Transcripts
1. What You'll Learn in Design a Sellable Calendar Illustration: You one of those artists
who keeps saying, I want to design a calendar, but for some reason, you
just haven't done it. It's like it comes
up every year. You think you're
going to do it, and then it just doesn't happen. Let's remove all those barriers so you can go from wanting to design a calendar to having a finished calendar
in your hands. This class, we're going to
design a sellable theme. We're going to sketch it out, and we're going to finish with a finished calendar page
ready to share online. I'm also going to share
some calendar templates. So if you don't want to build the templates from
the ground up, I've got you. It's already done. I have been selling
calendars for three years, and I can tell you
that it's one of the most sellable products
I have in my portfolio. I did one on the first year,
two on the second year, and seven on the
third year because I realized what a huge
asset is to my business, to my Etsy shop, to helping me find client work. So many different benefits
are coming out of my sales. A lot of artists don't realize how important urgency is
to selling your work, and calendars have
built in urgency because they're dated
for a specific season. So if you don't buy it within a certain window,
you're too late, and that inspires buyers to buy a lot of product
in a short period. This built in urgency, combined with the
high profit that you can get on calendar products
on print on demand, makes this a no brainer
for my business and for anyone out there who has ever thought about
designing a calendar. Even if you know nothing
about designing calendars, you can dive right into
the project in this class, and I'll take you
through all the steps. So by the end, you'll be
finishing up your calendar. So let's take you
from I want to design a calendar to I have
designed a calendar, and I know I have a
solid sellable theme. Let's dive into it.
2. Student Examples and Calendar Inspo: Let's start by talking about the project that you'll
be doing in this class. And the project is one single
calendar illustration page. So we're going to work
together to develop a theme, make sure it's sellable, come up with a style,
and put it all together for a sellable
calendar theme. Now, you're just doing
one illustration in this class because we
want to test this idea. And that is how every
calendar starts. You get a theme,
you get a concept. You do one page
to test the idea, and you don't have to commit
to anything beyond that. I think a lot of people avoid that step of doing a
calendar because they think, Well, I don't want to
do 12 illustrations if I don't know this
theme is sellable. We're not going
to do that today. We're going to do one drawing, one illustration for a calendar, and we'll see how
it goes from there, and if you want to
keep going, you can. I know that so many artists
want to design a calendar, but they're not sure
what size to use, how to make it sellable
and where to sell it. I've sold over 3,000 calendars, and I launch a new set of
calendars every six months, so I can tell you
from experience that this is worth the work. Calendars are definitely one
of my best selling products, and I want to take you
through the year so you can see how my calendar
sales evolved. 2023, I launched my
very first calendar. I was not very happy
with the artwork, but I did it anyway, and I
almost sold 500 calendars. The next year, we went
to two calendars, but I just reformatted the
one from the previous year and sold it the next year and
included another calendar, which is the home in
seasons calendar. Then we went up to almost 1,000 sales close to
the like 750 range. So I was pretty confident with the concept
in the next year, and so I made a lot of calendars and even
threw some sort of risky ones in there
just to give it a test and sold a little
over 1,500 calendars. What I've realized
from all this is that more calendars is
more sales, y'all. Of course, not every
calendar is a best seller. Sometimes you do a dud, but that is part of
the testing process. And the deeper I get into it, the more I'm getting
an instinct for what themes sell well
and what themes do not. And that's what I
want to talk to you about in this class. I want to show you
some gorgeous examples here from students who have taken my calendars class before and some of
my own calendars. This is by Luna Magnolia Design's
gorgeous art nouveau calendar. She went with the
unusual layout, which is the skinny strip. These are so beautiful, so much character, so much texture, color, such a beautiful job
here. And a lot of detail. And I want to note as
we go through these, you can do a lot of detail or you can do
something more simple. So this is more the
simple linework with a single color fill. But I love these stamps so much, and each one has a
little bit of lettering, beautiful, simple illustration, but gorgeous and graceful. This is by Elm tree Creative Co, and she did a beautiful
job on this calendar. This is by Buchet design, and I think she did a
really beautiful job of taking this sort of overdone theme of
just flower calendar and making it more interesting, giving it more character, gorgeous detail
work, bold contrast. This is really going to
stand out on the page. This is Gillian Nicole, who has this beautifully
gritty style with lots of texture, and she pulled that into
her floral calendar. And you can see so
much grit here, so much texture, and yet it
still has a graceful feel. This is by Camp Clever, and she did this calendar
called Wings and whimsy, combining these
insects and animals and florals in such a
beautiful composition, kind of soft pastel. So rather than the
high contrast, she went with the soft vibe, but, you know, there's
no right or wrong here. High contrast, low contrast, you have to go with your style. Here's another one
by Luna Magnolia called Wings and Whispers
where she combined winged animals and
gorgeous botanicals in these super detailed, so beautiful, high
contrast illustrations. Is by Ad Peace studio, and I think she did
a beautiful job of taking another overdone
subject, cats, you know? There's so many cat
calendars out there, but she combined it
with something fun, which is hot drinks,
cats and cups. And that's why I
think this did well. It uses that SEO term
of cats and pets, but makes it a little different. So it's not like every other
cute cat calendar you see. This last calendar is Hara Varajs and she created
a farmers market calendar. I love how funky these
vegetables and fruits are. They are just loose and
playful in the AI world. People are loving the grit, they're loving the
looseness and playfulness. I want to show you a
couple of my calendars, and one is my botanicals,
flora and fauna. So a creature and some
florals or botanicals. This was my very
first calendar ever, but I have redone these pages multiple times over the years. I didn't like a lot of these pages when I first made them, but I have just worked on it over the years. Added elements. They were much more simple, maybe two or three
flowers in the beginning, and I've increased
the complexity over time as I realized that
this is a sellable theme. Next, we have my
interiors calendar, which has kind of surprised me how well this one has done. I mean, it's just
spaces in the home. But I think what people like is that it has a lot of
fun elements in it. You know, this is for
your gardening people, all the gardening tools and
gardening soil and seeds. So it's like, as
you turn the pages, there's a little
something for everyone, no matter what you like
throughout the year, this is like a
cocktail bar and dog, if you're a pet
person, espresso, if you're a coffee person. I tried to include
just a little bit of everything for everyone, along with keeping that
solid theme of interiors. Here's a kitchen in
season's calendar. This is all about what's going on in the kitchen,
each time of year, what's being harvested
and what's being cooked based on the
seasonal ingredients. This calendar didn't do
as well the first year, and I think it's because I did a really tall format and just had a tiny space
for the writing. This year, I'm reformatting
it to have the artwork be a tiny strip at the top and a bigger space at the bottom
to give this another chance. So I want to say that because I think this
artwork is beautiful, but this calendar
did not sell well. And I think there are a lot
of different factors that can play into the wrong format, the wrong sales platform,
the wrong marketing. Maybe you need to change
the SEO around it, have a different cover, have
different words around it. So just a calendar isn't a super winner on the first
year, don't give up on it. Next, we have the things
of the season calendar, which to me, sounds
somewhat vague. Like, I didn't think
this was going to be a top seller, but it was. And I think like we talked about with the
interiors calendar, it has so many little elements
in it that people love. If you like photography, if you like fashion, if you
like fruit and veggies, if you like travel, it's like this one page has something
for so many different people. So no matter who you
are around the world, you're searching for a
cute little calendar, you're probably going to be
able to find something in here that speaks to you or
you see it and you think, Oh, I could give that
as a gift because my friend really loves Halloween or my friend really loves baking
at the holidays, you know, all these tiny little elements
that are in here. Speaking to a specific person. So if you are just struggling
to come up with a theme, just go with the
hodgepodge theme, like stuff of the season or, you know, the season seasons of the
year or something like that. And just put all
the fun elements that you love on the page, copy this exact
theme, and, you know, I think that alone will bring a lot of
SEO into your work. Of course, that's a little
complicated, right? That's a lot of pieces
to put together. So to keep it simple, maybe you want to do something
like Birds and Botanicals. This is my Birds and
Botanicals calendar. I did a plant of the
season along with a bird. And this is another calendar that I sold in that tall format. So it took up, like,
the whole page. And then there's just a tiny
bit of space here to write. Didn't do great, and I'm
reformatting it, reselling it. As a skinnier version this year, and we're going to have
to see how that goes. But, you know, you try things. They don't work. You
try something else. You see if that works. And that's just the way it happens when you're
trying to sell your art. Last calendar example is the
harvest season's harvest, and this is where I just
took things that were seasonal growing in
the garden and put them together with a little
bit of hand lettering. So I hope that gives you
guys an idea of some of the types of themes you might consider as you think
about your calendar. Now that you have some ideas, cooking in your head, it's time to start
getting them on paper. So here's what
we're going to do. We're going to pinpoint
a sellable theme and determine your
selling platform. So we already know where
you're going to sell it. I've made a big list for you in the bonus guide that you
can get below this video. Then we're going to design
a sellable calendar page, setting the style
for your calendar, and put it on a
calendar template so you can start selling. I've put some templates for you, linked below in the guide that you can get right
below this video. This is just a bonus
to make it easier for you to create and
sell your calendar. You don't have to do
it to do this project, but if you want a
little extra help with getting your calendar
out into the world, check out that guide below. Before we dive in, I want to bust some common myths
for anyone who's feeling that doubt coming up just because you're
getting your theme going. Myth is that the calendar
market is oversaturated. And I can tell you
from experience, the fact is that photo calendar
market is oversaturated, but the artist designed illustrated calendar
market is not. Another myth is that it's
not worth the work to design 12 illustrations
for one product. But the fact is that
calendars have some of the best margin compared
to other POD products. So let's actually look
at the math on that. I pay about 16:50
for each calendar, and that includes shipping. I charge $44 on Etsy, and that is a 62% profit margin. For reference, print on demand
is usually five to 10%. Sometimes I do sales
on my calendar, so I don't always
get the full 62%. But when you think about
the fact that I am not printing or
shipping or handling, like, refunds and returns and damaged things in mail,
I'm not doing any of that. I am just making the art and
putting it on the Internet. When you factor all that in, I'm getting paid very
well per calendar, compared to other products
like fabric and wallpaper. So get your idea in your mind, even if it's a hodgepodge. Remember, this is the default. If you are not getting an idea, if it's just not coming to you, do the hodgepodge.
Stuff of the month. Things of the month. Even
if you're doing, like, a kids calendar, it could
be toys of the month. If it was pets, you could be doing Naughty Pet of the month. You guys can take this in
any direction you want, but remember to do that little
bit of research that we did together to make sure
you have a sellable theme. And then next project,
we're cooking. We're going to start planning and drawing. So
let's keep going.
3. Planning a Sellable Theme with SEO: So hopefully by now, you have at least
identified your theme. You may not have it
fully fleshed out. You may not know everything
about your theme, but you're kind of getting
there and it's not too niche. It's not like sardines. My shirt has sardines on it. That's a little niche, right? I wouldn't make a
sardine calendar, but I would make a Foods
of Europe calendar, and one page is Sardines. And maybe even it's like
foods of Europe by country. So we're going to do, Swiss
chocolate on February, you know, like the pairing that Valentine's Day concept with the Swiss chocolate in February. Ooh, I'm getting
excited about this. I might do a calendar like this, but you get the idea, right? Not too niche. We're
not going sardines. We're going bigger
bigger concept that many humans are
typing in search, and or if they came upon it
by searching wall calendar, they would enjoy the theme
or be excited by the theme. So we're not making it
for the sardine lovers. We're not making it
for the geologists who love calendars
in their office. That's too small
of a group, right? We want to widen it out, bring that theme a little bit wider, and you can still draw sardines. Y'all, you just have
to work it into your SEO so that it's
a more wide theme. So I think you're
getting the point here. We are starting with words. Many artists will start a
new project by drawing. But if your goal
is to sell online, you actually need to
start with words. See, we haven't done
any drawing yet because we are just
planning in this stage. Type the words into the search
bar in the place where you want to sell your work and
analyze what shows up. Look for a place where
the customer might feel dissatisfied after
typing those words and seeing the results. For example, Birds
of North America, birds of the season,
bird watching, birding. Think like humans who type words in search and don't
find what they want. This is where the
gold is, you guys. The people who are out there and they are typing words
about something they're passionate
about or something their friend they're buying the thing for is
passionate about, and they're not seeing
what they want. Those are the people who are
they want to give you money, but your art's not there yet. So that's who we want to reach. We don't want to try to reach the people who already
have a plethora of options because everybody and their brothers already
made a calendar about it. We want to go a
little bit deeper, so we're getting found. So let's do a real
example to really nail down your theme
before we start drawing. And so what I'm thinking of is kind of like a
travel calendar or, like, a seasons
around the world. Something about the world, I want to do these world scenes. So you might have this kind of vague overview that you're
thinking of, and you're like, I don't know if it's
going to be travel or world or cats or
dogs or whatever, and you want to start
nailing it down. So I'm just going to
Google Travel calendar. Go to images or go to shopping. If you're not seeing
what you like there, maybe put in the year
like 2026, 2027, whatever you want to look at, or maybe you want to do
the academic season, 2026 to 27, something like that, or just search your theme
and see what's out there. We just want to know what
is already out there? What words are the existing
sellers using to explain. Now, I wouldn't look at
photo based calendars. I don't think illustrators are competing with
photo based calendars. So I would not go to Rick
Steve's calendar and say, Well, should I make something
like Rick Steve's calendar? That doesn't really count. What I want to know is
what's already going on when a real human
types travel calendar. And how could mine be different? How can mine take it in a
totally different direction? So, you know, we all
love rifle paper Co. And so I don't want to just
copy what she's doing, right? I don't want to do exactly
what she does in her work. I want to do something
totally different. So I'm going to look around and see how hers is
formatted and say, Okay, I'm going to use
a different style. I'm going to use a
different layout. I'm not going to copy
this exact theme. So that's kind of
where we want to go. Now, let's say you
search something and you don't find any results. Let's say you're
really into geology. And you want to do
a geology calendar? Question here, are there already geology calendars? Is
that even a thing? What do they look like? Because I'm wondering here, is this audience
pool big enough? So I don't want to
make a calendar for a group that's, like, the 20 people who
are searching for geology calendars or
crystal calendars. I'd rather open that
up a little bit and maybe make it a
science calendar. Like, broaden that
topic a little bit because what I don't want
to do is make a calendar, and then there's only,
you know, let's say, 100 people going to EtS
and searching for it. That's not a big enough pool. We need a bigger pool to be
sure that we sell a lot. Now, there's some, like,
gemstone calendars, so that's kind of interesting. But there's not a lot of that. So I don't know if I would
consider that a good topic, but maybe, like, a
science calendar. For all the people out there in all of the STEM fields,
you know, math, science, could we combine
this into a concept that would be really exciting
for the science people? So think about that. Do your searching, and then we're going to start
designing your plan. So when we're ready
to design that plan, let's head into Procreate, create a new document. It can just be screen size. And we're going to start
making some notes here. I'm just going to grab
the writing pencil, which I have linked in your bonus guide that goes
along with this class. And I'm going to call this the seasons around
the world calendar. And we might even
start sketching out some ideas for the format, like, do you want to do square? Do you want to do a
skinny strip calendar that just has the
art at the top? Do you want to do a
full tall square? You can go any direction here. You could even do kind
of a circular layout, and then it fits
within the square. So start thinking about
what your format might be. At the same time, we might
make a list of words. I'm going to put some places
that I would really like to cover Japan, Canada. So I'm just listing
out some countries that I really want
to be on there. And I'm open at this point. I don't know exactly what
this is going to look like, but I'm going to start mapping out all of the
different parts of it. So take your time here
from the theme to the format to maybe even thinking a little bit
about individual elements. Like, what if we
drill down on Canada? And, you know, what
elements really say Canada? Like, you look at it, and it's
like, Oh, that's Canadian. That's a Canada thing, especially in winter, right? We might think
about maple syrup. You might think about
like winter gear, hats, boots, scarves,
things like that. So all the things
you can imagine. And then, you know, you're
gonna get stuck at some point, and you're like, I
don't know what's next. Canada in winter, or
maybe we even want to narrow it down even more
to be a specific place. So I'm going to go
Quebec City winter. What does it look
like in winter there? What are people wearing? What are they eating? What are they doing?
All those things. Google Images doesn't
work today, apparently. All of those things that you would see if you
traveled there in winter, take some screenshots,
get it all down on the page so that when
we go to start drawing, we have all that stuff ready. So that is your assignment for
this section of the class. Whatever size you want
this document to be, if you want to write even more, press crop and resize, and then just bring
this page down. Let's say you make this approximately
Instagram story size, then you can share
it and you can tag me so I can see
what you're doing. So I'm going to
continue this process, and I will meet you at the end when you have
your page totally done, and you're at least feeling confident enough to
design one page. We're not committing to a
whole calendar right now. We're just saying, I'm
going to design one page. Next, we need to choose
your orientation. That just means the
size of your art. Are you going to do a square? Are you going to
do a skinny strip? Are you going to
do a wide strip? There's no right or
wrong here, you guys. People sell calendars in all
kinds of different formats. They also sell many
different calendar sizes. So it really just depends on, like, where do you want to
get your calendars printed? I think an easy Psy one
is just to do square, keep it simple, but I'm going to show you some
more options here. So the next step is to choose the orientation
from your art. This will be a combination of the calendar size and
the shape of your art. Also consider how much space
is needed for writing. This will depend
on your audience. Some type of
customers have a lot more to write like soccer moms. They've got a lot going on. They write all over
their calendars. Remember that the class
bonus goes deeper into this. So if you're feeling
a little lost about sizes and orientation, head there right
below this video. Ask me all the time, but what
is the best orientation? Like, what is the
one that sells best? This depends a lot on your art. Some people will want
to fill the whole page, and others will just want to do a tiny strip on the
top of the calendar. Choose what is best
for your style, and above all,
don't overthink it. Select an orientation for
this calendar and move on. You can always use a
different orientation for the next calendar. Find it really fun to
switch up my orientations. Like, I just did a calendar
where it's a skinny strip, just a tiny word in the middle, and then illustration
elements on the side. And it was so fun to
do a different format. So, you know, take
your time with this. This calendar is one format. The next one is a
different format, and maybe you end up
liking one over the other. You might want to
go ahead and grab these templates because
you're going to need them after we draw. If you'd like some help with choosing your orientation and understanding how to use a calendar template
and where to sell, grab this freebie
where I've pulled all the info into
one place for you. It is not required
to do the project, but it will make some of
your decisions easier. You're going to find
everything Bagel Brush set linked in there
and two Canva templates that I use to build my best selling
calendars. Are undated. So no matter when you grab this, you're going to be able to use these templates and put
whatever dates you want. Or if you're just doing this
one page with me today, you can just use one page, use it as a mock up, and then share it so that people
can help you decide, should I make this
into a whole calendar? Should I do all 11 illustrations or is this just
not a good theme? This is a great place
to start you guys. So at this point, you should have your plan
totally finalized. You should know
the general title or concept of your calendar. You should know which
page you want to work on. Like, for example, I'm
going to do January, Quebec City with all of those Quebec winter elements
that I put down on the page. So if you haven't
gotten there yet, go ahead and just finish
that don't obsess over it, get some stuff down so you
can move on to the next step. Remembering that you can always redo calendar pages later. So this isn't your final final. If you don't love it, maybe February you'll love
or March or April. I find that there's some months I love and some months I hate, and I just can't seem to
make that month work well, and I just move on
and keep going. So I hope that
inspires anyone who's feeling that fear of
choosing a topic. Just choose one
and let's dive in.
4. Drawing Your First Calendar Page: Okay, are you guys
tired of planning? I know for people who have always jumped
into drawing first, they might be feeling
like, why are we spending so much
time on this part? If your goal is to
sell your work, you should be spending a lot of time on
this research part. So we are going to
start drawing now, but I just want to say, for anyone who's
getting annoyed, I'm not doing this
to torture you. I am doing it because I have
learned that when I do it, I sell a lot, and
when I do not do it, I do not sell a lot. So People tell me they want
to have sellable calendars, so that is the process
that I recommend to you. So this is the fun part. This is what we've all
been waiting for, right? We're going to start
drawing the art that will set the tone for
the whole calendar. Take your time to have
fun and experiment, as you'll be repeating this 12 times for each of the
12 months of the year. So make sure it's a style and theme that you
really do love. I think that's an important
point to pause on because I have chosen themes solely because I thought
they were sellable, and they actually did not end
up being a good calendar. But then I have chosen
themes that I just love. I'm like, This just
sounds so fun, like my interior's calendar. I just thought it would
be so fun to draw the insides of houses
in different seasons. That just sounds fun. Maybe it's not the most sellable,
but I want to do it. It ended up being a
really sellable calendar. Not only that, it
was super fun to do. So I definitely recommend that you think about
that combination of what is fun for me and what is sellable and where do
those two things meet. Beware the doubt on this stage. This is where so
many people quit. Here are some of the common
sticking points that I see. Number one, I don't think
my theme is sellable, so I'll keep searching
for a theme, and, of course, that
goes on forever. I don't like the style, so let me think about
it for a while, and I'll finish it later. Of course, later doesn't come. I've been teaching
artists how to design calendars for over two years, and I can tell you that
about 75% of people who start do not finish,
but that's not you. You're going to finish.
Finishing a calendar page is winning the battle. So focus on that win and don't worry about
it being perfect. Also, if you're feeling
overwhelmed by the idea of, like, I'm going to have
to do this again 12 times, don't even
think about that. Just focus on this
one calendar page, get to done on this one,
and then we can move on. I'm going to do one
little element, just so you know how I'm
getting to this point. And then I'm just repeating that process
element by element, putting it down on the page, playing an audio book
so I don't obsess over anything too much
and just keep going. So each element, I want
to point out here, I am sketching on its own layer. So every single
element I've sketched, I've done on its own layer. So, for example, if I
want to take this hat, and tap the move tool, I can turn off magnetics here and just put this
hat somewhere else. Like, it kind of fits
really nicely right there, and that leaves
me a little space for what I want to do right now, which is a scarf. So I'm going to
create a new layer, and with everything
Bagel brushed out, I'm going to get
the dual pencil, and I'm going to put a
scarf down on the page. Now, you could just use
a sketching pencil. You don't have to use
the dual pencil here, but I want to do a scarf that
has a kind of a fun shape. So maybe it's going to wrap
around, something like that. And it's going to be kind of thick and it's
probably going to overlap a little bit
in some spots and then have that fun little
What's that called? Frill. Then it might have some little areas that
have various decoration. I've kind of done the, like, crocheted look on these other
hats, so I could do that. Could be a sort
of a crochet look with two different
types of crochet. But I just wanted to show
you this to show you, I don't think you need to spend days and days on each
calendar illustration, and in fact, I
don't recommend it. My goal, my personal
goal is to spend 1 hour per illustration,
nothing more. And my best seller that I showed you
things of the season, that is exactly what I did. I did not obsess for days
on each illustration. I loosely and roughly put
some stuff down on the page. And then just loosely with
some procreate wash brushes, popped them in there
and called it done. So there's my scarf. And this is why I strategically start with the biggest elements because I could put
that scarf anywhere. I could snake it over here, I could snake it over here. So the big chunky things, like these buildings that
had to go first, right? And then the snowshoes
and the boots, I'm kind of working my way down down down to the smallest. The last pretty much
the last thing I always do is some botanicals. So we've got these
little winter berries, which are supposed to be in
Quebec City around that time. So those are going to
be the final pieces, and those will just
be little fillers. So play with the
scale a little bit. Do I want them to be
little branches like this? We could have little
branches that kind of snake around
and fill the area. But again, I'm doing
this all on a new layer. Every piece is going on its own layer so that if
I decide, You know what? That doesn't look
good, I just make it invisible and start over. So none of this is a huge commitment if you do
everything on its own layer, and we're all we're always
thinking about as we do this, the SEO factor, right? Maple syrup, sleds, winter,
mittens, scarves, snowshoes. We're gonna have to find
out what these buildings are called row houses. Are they called row houses
even in Quebec City? So we want to look
all that stuff up so we have that prepared when we're ready to list this for sale. But otherwise, we're just
focusing on playing, making it loose,
making it human. In the AI world, people
are appreciating, again, the looseness
that is human design. So take your time here,
draw something fun. And then, of course, you
can ink it in your own way. And I have a lot of
other classes that you have access to where
you can explore styles. So check out those other
classes to explore styles. But for me, I think
this is going to end up being kind of like
a gouache style. So go to my gallery, I will press Select and then duplicate this document because I always like to keep my sketch. I want to save that
sketch layer and open a new document
for my inking, and then I can just
merge everything. It's all one layer, make it semi
transparent. New layer. Then I'm going to grab the
dark I think I'm going to grab the dark wash glaze here and just start
putting down color. It's gonna be loose. It's gonna be playful. I'm going to let
there be a lot of mistakes just like I did on my things of the
season calendar. I'm not going to be obsessed with everything being perfect. And then I might also do a
nice little background color, like What if we did a light
pink background color? Let's just see what
that would look like. And it's going to be
that loose goosey shape in the background that's just
really loose and playful. So how are my colors that I'm choosing
gonna look on that? I might do a little
test. Let's get a green. I'm just doing a little
color test here, and I'm already loving how
this is going to look. We're going to have that sled. The sled is going to
have those gray parts, and I think there's going
to be a lot of red in this. That's going to
be like the sled, and then there's the mittens. So this kind of color
test can help you just get a feel for what it's going
to look like in the end. I'm feeling good about it. I'm going to move forward
and keep inking this. And so this is where
you'll finish up. You'll have a finished
illustration with all your colors on
it, ready to share.
5. Sharing a Calendar Mockup: So I want to show you an
example of how this will play out as you finish up your
calendar illustration. So at this point, you're working on
your illustration. You've got all your color down, you're happy with your colors, you're happy with your style. And you've got maybe
various levels of detail. Maybe you have high detail, maybe you have low detail. You might even have kind of
colored in different ways. You know, you might
want to share Hey, here's the vibrant version. Here's the non vibrant version. Which do you guys like? Do
you like the high contrast? Do you like the
block print style? Do you like the Guash style? So you might try
multiple styles on this one illustration that
you have completely finished. That is totally up to you. But what you might
do at this point is share JPEG and then
save it as an image. And if you want to go ahead and pop it in one of those calendar templates that I made for
you, you can do that now, or you could just say, plus, New Document 1080 by 1920, this is the Instagram
story size. And just pop it here. And just make it fun, you know? You can say, Hey, guys, I'm working on this
calendar idea. Do you like it? So I'm going to draw it
like it's a real calendar. And you might share
this and say, should I should I make
this into a full calendar? Should I finish all 12
of these illustrations? This is one way to just
kind of show yourself like, Hey, I finished a calendar. Let's do a five week here. So this would be one
really fun and easy way to share this online. Just share this as a JPEG, tag me so I can see it. I want to see what
this looks like. Or go ahead and use that
bonus guide to put this into a template because once
you put it into a template, it's like it becomes
a real calendar, and it goes from an image on the page to being
real, you know, to being something real that you can share
with people and say, Hey, would you actually
buy this as a calendar? This is what it would look like. This is a digital
mockup of my calendar. I hope you'll do
that, and I hope you'll share it with
me so I can see it, and I'm happy to answer
questions about your theme. Just send me a DM, and I'll
take a look at your calendar.
6. Preparing Your Calendar for Sale: So I hope by this point you have at least
finished your sketch, and maybe you're going to
be working on your inking or however you're going to
finish your calendar later on. But hopefully, you're
ready to share it. And I want to see your calendar. I really want to
see what you made. So take your time, make it just as you
think it should be, maybe even make a few
different color versions, a few different style
versions, and then share it. I think really finishing your page is all
about sharing it. That is the final step, right? So you could share a
single page mockup, put it on Instagram and ask
people, Would you buy this? And please tag me
so I can see it. My Instagram handle
is Liz Kohler Brown. You can also continue
with the other 11 pages and put out a finished calendar if you feel ready to do that. As I told you, I make
it my personal goal to spend 1 hour per calendar page, and I also try to do one
calendar page per day. So I'm not joking when I tell you guys that in
under two weeks, I've spent 1 hour a day, and I've finished all my
calendar illustrations. That's my goal. That's how I make art that's both sellable and profitable. So don't allow yourself to choose a theme or
a style that is so time intensive
that there's just never any way that you're going
to make a profit from it. So it's about
choosing that style that's repeatable and simple
enough that you can get it. I want to point out, too, that your calendars are
never finished. Each year, I re release
the same calendars, and I often tweak the colors and improve
the illustration. This is an opportunity for
you to improve over time. I have never put
out a calendar and thought, That looks awesome. I'm so great. I just always see the
flaws like all artists do. I do allow myself
to redo one page, but I don't get stuck
in the redoing. Guys know the redoing loop. You're like, looking at your gallery and thinking,
Oh, I don't like that one. I'll redo that. Now I
don't like that one. I'll redo that. You
know, I'm tired of this. I'll just save this for later. And then you never get
to that sharing step. So this is where
people get stuck. Watch your brain, watch your brain trying
to trick you into not finishing and push
through to that next stage. If you'd like to share one
page or a whole calendar, remember that the
templates are ready for you inside this bonus. It includes the
everything bagel Bushet, two undated calendar templates that you can use
for any date range, and a guide for getting your
calendar out into the world. By now, I hope that
you at least have that solid theme going and you've started doing
some of your artwork, and you're ready to put it
out there in the world. I know this is a long
process, so, of course, this may take you a few
weeks to get it finished, depending on your
time constraints. But please do share it
once you get that going. You can tag me on Instagram, and at Liz Kohler
Brown is my handle. I would absolutely love to
see what you're working on. And I often reshare
student work. So if you do, a polt, it's like, Which color
version do you like? I can reshare that for you
so more people can see it. So Please do that. I want to connect with
you and see what you're working on in your
calendar journey. So I'll see you guys there. Bye.
