Mastering Minimalist Illustration in Procreate: Uncover Your Artistic Voice and Signature Style | Sandra Staub | Skillshare
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Mastering Minimalist Illustration in Procreate: Uncover Your Artistic Voice and Signature Style

teacher avatar Sandra Staub, illustration & design

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      Intro: Welcome to the World of Minimalist Illustration

      1:54

    • 2.

      Setting the Stage: Class Orientation and Structure

      2:23

    • 3.

      Defining Your Creative Purpose: Discover Your Why

      2:25

    • 4.

      Fueling Your Imagination: Finding Inspiration in Art

      3:17

    • 5.

      Infinite Inspiration: Creating Your Visual Encyclopedia

      2:09

    • 6.

      Crafting Your Style: Shaping Elements in Minimalist Art

      2:33

    • 7.

      Bonus Round: Elevating Your Style with Learning from Others

      1:40

    • 8.

      From Idea to Sketch: Creating a Minimalist Composition

      2:46

    • 9.

      Signature Brushes: Personalizing Your Minimalist Toolkit

      2:34

    • 10.

      Style Essence: Shaping Your Color Scheme

      3:37

    • 11.

      Pro-Level Canvas Setup: Perfecting Your Workspace

      1:57

    • 12.

      From Sketch to Masterpiece: Creating Your Minimalist Art

      3:43

    • 13.

      Texture Magic: Elevating Your Minimalist Artv

      2:24

    • 14.

      Course Recap: Wrapping Up Your Minimalist Art Journey

      1:03

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About This Class

Are you hoping to find your style as an illustrator? Minimalist illustration in Procreate could be exactly what you're looking for! 

By reducing your work to only the essentials, you'll be able to uncover your reasons for creating and lay the groundwork of your signature style.

In this class,I'll teach you how to master a minimalist illustration style while helping you uncover your artistic voice and style. Together, we will establish all the essentials elements to craft your very own, unique minimalist style, such as your signature colors, brushes, and more!

But let’s go into details: in this class you will learn...

  • ...what minimalist illustration is
  • ...how to find your voice as an artist
  • ...how you find the perfect topic for your illustrations
  • ...how to find and implement inspiration from other creators
  • ...how to develop your own minimalist illustration style
  • ...how to define your unique brush set
  • ...how to create and develop a minimalist color palette
  • ...and how to never run out of ideas for your artwork!

Minimalist art is in very high demand in many areas of the creative industry. After taking this class you will have established your unique approach to minimalist illustration, as well as a workflow that you can reproduce for any commission or project that will come along your way.

To take this class, you ideally have a strong passion for illustration. You don’t need to be a pro (yet) in order to take this class, but some basic drawing knowledge will definitely come in handy. For the entirety of the class we will be working in Procreate, but if you have a software — or prefer pen and paper — the content of this class will still be valuable. Just give it a try! As far as the other resources go, you can download all the necessary templates in the Class Resources, or feel free to make your own!

Are you ready? Let’s get started!

Meet Your Teacher

Teacher Profile Image

Sandra Staub

illustration & design

Teacher

My name is Sandra Staub and I am a Swiss-Colombian Illustrator and Graphic Designer.

I've been working over 10 years in the creative industry, collaborating with amazing companies such as Penguin Random House, Pela Case, Packhelp, UBS, SWICA, Linearity, and many more...

My designs aim to convey stories of empowerment, finding inspiration in womanhood, nature and all things magical. I strive to inspire people to discover their true self and live it fearlessly.

I'm a design minimalist and like to combine clean shapes with organic textures, fine-lined details and bold, yet limited colour palettes. I confidently work with both digital and analogue media, creating digital illustrations one day, large scale hand painted murals the next.

Let's connect on Instagram! ... See full profile

Level: All Levels

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Transcripts

1. Intro: Welcome to the World of Minimalist Illustration: Illustrating can be a very personal process. You can draw from your personal experiences and channel that into your very own personal style. If you are intrigued with finding out what your style is through minimalist art, then this class is for you. Hello everyone. My name is Sandra Stab. I'm an illustrator and graphic designer based in Zurich, Switzerland. And today we're going to learn how to create mindful and minimalist art. In this class, I'm a trained graphic designer who turned Illustrator in 2020. When everything changed, because I purchased an ipad, I was finally able to translate my love for drawing to the fast paced digital world I was so used to work in for over ten years, I became a self employed illustrator after that, and it has been an amazing journey. I have been able to work with international clients such as Vectornator Pac, help UBS, and Penguin Random House. This led me to the realization that we all can do whatever we dream of if we're just persistent enough. I'm living my dream now and I'm loving it. In this class, you're not just going to learn how to illustrate in a minimalist style, now, we're actually going to make the minimalist style work for you. So you're going to learn how to find your voice as an artist through minimalist art. So how is this going to happen? Easy? At the beginning, we will first explore your message and what you are all about as an artist. And then we will learn how to channel that into minimalist art. So if you're curious about finding your voice and your style as an artist, then this class is definitely for you. The class project is going to be, of course, a minimalist illustration. We'll mostly be working and procreate, but if you are an analog lover, don't worry, this class is still for you. If you intrigued by now, then I'm going to see you in the next class. 2. Setting the Stage: Class Orientation and Structure: Hello and welcome back. I'm very happy to see that you made it to the second lesson of this class. So here's how this is going to work. I strongly believe that every one of us has a unique gift to share with this world. And if we find that and we're able to share this with the world, then we make this place a little bit more beautiful for me. This is illustration. And it has led me to work with a bunch of amazing people and clients in this life. And I'm truly happy that I get to share this with you today. So as I mentioned in a previous lesson, this class is not just here to teach you a minimalist style. No, It's also meant to bring you closer to your personal message or your voice. As an artist, I know this is a very ambitious goal, but I really wanted to teach this class and really give some additional value to just learning a certain style. So the way we're going to do that is we split the content in basically three sections. In section one, we're going to focus on your artistic voice. I've heard many people call it like that. It's probably due to the amazing book by Lisa Congdon that is called Find Your Artistic Voice. However, I call it Message. And the first part of this class is designed to help you find your message as a creator. In part two of this class, we will explore minimalist style elements and how to draw objects in a minimalist way. There you're basically gathering all the toolset that you need in order to create a minimalist illustration. Then in part three, we are going to use everything that you've learned to create your class project that will be a minimalist illustration. This class will not just teach you how to explore your very own minimalist style, It's also here to make you understand what your motivation is behind creating art. Understanding what my motivation is very often has helped me overcome creative block, and I can hope that it will do the same for you. And of course, I'm going to sprinkle in the occasional neat trick or hack that I use in my everyday work day in procreate. Now, before we get started, make sure you settle on a medium. As I said, this class is designed for procreate. But if you have another app that you feel more comfortable working it, or if you just want to do this analog, then go for it. Not having an ipad should not stop you from taking this class. All right, and up with the talking. I'm going to see you in the next lesson. 3. Defining Your Creative Purpose: Discover Your Why: Hi and welcome back. We'll jump right into the next exercise that is designed to help you find your message as an artist. We'll start with a brainstorm, because when I get asked how I found my illustration style, it really all originated from who I am as a person and not just my drawing skills. And it opened up a Pandora's box full of subjects I wanted to turn into art. I prepare the template and the class resources with the goal to help you explore your interests beyond illustration and creation. As I have mentioned before, the goal of this activity today is to make you stand out by giving you a voice as an artist and creator. In order to find out what that is, you will use the template and write down everything you feel passionate about. This can be music, nature, yoga, rock climbing, technology, really anything that comes to mind, just write it all down and keep an open mind. Don't hold back. The template is also to get you familiarized with procreate, in case you've never or rarely used it before. Give it a go, even if you usually work with analog media. This exercise we will use the studio pen brush from the inking set in, procreate, so you won't get held up by choosing the right brush. Trust me, I've been there picking out a brush for half an hour. We don't want that. This is all about taking action and getting out of your head, know, overthinking if you already have another go to brush, feel free to use that one. After you feel like you've gotten everything down on paper, highlight the topics that interest you the most are that you feel especially drawn towards protep, print this, brainstorm, and hang it up in your studio. This is a reminder of what your art is about. The reason why you express yourself and what you want to share with the world. Go back to it often and add new things as they come up or eventually start completely new. It's normal that we evolve as human beings, and so does our work. This template is supposed to grow with you as an artist and to give you a sense of what you as an artist and as a person stand for. Now you have a clear idea of what you and your art is all about. This brainstorm serves as a reference sheet you can use to find new inspiration for your next artwork. Or in order to describe to someone else what your art is all about. Let's explore these topics more in depth in the next lesson. 4. Fueling Your Imagination: Finding Inspiration in Art: Now that you know what you are interested in, let's start looking up other artists who explore the same or similar topics. Keep in mind that hardly any artist has the same themes in their work. And that is great, because that's what makes you so unique. Just check out artists who explore one or several of the themes you're passionate about. Here's how I do it. I use Pinterest for almost all of my visual references and inspiration. The reason I use it is because I can create boards of all different topics I find interesting. The algorithm even provides me with more pins I might like for each board. Since I'm a bit of a neat freke, I love that. Pinterest has a feature that allows you to subcategorize your board into sections and to organize your pins by pinning the ones that you like the best you can. Of course create a folder on your computer or ipad where you can save all your inspiration. But personally, I prefer Pinterest for two reasons. First, the algorithm constantly suggests new inspiring pins, helping you to keep your opt fresh and truly inspiring. Believe me, I've looked at my inspiration around 100 times. There comes a time when they just don't inspire you anymore. Second, by pinning saving, and liking the work of other artists you admire, you help them get more exposure and growth. That is much better than downloading pretty nice pigs to your computer, right? It's not 2010 anymore. For this lesson, we'll start with a board called Minimalist Illustration Inspiration. Again, we keep it simple. Start by searching for the one topic you felt most inspired by during your brainstorm. For me that could be magic illustration, but for you, that's maybe architectural illustration or yoga illustration. Now, browse around on Pinterest and save everything you like. Make sure you explore the suggestions Pinterest provides you. When you click on one of the images you like, go with the flow and type in anything that you're curious to explore from your brainstorm and save it on your board. This exercise is much like the brainstorm. Don't overthink it, just save it all. You can always create more specific boards dedicated to one topic like yoga or architecture. Or categorize your board into sections later. For example, I have a board dedicated to traditional American tattoo, because I often use elements from that visual universe in my work. I also have a board on symbols and their meaning I use in order to round out a composition for pose references. I have a separate board depending on what I want my next illustration to be about. I pick references from these boards and draw them in my minimalist style. Instagram has a very similar function to Pinterest. It's called the Safe button, can save posts that inspire you and even create different sections as well. Now you know exactly where to go when you're looking for inspiration. It is essential to keep fueling your creative fire by absorbing as much visual inspiration you can. But don't take my word for it. Author Jeff Cones wrote an entire chapter about the importance of absorbing inspiration, only to rearrange it and make it your own creation. The book is called Real Artist One Starve. And it's definitely a must read, by the way. Don't be shy to learn from your influences and adapt anything to your message and needs. 5. Infinite Inspiration: Creating Your Visual Encyclopedia: Okay, now that we're done with the preparation we get to actually create, are you ready? In the class resources, you will find a blank template with only one dotted line. Pick one of the topics from a brainstorm you feel most drawn to at the moment. Write it down on the indicated line and start drawing objects that represent that theme. I'll make an example. Pick the six pencil brush or you go to brush for this exercise. Again, focus on the action and on the process. Don't overthink it. Sketch the objects in a simple way. Like me, I picked the topic, magic. Some of the first objects that came to mind were crystals, skull herbs, incense, and so on. Don't be afraid to fill the entire sheet with doodles this time. Less is more can be totally ignored. What we want is quantity over quality, protip. You can also explore symbolism for more abstract topics. I, for example, have this amazing symbolism encyclopedia that I found in a used bookstore. There are tons of books about symbolism. But you can also explore symbols in tower cards, religious art, indigenous art, science fiction, movies or whatever makes your heart beat faster. Explore the media that already speaks to you and try to find out what the symbols actually represent. Another cool way to find objects to draw is to gather inspiration from your surroundings. Maybe you have a cute house plant and one of your themes is nature. Then draw your house plants, draw the pots if one of your themes is ceramics, or draw the furniture from your favorite furniture shop. Make it personal by bringing in things from your surroundings that you think are beautiful. Look at the vast amount of objects you have in your visual repertoire. Now, you'll always know where to go should you ever get stuck in your creative process. But to be honest, I wouldn't know how that could happen with all the objects you have now. Just waiting for you to put them into one of your beautiful artworks. See you in the next class. 6. Crafting Your Style: Shaping Elements in Minimalist Art: Okay, I'm on a roll now. I don't know about you but I'm feeling in a creator refresh. In this lesson, we'll get into minimalistic illustrations and here's how we do it. In the class resources, you will find a template with a dotted line and four empty squares imported to procreate or print it for the analog lovers out there. And start by exploring different ways of drawing one of your object from your visual brainstorm. Just as we did in the previous lesson, pick any object you feel drawn towards and make it easy. Don't overthink. We'll again use the six pencil brush or your go to brush, if you have one, and draw the object in different minimalist styles, much like during the last lesson. The objects don't need to be perfect just yet, we're still just sketching. I'll go first. I picked the Lexer bottle from the previous visual brainstorm and I'm going to draw it in different shapes and versions. I can play around with different elements or by adding some perspective. Play around with whatever comes to mind. Since minimalist illustrations often avoid perspective, I like to draw my objects completely flat. Think about how this affects your object and maybe try to draw it in a three quarter angle. In frontal view or in profile view, protip. Sometimes I like some parts of an object, but I'm not fully happy with it just yet. Then I create a copy of the layer as a backup. Hide the back up layer by toggling visibility off and redraw the parts I want to improve. But again, don't get held up by the details. There is time for fine tuning later in this class. Super Protip. If further down the road you'll ever feel a creative block, go back to this template and redraw any object you like from your previous visual encyclopedia or maybe even from your brainstorm exercise. This is something I often do to get the creative juices flowing. I just go back to something familiar draw that inspiration usually follows just after a little while. By now, you have a vast visual repertoire and at least four ways of drawing your core objects. You can just pick the version you like best and copy paste it into your composition. See you in the next lesson. 7. Bonus Round: Elevating Your Style with Learning from Others: One thing that helped me define my style was to compare what I drew with the art of people whose work I admired. This is a good exercise to also find your core influence and to combine all your inspiration into something new. Here we'll go back to Pinterest to look up other examples of the object we just drew. Since I drew an Alexerbottle, I search for that and look at the parts I like. Then I go back to my style board and implement the parts I like best by redrawing them so they fit the style of your object. You can also have a look at your minimalist illustration inspiration board and compare your sketches to the line quality, shading or details on the object there. Incorporate what you like into your sketches in your style. Protip, compare my art to other artists work. Help me define my style even more by knowing what set me apart from what is already out there. Because let's be honest, everything has already been done. But not to discourage you, because your way of seeing the world is unique. And that's exactly what I want you to use in your art. To re, arrange what has already been done in your unique way, using your interests and your passions and your drawing style. Even though I'm teaching you how to create a minimalist illustration like mine, I'm sure all the class projects will show a vast variety of how to use a minimalist illustration style and will be very different from one another. I can't wait to see them. In the meantime, let's meet up in the next lesson. 8. From Idea to Sketch: Creating a Minimalist Composition: By now I hope you have an idea for a general theme for your class project illustration. If not, just start with one of your favorite core objects from lesson six and find a scenario in which you could draw it. We'll start this lesson by picking one or a few of the core objects and roughly arrange them in different compositions. We work with the same templates than in the previous lesson, but now use the four empty squares to play around with the elements in your composition. Bring 23 or four of your core objects into this template and play around arranging them differently. This time, less is actually more. Let's start small and don't clutter up your canvas. You can always use the other core objects that you absolutely love in one of your illustrations later. Just a little reminder, we are still working with a six pencil brush or your go to brush, since we're still focusing on the general composition. I picked the Elyxor bottle and I wanted to add some elements. I like the idea of having a snake wrapped around it. I'll try out different options of placing that bottle with the snake. I can change details by copying my layer and re, draw parts of my sketch, or by entirely redrawing my core objects in a new square. Don't forget to design your white space intentionally, meaning that you leave space to let the composition breathe. In other words, don't clutter up your compositions. Which brings me to another key aspect of minimalist illustration. Intentional white space, which allows the eye to focus on only a few objects rather than a lot. It highlights the general theme and message of your illustration even more. In this step, you can also start thinking of decorations. There can be small decorative elements that further help transmit the message of your art. For example, for my magical eleoxier themed illustration, I can add a skull crystals, stars or moths to just nf feel free to bring other and maybe not so obviously related elements as long as they enhance the composition and don't draw attention from the main theme. Pro tip. Already think which objects you want to draw using only outlines and which ones should be filed, Which objects should have texture. You can even think of colors already, but we'll get to that in the next lesson. The general rule is if it looks good in only two colors, for example, black and white or light pink and dark blue, it will also look good with color. We have now at least four different composition sketches we can base our final class illustration on. You're more than ready for the next lesson. See you there. 9. Signature Brushes: Personalizing Your Minimalist Toolkit: For this lesson, we'll again use our style template. But this time we fill the squares by drawing some of our core objects in each square using different brushes. I only use a handful of brushes in my illustrations. Remember, less is more. I have to admit that I never downloaded a brush set. They're wonderful tools to explore, but I prefer working with only a few resources in order to find out what I like best. I personally can feel overwhelmed by too many options to pick from, but that's just me. My go to brushes are the studio pen from the inking set, the fat nozzle brush from the spray paint set, and occasionally the soft brush from the airbrushing set. Of course, I use the six B pencil from the sketching set. For all my sketching, use the template as follows. Write down the theme of your illustration on the dotted line and use the four empty squares to test four different brushes you feel go well with the general theme of your illustration. As I said, I use the studio pen for my outlines as I like crisp, clean lines. But maybe your theme is something different and you'd like your lines to have a bit more texture. Find a few brushes that have the right feel and draw a few lines, or even one of your core objects in the empty squares. Fill in some of the objects too, to see how the brush behaves. Once you're done, repeat the same step, but now pick brushes for your textures. I use the fat nozzle because I also work as a muralist and I used to do quite a bit of street art back in the days. I just love the look of a spray can line. This is why I chose this brush. Even though my illustrations are very clean, I occasionally like to add some complexity by using this brush in my work. Protip. Feel free to skip the texture brushes because maybe you don't want texture in your artwork. That is fine too. I only started using texture later on because it felt like necessary effect for me until I found a personal reason why to use it. You have two templates with four different brushes each. Consider which ones go in line with the mood and message of your illustration and pick that one for your outlines. You can also be the same one you're going to use for your textures. Again, less is more. Pick one, maximum two brushes for lines and texture you can always add to your brush repertoire later. Okay, see you in the next lesson. 10. Style Essence: Shaping Your Color Scheme: In this lesson, we will use the blank template to create our own minimalist signature color palette. The color pallet consists of at least four colors. The base color, the accent color, and two neutral colors. As always, we'll start writing down the general theme of our class project illustration on the dotted line. We do this so we always have a visual reminder of what the purpose of this template is. If you come back a few days later to this template or to the class, you'll always know right away the theme of your template and you keep your mind clutter free. All right. Now let's pick a base color that represents your general theme. It can be obvious, like for coffee can be brown, and for nature it can be green. Or it can be based on color theory and color psychology. If you're new to color theory and color psychology, make sure to check it out on Pinterest or do a quick Google search. Of course, there are also wonderful classes on the topic on skillshare. I'd like to start with creating a new color palette by clicking on the color swatch at the top right corner. Then I tap on palettes. Then I create a new palette by tapping the plus and name it. The general theme of my illustration is magic or magic potion. I want a vibrant purple as my base color. If you're still unsure which color to pick, just start with your favorite color. I usually pick my first color using the disc. I pick a general hue on the outer ring, then fine tune it in the disc or using the value sliders. Once I like the color, I save it with one tap in my newly created palette. Now we'll pick an accent color. I recommend this to be a color that is very different from your primary color. I sometimes use the harmony tap in procreate to find suggestions. The accent color should generate a contrast to the first color. You can, again, play around with the value sliders until you find one or two colors you like the best si them in your palette. I like this pink, but I want it to be more vibrant. I'm playing around a bit with the value sliders to make it more saturated. Last but not least, we'll pick one or two neutral colors that help balance out the composition. Too many saturated colors draw the focus from the message or purpose of your illustration. We want to make sure we'll guide the viewer using colors intentionally. I like using the brightness slider in the Value tab to create tints and shades from the same color in order to have more variety to pick from. If I work with a very saturated color and I want a more neutral version of it, I also use the saturation slider within the same value. Tap in procreate. Keep drawing your colors into your template and highlight the ones you like. Best pro. In order to create a strong brand, I always use the same color palette in my illustrations. I created my color palette starting with colors that are meaningful to me, like the indigo blue and the light pink. They actually come from my master's thesis. These colors stuck with me over the years and I kept using them throughout my illustration work. Now, my illustrations are also known for my colors, which is definitely something worth considering if you want to stand out and be recognizable. Whether you choose to create your signature color palette from colors of personal significance or according to the theme of your illustration, you know how to create a minimalist color palette. All right, see in the next lesson. 11. Pro-Level Canvas Setup: Perfecting Your Workspace: Finally, it's time to set up our art board for a class project. I often work with a square format or a four by five format. It fits nicely into my Instagram feed, yet I can still produce prints from the artwork later. I use very big formats to ensure I can make prints from my illustrations without almost any additional effort. For example, I 440 millimeters width and 550 millimeters height. I set my resolution to 300 DPI. The bigger your size, the less layers you'll have available. In procreate, I just use that in my advantage. It keeps me focused on creating as few layers as possible and to work within the restrictions of the app. Again, less is more. If you work in analog media, I would advise you to pick a big format for your class project illustration. That way, once it's done, you can scan it in high resolution and create prints from your original. For this project, we're setting the color range to RGB. Then you tap Create, and voila, we have our artboard for our final class project, Protip. You can also work in a CMYK mode, having your artboard ready for print from the beginning. I however, prefer RGB because the colors are more vibrant. Nowadays, more and more printers can print directly from an RGB file, creating more saturated prints. Even though you might have learned that anything that will be printed needs to be in CMYK, that is mainly true for offset printing, for art prints, this is definitely not true anymore. You have your artwork ready and you know whether to pick an RGB or CMYK color profile. Plus you know what to pay attention to if you ever want to sell your artwork as art prints. I'll see you in the next lesson. We will finish our illustration. 12. From Sketch to Masterpiece: Creating Your Minimalist Art: Okay, Oh, we've learned a lot by now. And we'll finally put all this into practice. In this lesson, we'll finalize our class project illustration from sketch to final artwork. I hope you're all excited because I sure am. Let's go back to our sketch we set up at the end of lesson eight. If you haven't imported it yet into your artboard, here's how to do it. I picked a sketch I like best selected with the selection tool, swipe down on the canvas with three fingers and tap copy. Then I go to my freshly set up artboard, swipe down with three fingers again, and select Paste. I rename this layer sketch, And I lower the capacity to about 50% by tapping it with two fingers. And adjusting the sliders. I like to work on a colored artboard. First I change the background to this pale pink hue. Then I start redrawing all the objects in my illustration using the outline brush I picked in lesion two, Each object goes on a new layer. Some objects I fill by using recolor. In procreate, I drag and drop the color from the top right corner into my object. Be aware that this only works within enclosed shapes. If you use a texture brush, it's possible that you will not have a clean outline and that you'll have to color your object manually. For some objects, I really like to use the symmetry feature. I use symmetry a lot in my art. And then I usually add a few asymmetrical elements to the composition to make it interesting. If I'm unsure if I want an object as outline only or filled, I create a copy of my outline layer. Tkle visibility of the outline layer off and then use recolored on the copied layer. That way I can always go back to the outline. Should I ever change my mind, I mostly decide which objects to fill or not based on if it makes the composition look balanced. Sometimes objects get too much importance if they are solid color and I don't want that, I leave them as an outline. Sometimes I need more weight in a particular area of my illustration, I fill in a shape. It's an intuitive process, it just needs to feel harmonious to me. This very step, I also start assigning colors. I use my basic color on the objects of the most importance, and the accent color as the name indicates. To add accents for bigger objects, I use lighter tints. For smaller elements, I use darker or more saturated shades. You can always use an accent color also on a larger object in your design if it fits the general mood. Why not using neutral colors for larger objects or for the background Protip? Duplicate your layers as a backup. Sometimes I want to see if an object looks good with texture or fill, or I want to modify the shape a little bit. But before I do that, I create a backup copy of my layer to toggle the visibility off. That way, if I decide further than the road that I like the composition better with the previous object, I can always go back without losing any progress of the illustration. Now our class project is almost done. Only a few steps are missing. Let's jump right into the next lesson and finish our class project together. 13. Texture Magic: Elevating Your Minimalist Artv: By now you have turned your sketch into a flat illustration. In this lesson, we will apply textures to your objects, giving them depth and character. If you choose to not add texture, that's fine too. I didn't use texture at first in my illustrations. I only started to add them later. Now I really like them, but it doesn't always fit the theme and mood of the illustration. Feel free to jump ahead to the next lesson. However, I would encourage you to watch this lesson and decide later if you want to use texture or not. It never hurts to learn something extra. Right? What I do to add texture is I create a new layer above the layer of the element I want to have a texture on. I name the layer texture and make it a clipping mask. Now I draw on this layer as freely as I want, but the texture will only apply to the reference layer below that contains my object. If I toggle clipping mask off, the texture will be applied to the entire artboard, which is something I don't want, but feel free to try it out. The clipping mask feature is very useful if I choose to change the color of the texture later. If I apply texture directly on my object, I would have to recreate the texture each time after recoloring my object, which is something I definitely don't want use texture only on a few objects at first because this is a minimalist illustration after all. If you're really feeling the texture may be even added to the background. But I personally prefer it only on a few objects to make them really pop. Now is also the time to add some last details, decorations, and final touches to your illustration. Protip. To change the color of one object, easily swipe the layer using two fingers to the right or toggle Alpha lock on. Then pick the new color for your object. Click on the layer again and tap Fill Layer. This way it fills your entire object rather than the entire layer. If the entire layer gets filled with a new color, then alpha logged wasn't toggled on. Now that if you applied your texture, your illustration is almost finished. I say almost because artwork is only finished. Once it is signed, make sure your signature is definitely in there and you're done. I'll see you in the next lesson for some final notes. 14. Course Recap: Wrapping Up Your Minimalist Art Journey: All right, that's a rap congratulations to your first minimalist illustration. I'm really excited to see them. So make sure you're going to upload them at the end of this class in the project section. I hope that by now you feel inspired and confident to explore minimalist style further in your illustration. You know where you can find inspiration in topics that are close to your heart. You know how to translate them into your style. You also know how to arrange them into meaningful compositions. And you also learned how to use color strategically so you can further strengthen your brand as an artist. I wish you an exciting time on your path as an illustrator. If you have any questions, drop them in the comment sections, in the discussion section of this class. And if you like my work, follow me an Instagram. You will find more inspiration, tips and tricks. And also you will stay updated on Upkmic skill share classes. Thank you so much for taking this class with me and I hope to see you next time. Bye.