Eventually, I zeroed
in on this rhino. But again, I didn't
fill the rhino in because rhino is
very complicated. I drew the outline and then first made a basis
of the shadow. Then with that, I created a
background and then I did some shading and some ink work that created a little texture. I wanted a skin that looked
a little bit like a rhino.
12. Extras Timelapse Procreate Lino Cut: I talk about the fact that
you should do more than 12. You shouldn't just
restrict yourself to 12. I did this moth, which was beautiful, and I
would have wanted to use it, but eventually it didn't
get used in the calendar. This moth didn't make it, but don't be shy to do extra art because you never
know which looks better. The canvasize I used
was $10,000 by $10,000, but you are welcome
to use 2,500 by 2,500 or 5,000 5,000 pixels. I like working in big prints because I like zooming in
and doing more details.
13. Calendar Design Formats: Planning your calendar
design is an absolute must. It lays the foundation that
makes your life easier. You need to decide
the size and format. For example, do you want a square calendar or
a vertical calendar? How you crop your calendar
makes a difference. Like if you make an amazing
square illustration, But eventually you need to
change it into a vertical one. You will lose most
of your hard work. So looking at the
right dimensions saves your time and ensures
your calendar is aesthetically pleasing, but also functional
in its needed space. There are vertical calendars, large calendars, desk calendars. I use Canva a lot to do layouts. So they have a nice
format for them. However, because I use Vistaprint and Lulu
to print my work, sometimes their
dimensions would differ. So my advice would be, figure out what dimensions
you need to create something which can be
cropped or fit accordingly. This also will help you in posting your picture
in social media, whether you have a square,
whether you have a vertical. It always helps to have options. O.
14. Creating a Calendar on Canva: So go to canva.com and you
can click on create Design. Then they'll give
you lots of formats, and you can click
on calendar Design. When you click on
calendar Design, you'll get lots of
templates on the left side. You can choose whichever
template you'd like. For example, whatever
color tones you like, whatever themes you like. What I do is the year
that I'm designing for, I just type in that year. So for example, if it was 2021, then I would have clicked on 2021 and imported the design. Right now, I would
design for 2025. So I would choose that. But I'm just showing
you the format. So this is where you would put your art on the big picture. You would replace
your art into that. A lot of people do this on photoshop or they
do it on infinity. But I prefer doing it on camera because I don't have
to do all the small, small numbering
details and stuff. So right now, like, for example, I'm finding a 2025 calendar, and I'm just choosing a random
format just to show you. So this is a bit dark. So you can apply these pages, and you can just scroll
down and drag and drop whatever picture you want
to replace these pictures. And you can even change
the color if you'd like. So this is where you
would add your pictures. Now, for example, if I want
to change the color tone, I just click on the right, click on the color
and change the color. So that's really convenient. And then if I want to
change the font or the sizes or formats. You can do that, like, if I want a huge font, heading,
subheading body. I'm just clicking
on these things to show you how you can
do these things. Now if you're not a
fan of this template, you can just choose
another template, and just click on, apply all, and it'll just change
your entire calendar into a different format. So that becomes a little easier. And then now you have a completely different
color palette. And if you're like, Okay, I
want this, what you do is, Then customize the calendar that Canva has
provided in terms of the numbers and replace your
images with these images. So I'm going to show
you this as well. I'm going to scroll
down to my images. So now, for example, the crane one, I
just drag and drop. You can make whatever format changes like cropping
left and right. Of course, they are
amazing classes on Canva, if you want to
know more details. I'm just touching on
this just to show you how to create your
calendar on Canva. You can make it bigger, you can make it smaller,
you can drop it. You can customize your calendar and your artwork according
to what you'd like. So now I'm just going to
like add the artwork that I have on the left onto
the photograph here. So one nice thing about
Canva is you just drag and drop your picture, your upload, and it automatically adds it to that, and you
can, of course, crop the size, and you can
change what the focus is on. So, here I've dragged and rob. Like, that format was very
nice for the elephant, because it's a because it's
a vertical format, right? So that helps a lot. So I'll just keep doing that. I'll keep filling in the
illustrations onto this format. I'll just drag and
rob the picture. Oh because this format is not a square format, and I did this art
on a square format. This is the vertical format, which is why there's
a crop issue. But when you do a
square illustration and choose a calendar
with a square format, then it matches better. This was a vertical format, which I've now tried
to fit square, which is why you're seeing a little bit of crop
here and there. So once you're done, you
just click on Share. Again, you can just
for the basics, you can upload whatever
pictures you want to upload. You want to upload your
files on the left. And then after you've
done the calendar, you can just share, and then
you can choose your format. So Canva recommends PDF print, but I'm just showing
you, you can do JPEG, PNG, PDF standard. But PDF print is much better because it gives
you high quality. You can also print with Canva. I haven't done this before, but I know a lot of people who have done print with Canva, so you can experiment with that and see what works for you. I haven't done that before, but this is what I've been
using for my calendars. I hope that helped
you and give you an idea of how to
bring in your artwork onto Canva and design a calendar
on Canvas specifically.
15. Marketing and Selling : He Marketing your calendar can be through WhatsApp
broadcast messages or Instagram stories or
Facebook stories. You can opt for
paid or unpaid ads, which are effective tools and
help you with your sales. I usually have a
regular clientele that orders my calendars and many that I send as gifts to brands and companies have
worked with as a thank you. Something to remember me by. It's important to build an online presence
for your products. You can use social media, e commerce platforms
to help you. It helps having a website to connect your social media
platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Pintrest, Twitter, to showcase
your calendar designs. Create engaging posts. Sometimes I share behind
the scenes content, or you can even run targeted ads to reach
a broader audience. You can even start a blog on your website and share
stories related to your calendar to highlight the design process or offer
tips on customization. Another way to build is an e mail list of
interested customers. And regularly send news letters to showcase your new
calendar designs, promotions, and
exclusive offers. Personalized email campaigns can nurture leads and drive sales. If you're socially gifted, then collaborations and
partnerships with influencers, bloggers, or other businesses to promote your personalized
scanners can also help. Another way is to offer limited time promotions to
create this sense of urgency, especially by offering
early bird discounts. 40% of my sales were
done in that window because a sense of urgency makes people scared that they
lose out on that discount. You can add your
calendar on EC Gumroad. These platforms have
a large customer base and can increase your
product discoverability. Customer reviews
and testimonials can boost your
marketing as well. Positive feedback builds
trust and credibility, influencing potential
customers to make a purchase. Of course, they are local
craft fairs, markets, or trade shows to showcase
your personalized calendars. I personally haven't done this, but if you have access
to offline marketing, you should use that as well. My calendars are generally
sold to regular customers, and the digital version
given free to subscribers.
16. PROJECT CREATING CALENDARS: I've shared the files
to help you create a thumbnail for your
calendar ideas. I do think that when
you post your project, it will help encourage all
of us to see your work. So basically, go to the desktop
version of Skill Share. Click from the About section, go to the projects and
resources section. Under that, you'll see
project instructions. So below that, I've
written project. For your project, I've given a few examples in a Zip file, Procrit files, PD version, PDF. You can download and
use them and help you Date and create
your calendars. Below is download resources. Click on create calendars
with SAG Project, and then it will download onto your desktop in the
download section. Then double click on that
and a folder will open, and there will be
different different files, PNG files, Procrit files, and a PDF file, which
is a printable. So I'm going to click
it on a list version. Yeah. As you can see,
there's a procreate file, there are a few PNG files, and there's a p PDF version. The PDF version you can use
for sketching and then it. This is my version
of the PDF version. I just wanted to show you that. I've divided the PNGs with different different
months if you want to work on it separately and
add your own versions of it. That option is there for you. This was my project. Then you click on
Submit Project, you upload an image, and then whatever image
you want to upload. Like for example, I'll
upload this image, which was my project, upload it. I choose a thumbnail, submit that, and then I'll
write a project title. Dating my calendar, and then I'll upload the JP
that I worked on. This is how to basically publish
your project after that. Then I get to see your projects and I'll be really
happy and encouraged. These are examples
of my projects. Eventually, your project
will come, you go sm, Smre then eventually it'll
come down if I scroll. These are the different
projects that I've done for the classes. I think it's nice
to do projects. Finally, your project that
you've just done appears here. You click on it and a.
That's your project. Then I get an alert and then I can give you
feedback and be like, Hey, this is amazing. This is a look at how I created this project and I got
different illustrations. I'm basically showing
you how you can create your illustrations into the procreate version
of this project. I'm putting the
illustration above the white shape and then I'm clipping it onto
the white shape. So I do this for
every single one, J Map My June July. All of these are just
illustrations I worked on, but I'm using this as an example to help you
understand how you can create your 12
illustrations into this format so you can show
it as a project example. This is how I did my project. I copied the illustration, and then I clipped it on
the white shape above. I did that for all 12 months. That's how I created my project. I hope to see how
you've created yours.
17. Creating Calendar's Conclusion: You've not just learned the
intricacies of how to date, thinking about the
audience who will be receiving your
calendar, but also, you've seen me share my process of creating a calendar
from start to finish. Hope this has helped you
discover the joy of turning your creativity into gifts
that span the entire year. As you wrap up this class, remember the skills
you've acquired to go beyond pixels and pages. And as you in your talents
and your personality, Into every month of the
calendar you create, whether it's using
Canva, exploring Lulu, and Vistaprint, you now possess the tools to make every
month a masterpiece. Keep gifting, keep creating, and I hope your
calendars bring joy and memories to those lucky
enough to receive them. Until our creative paths
cross again, happy creating.
Sang, Artist & Media Creator
