Transcripts
1. Introduction: Welcome to Minimalist Illustration Secrets: Successful minimalist
illustration is all about stripping down your composition
to only the essentials. What is needed must go. But how do professional
illustrators keep artwork intriguing to the viewer if
there is so much white space? If you're ready to step up
your game as an illustrator, minimalist or not, then
this class is for you. Hello, and welcome everyone. To this very special
class where I collected all the little secrets for successful
minimalist illustration? I developed or discovered
during five years of experience as an illustrator and over ten years of experience
as a graphic designer. My name is Sandra Stout, and as I just mentioned, I am an illustrator
graphic design muralist, but also, which is not that
related, a beer smilar. I always loved drawing, and when the time came, I wanted to study
illustration. But guess what? I got rejected. That's how I ended up
studying graphic design, and I am so glad I did. I learned so many important
design principles that later influenced
my style as an illustrator to
a point where it became very distinct
and made me stand out. Now, I easily dabble between illustration
and graphic design, enjoying the best parts
both worlds have to offer. I'm excited and proud about the fact that I got to
create illustrations for big companies such as Penguin
Random House, UBS, or Sika. For inspiring international
clients like Pla case, Rasa, linearity, and PAC help, but as well for local
small business owners who are not suitable
for name dropping, but are wonderful humans
with great visions. Blending illustration with graphic design is where I shine. So I took a hard look at my
workflow with the goal to unlock all the secrets about minimalist illustration for you. This is a very
straightforward class, where I will teach you how to take your illustration skills, minimalist or not
to the next level. I will touch on several
design principles and get into the philosophy
of design and minimalism, all with the goal of
providing you with a vast toolbox of essential knowledge for
your creative growth. So if you're intrigued, head right over to
the next lesson, and I'll tell you exactly how I plan to do that.
See you there.
2. Setting the Stage: Overview & Class Project: Hello, and welcome back to
another lesson of this class where I share all my secrets for successful minimalist
illustrations with you. I'm genuinely happy you're here watching the second lesson. Thank you so much for that. Some of you might know my
first skill share class, Mastering minimalist
illustration in Procreate, Uncover your artistic
voice and signature style, whose overwhelmingly
positive reception and feedback inspired me
to create this class. I was mind blown by all your
amazing class projects. Your artwork, your questions, and your comments
made me understand which other insights
could be helpful for you. I created this class
with the goal to provide you everything you might need
for your creative growth. The creation of this class has helped me take a closer look at my workflow and extract all these little habits
I had cultivated, sometimes even without noticing. It became increasingly clear that my work as an illustrator is deeply connected to my background as a
graphic designer. What I had learned at uni and
during my work experience as a graphic designer is what I automatically applied
to my illustrations, and which eventually made me become the illustrator
I am today. It comes as no
surprise that I became known for a minimalist
illustration style, as I am both a little bit OCD, but also a graphic designer. If you're a designer yourself, you know how much we
love, white space, clean lines and shapes, and the omnipresent
mantra of esis More. Minimalist illustration, as
the name already indicates, is all about reducing the elements in your
illustrations to a minimum. What isn't needed must go. It is about guiding the
eye of the viewer in order to get the message
across quickly with no fuss. To achieve that, it is
important to use and style all the elements within a minimalist illustration
with intention and care. Every element serves a purpose, and every color is
picked with intention. In this class, I will
teach you how to use the principle of
minimalist illustration intentionally in order to convey the message of the illustration in a clear and concise way. You will learn how to find the beauty and
simplicity and how to use that for your advantage in your art. But don't worry. This class will not be one boring theoretical lesson
after another. Far from it. I wreck my brain in order to
find a neat item to design, which will give you
both the opportunity to practice the
principles taught, as well as the
opportunity to get creative and develop
something that will last. So drum roll, please. We will design a sticker sheet. Each sticker design provides you with the opportunity to put one or more minimalist illustration secrets
into practice. At the end, you have a
lovely artwork you can print or sell or simply
keep for yourself. The first part of this class will be focusing on the basics. You will learn how
to pay attention to little details that take
your art to the next level, as well as how to set up your Canvas for
your class project. In the second part,
we move on to learn my Illustration
secrets that will help you create clear
and stylish design, which in the third part, you'll learn how to
personalize and take them from solid groundwork to functional
and intriguing designs. Little disclaimer before
we get to the good stuff. This class is designed
for Procreate. A few lessons are
procreate specific, but most of the
content taught can be adapted to your
own weapon of choice. Feel free to stick around
if you're a Fresco, photoshop, affinity, or
a pen and paper user. It is definitely helpful if you have basic illustration skills. But I will be going into a couple of design and
drawing principles. If you're completely
new to illustration, you might still give
this class a go. However, I'm absolutely
certain that this class will provide useful insights for advanced and pro illustrators. This is a hands on class, and in every lesson, we will create an illustration based on a minimalist
illustration secret. If you're watching
this while lying bed or chilling on a sofa, you either watch all the lessons to get a first impression, then watch them again
to do the exercises, or you grab your iPad or tablet, a big glass of water, get comfortable and join
me in the next lesson. I'll see you there. Bye.
3. Perfecting Shapes: The OCD Guide to Drawing Shapes: In order to create this class, I took a hard look at
all my habits and quirks that seem very normal to me during my
illustration process, but are probably the secret
of successful minimalist art. When starting a new sketch, it usually takes
me a long time to get the shape of my
objects just right. What I mean by that
is that I spend a lot of time polishing
the flow of the lines, the endings or unions of lines, and the overall shape of the
objects in my composition. I often delete lines
over and over, only to redraw them again until I am satisfied
with how they look. A long time, I consider this habit a bit problematic because I would often spend a lot of time on seemingly tiny details. I thought nobody would notice. But over time, I realized that, as it so often is, this so called quirk was
actually a superpower. Minimalist illustration is all about reducing
everything to a minimum, which means also to reduce the compositional objects
to the absolute essentials, which consequentially
makes every single object much more important
and meaningful. Therefore, since a
minimalist illustration is composed of only a
handful of objects, it makes sense to pay special
attention to achieving the perfect shape and balance of every single one of them. I'll show you just
how to do this. Procreate provides you
with a wide array of useful tools that make your
workflow so much easier. A first example is that procreate automatically
straightens out a line if you keep the pencil on your screen after you
finish drawing it. Like you can see here or here. If you simultaneously
hold down one finger, the straight line
automatically snaps two angles of 15
degrees intervals. I use this feature
both for building my shapes and for
smoothing out my shapes. And sometimes I combine several line snippets and then smooth out where
they come together. Whenever possible, I
break down an object into its basic geometric shapes
and build it from there. Procreate also provides features that are
helpful for that. You draw a rough circle in procreate and hold
down the pencil, procreate automatically
creates an ellipse. And if you additionally hold down the finger on your canvas, it will create a circle. I use this feature
when drawing moons or the arches that frame
some of my compositions, where I combine the circle with the straight lines
procreate helps me draw. In addition to these
procreate features, I also very often use the symmetry tool to create
the perfect objects. I explore this tool more in
the lesson about symmetry. But here is a gist. I drew this arch starting with a straight
line at the bottom. To get that effect,
you have to talk along the symmetry assistant by
tapping on the wrench icon, then select Canvas
edit drawing guide, symmetry, and then
Options vertical. As I mentioned, I'll explain
the other guide options and how to use them best
in the lesson on symmetry. I then moved on to
drawing the lateral lines of the arch and placed
a half circle on top. From here, I can proceed to even draw other elements using
the symmetry assistant. Or I can mix it up a bit by toggling the assistant
off in the layers tab and adding some
asymmetrical details like these leaves
or little details. If you're anything like me and I are a bit obsessed
with symmetry, check out the
symmetry tool lesson. But for now, let's move on with a few more
tips and tricks for drawing the perfect shapes of
your compositional objects. I personally find that for a clean and curse minimal look, I want to have as much control
over texture as possible. For me, that means that I pick a brush with three
major characteristics. Little to no texture, little to no transparency, and little to no ductus. The ductus is what
happened to a brush when you apply more or
less pressure to it. My favorite brush
is the studio pen from the default
inking set in Pcate. It has a little bit of
ductus, as you can see here. But that's actually something
I'd like to preserve in order to keep that certain
human touch in my work. However, choosing this
clean brush allows me to draw very clean objects
with supercross borders. If I want to give more
depth to an object, I can always add a
texture layer later. However, there are many
great illustrators out there who rock
a minimalist style, yet use more textured brushes. For example, mama, who uses a slightly textured
brush with low ductus, probably something similar to the ink bleed brush from the same default inking
set of procreate. Another example is the work
of the amazing Manolis. And if I had to guess, she probably uses a brush
similar to the dry ink brush, which is also part of the same default procrate
brush set called Inking. The other important
characteristic for a clean and minimalist
look that you want to pay special attention
to when picking your brush is transparency. This is related to the ducts in the sense that if
you use less pressure, the brush generates a
certain transparent quality, thus not applying
the color evenly. I'll show you what I
mean with an example. If I apply the color with my
favorite studio pen brush, it gets applied evenly, no matter how much
pressure I use. If I use the marker brush
from the very same set, using less pressure will create a slightly
transparent line, while using more pressure
will create a more even look. Play around with brushes,
see what you like best, and what fits your vibe and the personality of
your artwork best. What works for me must not
necessarily work for you. So I want to invite you to take some time and draw some of your favorite objects using different brushes and
see what happens. Lastly, I want to stress
the importance of paying special attention to endings
of lines and joints. In other words,
where lines meet. Here you can see
two lines meeting. Usually, I would zoom in on this and round out
the corners a bit, so they look clean and fit
the overall vibe of my work. I proceed in a similar matter when it comes to
endings of lines, especially if they serve
a decorative function, like the sleeve or the
corners of the moon. I hope this lesson
inspired you to give the details in your
artwork some extra love. I find it is truly worth
spending some extra time making sure your objects
look as perfect as possible. Go to an illustration
of yours and play around a bit with
different brushes. We draw some objects using straight lines or
geometrical shapes and pay special attention
to where lines end or meet and see what
it does to your work. Pro tip. Feel free to
make up your own rules. I find the clean, crisp shapes really
work for my style, and even more for my OCD. But maybe you're
a little bit more into wonky lines and shapes, and that's exactly what
makes your style unique. So embrace your quirks and
channel them into your style. It will make you stand
out from the crowd. I'm looking forward to delving into more tips and tricks around minimalist illustration with you in the next lesson.
See you there.
4. Setting Up Your Canvas: The Basics: Hello, and welcome back. Let's cover some basics about
how to set up your Canvas. Canvas setup often raises
a lot of questions, RGB or CMYK, portrait or landscape,
pixels or millimeters. There are probably 1,000
ways to set up your canvas, and it honestly depends on what your intentions
are with your artwork. Could create an entire
class about this topic. In this lesson, however, I'll show you how to
set up your Canvas for your class project and explain why I choose these settings. Let's get started right away. Create a Canvass of
297 millimeters by 420 millimeters in RGB
display P three on your iPad, which are the measurements
of a Din A three. If you don't use an iPad or don't have this
profile available, pick any other RGB profile.
Don't be too fussy. Done is better than perfect. For DPI, we will be using
300 and then Tap create. If you wonder why I pick
the measurements and the color profile, here's
why I prefer them. Our class project
is a sticker sheet, meaning that we
eventually will be printing what we
created in this class. Whenever I design
something for print, I set up my canvas
using the din formats, which are the
standard print sizes in Europe, where I live. If you live in the
US or Latin America, the standard is US letter. In this case, it will
make sense if you adjust your canvas
size to these formats, which is tableid,
or 11 " by 17 ". Al though I want to
print my sticker sheet in an A five size, I intentionally made
the canvas much bigger. The reason for that is
that I always set up my canvases in bigger
sizes than the output, because this allows me to
later use the designs for other purposes without risking
that they will pixelate. As for RGB, I prefer
it because it covers a wide range of hues than CMYK. This means that you can create an artwork with more vibrant
colors for your screen, and if done right, these vibrant colors can
also be reproduced in print. But if you work from
the start in CMY K, which is the color profile
for standard print, you immediately
limit yourself to more dull hues both for
screen and for print. Again, I could delve much
deeper into this topic. But for now, just take
my word for it and find a color profile that
works for you over time. There is no right or wrong. It all depends on your
intentions. Pro tip. If my design is intended
for digital use, my go two format is 440
millimeters by 550 millimeters. I find the four by five
proportion canvas very useful for almost all social
media and digital use. Since we consume most of
our content on phones, the portray format often
trumps the landscape format. So without having to
tweak my artwork much, I can use it on a myriad of
different virtual platforms. If I want to create
prints of my artwork, the four by five proportion
Canvas is easily adapted to the most common standardized print formats
I'm familiar with. But let's make it easy and
simply set up your Canvas for 297 millimeters by
420 millimeters in RGB display P three,
and let's get started. I'll see you in the next lesson.
5. Using the Symmetry Tool: I am a big fan of symmetry. When I first started to
work with procreate, this was one of the tools
that absolutely blew my mind. I remember struggling so
much in the past with making the faces in my
drawings look symmetrical, especially when
drawing the left eye. It just always looked one key. If you can relate,
the symmetry tool is what you've been waiting for. In this class, I will show you
how to use a symmetry tool in three different ways to create stunning
minimalist designs. In minimalist illustration, geometrical or symmetrical
shapes are your friend. You don't want any
wonkiness in your artwork. Though charming, they don't quite deliver the
vibe we're going for. Remember, less is more and
precise shapes are everything. Let's make a few examples. If I draw a portrait, I can use a symmetry tool to create a balanced
composition. Once I have created my
Canvas, I go in this wrench, I guess it's meant to be
settings, tap on Canvas, then edit drawing guide, where I pick on the
far right symmetry, and for a start in options at the bottom, I pick vertical. Program will automatically place the axis for your symmetry in
the center of your canvas. You can move it if you want
by tapping and dragging the blue dot or rotate it by tapping and
dragging the green dot. But for now, let's
leave it just as it is. So let's say I draw a face with the symmetry
tool toggled on. All I have to do is
to draw one half of the face and the app mirrors it automatically
to the other side. Not only am I saving a ton
of time with this tool, because I'm literally only
creating half of the artwork. I'm also creating
balanced proportions, and therefore a balanced composition right
from the start. Let's take this a
step further and introduce you to
rotational symmetry. If you're familiar with my work, you might know that I'm
obsessed with drawing hands. This actually started because
I sucked at drawing hands. Some of you might
relate. Hands are one of the hardest
things to draw, and I was really bad at it. So I started drawing hands like a maniac in order to
understand how they work. If you would see me today sketching a hand,
I still struggle. I just don't share
that publicly, so you all think I'm
really great at what I do. So please don't feel bad
for messing up hands. They're truly hard to draw. Anyway, Hands are a great motive to introduce you to
rotational symmetry. So let's go back to settings, Canvas, and edit drawing guide. Now, here you talk on
rotational symmetry, which will make
the app reproduce your drawing symmetrically,
yet rotated. Let me show you
what I mean and why this is particularly
great for drawing hands. For this sketch, I
only drew one hand, and the app created a rotated
and mirrored version of it, creating a beautiful
composition. Surely enough, there are still two right hands and not
a left and a right hand, but technology is not
that far ahead yet, at least not without AI. Still, this is a
great tool to create more complex and less
static compositions. Try it and see what
you can come up with. I also enjoy drawing
still lives a lot. If you're like me,
the symmetry tool is a big help for creating
your shapes and objects. I enjoy framing my
composition with an arch, but this is only a
personal example. I already use a
symmetry tool for that. I draw a circle anywhere on my canvas and move
it to the center. Then I talk low on
symmetry and draw the two sides of the arch,
as well as the bottom. Last but not least, I erase the bottom
half of the circle, and I have a
gorgeous arch shape. Then I draw place the elements of my still life in the Canvas. Depending on the theme, I pick a handful of
objects that will fit. The Still life, for example, was inspired by the joy of coffee, and I drew a bunch of
coffee related objects and placed them in
my composition. I draw many of the objects in my composition using
the symmetry tool, like for this emic, the vase, or the Mug. I'm a bit OCD, so I
prefer not to mess with the procreate presets
of the symmetry tool, meaning that I draw my
elements in the center and then move them to the spot where they look the best
within the Canvas. But please feel free
to find your way. Hopefully, this class
inspires you to always adapt the things I share to
how they work best for you. Pty. Symmetry is great, but you can really show off
your compositional skills by mixing our symmetry with a
few asymmetrical elements. Like with everything in life, it's the right amount of everything that makes
all the difference. I always mix up my
symmetrical illustrations with a handful of
asymmetrical elements. This adds complexity
to the composition, which keeps the
artwork interesting, but doesn't disturb
the calming balance created by the symmetry. Ads, you already have three amazing minimalist
designs for your sticker sheet, and you've learned
about different ways on how to use symmetry
and procreate. Since your symmetry pronoun, personalize your class
project by drawing other objects that are more in line with your body of work, give it a shot and I'll see you in the next class for more.
6. Simplifying Objects: Hello, and welcome back
to another lesson of this class full of tips and tricks about minimalist
illustration. I'm happy you're here. I hope you're ready to get to work. And if not, grab your iPad
and your Apple pencil. Take a deep breath
because I got you. I've already mentioned
this, and I probably will repeat it during the
course of this class. Minimalist illustration is, as the name already indicates, all about reducing
elements to the minimum. What isn't needed must go. So how do we apply this concept to complex
objects in your composition? That's exactly what I'll be
showing you in this lesson. Let's start with a classic, a beautiful Monstera plant. Let's have a look at this photo we'll be using as a reference. As you can see, there are a bunch of leaves
in this picture. We could go about this by
actually drawing them all, but we want to reduce the
elements to the bare minimum without sacrificing
aesthetics to or a balanced composition. So how many leaves do I need
to draw in order to make the viewer understand
what the object is while creating a
beautiful artwork. In this case, the first question is rather easy to answer. The monstera is
easily recognizable due to the characteristic
shapes of the leaves. Drawing one would
already suffice, meaning that the number of leaves we will draw
will be mostly defined by aesthetics and
composition in this case. I personally like to use odd numbers because they're more intriguing to the viewer. So let's go with three or five depending on what you
think looks best. Imply pick one of the leaves
in your reference photo, redraw it in a way it fits
into your composition. Maybe adjust the
position and done. I personally prefer to put every leaf on a separate layer, so I can easily move them around later. But
that's up to you. If you want to do the
same, create a new layer, give it a logical name and
draw your second leaf. Repeat this until you're happy
with the amount of leaves. Notice that I avoid
juxtaposing leaves. The reason is that
this allows me to draw the entire leaf and thus making it
more recognizable. If I compare my work
to other artists, this is clearly a personal
preference and not a must, but it definitely helps when you start out as a
minimalist illustrator. Another advantage
of this is that I can skip adding shadows
to my composition. I'll explore this
topic more in depth in the lesson about shadows.
So don't miss it. Now, let's increase
the complexity a bit more and move
on to flowers. They are popular motive, which is why I
decided to include them for you in this class. I usually go about
this in two ways. I either draw them free
hand or I base them on a geometric shape to make
them even more minimalist, which I will show you a little
bit later in this lesson. But now we'll go back to
your asymmetrical flower. If I draw flowers free hand, I start by picking a
reference photo and then boil the elements of the
flower down to a minimum. An example is this
illustration I created a long time ago of a
bird paradise flower. As you can see, I
stylize the petals quite a bit in order to make them
more minimalist while, as always, maintaining
the recognizability. So if you draw an object in what I call the
free hand way, ask yourself if you can
stylize the petals, leaves, and other parts, and which parts you
can leave out while still maintaining the
recognizability of the flower. This workflow, I apply mostly when drawing
asymmetrical flowers, such as the bird of paradise. For flowers with a more
symmetrical construction, like puppies, rose, tulips, or peonies, I go ahead and break down the flower into geometric shapes and symmetry. Let me use an example to
show you what I mean. For this exercise, I picked
a tulip because it is a rather simple flower to break down into simple
geometric shapes. Once you feel confident
in abstracting shapes, you can move on to
more complex flowers or other objects
for that matter. This is merely an example
to show you how to modify an object for a
minimalist illustration style. I start with the base of the
tulip by drawing a circle. I place the circle
in the center of my canvas and I
toggle symmetry on. From here, I continue with the lateral lines of the petals and bringing them down to the base or the end of the stem. For the petal in the middle, I simply draw a curved line from the lateral petals to the
center. And that's it. You can also experiment a little in order to
find your style, play with juxtapositions
of the petals, or add leaves to the stem, either using the
symmetry tool or intentionally toggling it
off for a more dynamic. Protip. You can apply
this guide on how to draw complex objects in
a minimalist way to a myriad of other objects. A few examples are
heads, or faces, moths, these birds here, or this Moka and emis. The rule you can guide yourself
by is to always try and break down any object to its most characteristic
elements, to focus on representing those elements as
accurately as possible. And to leave out whatever
is not essential. Exploit this approach by picking out some of your
older sketches and try to redraw one or several of the objects by
reducing the elements, and, if possible, construct them based
on geometric shapes. I hope you'll have as
much fun as I did. Once you're ready, meet
me in the next class for more awesome tips on successful
minimalist illustration.
7. Exploring Perspective & Depth: Hello, and welcome
back, everybody. I'm happy to see you want
to continue learning about minimalist illustration
and keep showing up. This lesson is one of the lessons I feel
most excited about because the little hack we're learning about today was
a game changer for me. If you have an academic
background in design, Illustration art or
something similar, you're probably familiar
with the concept of a vanishing point from
your drawing classes. I remember how I sat outside
with my drawing board, drawing the massive
concrete library of what is now my alma mater, using several different
vanishing points in order to get the proportions and
perspective precisely right. It was fun, but I realized then and there
that I was not the sort of illustrator that enjoys creating intrinsic scenarios with
lots of depth and detail. And at that time, I
thought that I had to love that in order to become a
successful illustrator. Turns out, I was wrong. Skip forward ten years, I had created a portfolio that focused heavily on the
shapes of objects, mostly skipping
perspective altogether. Most of my illustrations
at that time, were based around
one central object with some additional elements. That all changed when I got
a big commission from UBS, the biggest bank in Switzerland. Commissioned me to
create a series of minimalist
illustrations that fit their corporate
identity designed to explain their financial
products through storytelling. Quite a challenge.
You can imagine that these illustrations needed to contain more than just
one central object. And sometimes they would even be entire scenes set in an
office or a building. With this commission, I felt a bit outside of my comfort zone, but this is where
growth happens. So I started by looking up how other illustrators solve
the perspective problem, and after some research, I came up with two simple rules. One? Minimal
illustration is very often characterized by the
absence of perspective. Meaning all objects within a scene are placed on
one horizontal line. Two, as a consequence, the compositional objects in a minimal illustration are
drawn in frontal view, lateral view, or
three quarter view. Now, this all sounds
a bit abstract, but I'll show you what I mean in this lesson
where we will draw several objects
without perspective. Now that you're a bit
more familiar with the theory of perspective
in minimis illustration, I will show you
how you can apply this to three
dimensional objects. Let's start simple with a vase. As I mentioned previously
in this lesson, objects in minimalist
illustration are usually shown
in frontal view, lateral view, or
three quarter view. Since a vase usually
has a round base, all the views are the same, making it a perfect
first example. So go ahead and pick
a vase you like. I usually browse ceramics and pinterest to get
some inspiration. Once you find a vase you like, you simply redraw
the shape and done. Protip, you can use
a symmetry tool we learned about in a previous
lesson in order to create a more harmonious shape
or make it a bit more wonky and handmade by
avoiding the symmetry tool. Now, let's move on to a more
complex object. A chair. For my commission
for the Swiss Bank, one of the things I enjoy
drawing the most were chairs. I would usually also start
by browsing chairs on Pinterest until I would find one that would
spark inspiration. Let's pick this one. Now we will draw this chair
in three different views. Frontal, lateral,
and three quarter. So this chair would
look something like this in the frontal view
without perspective. The arm rest and legs will be aligned as well as the
seat and the back. You look at this, it's
hard to see a chair, which is what makes minimals
illustration challenging. So let's try the lateral view. It is instantly more
recognizable as a chair because you see the
seat and the back rests in an angle that suggests a seat instead of seeing two rectangles
stacked on to another. The arm rest and legs do the rest to communicate
to the observer. This is a chair. And
that's why I use this view quite often in my illustrations
commissioned by UBS. Now, the three quarter
of view is somewhat more complex because here we actually give the illusion
of a perspective, but ignore the rules of
the vanishing point. Let me show you how
to draw an object in three quarter view using the
same example of the chair. I start by picturing my object being placed on one
horizontal line. This affects mainly the legs. Would be drawing this chair using the vanishing
point perspective, I would offset the legs a bit
suggesting a perspective. But in minimalist illustration, I always simplify my compositions
as much as possible. In this case, I do so by
skipping the perspective. A three quarter
view is basically a blend of the frontal
and the lateral view. I draw the chair again
in a lateral view, but then I add a compressed version of the
frontal view on the side. The result is a
slightly more complex, but also more legible object
for Then you just draw a character who's
sitting on a chair or add more elements like a window, plants, or lamps to your
composition, and o. You've unlocked the secrets to perspective and
minimalist illustrations. Prote Use the three quarter view in illustrations of
only few elements, making the object, in this case, the chair, the protagonist
of your composition. Remember, the more lines and shapes you have in your artwork, the harder it will
be to read them. Reduce complex scenes by drawing your objects in a
lateral or frontal view. And make your objects in three quarter of
you the center of the attention by only adding decorative or
background elements. I really hope you
enjoy this lesson, and it helped you thinking
differently about perspective. If you want to learn
even more useful tips and tricks around
minimalist illustration, head to the next lesson, and I'll see you there.
8. Calming Vibes: The Power of Geometric Shapes and Central Alignment: Hello, hello, and
welcome back to another practical lesson about
minimalist illustration. In the last couple of lessons, you've learned all about
perfecting shapes, using procreate tools for faster and more precise objects and how and when to
skip perspective. In this lesson, I will show
you how to balance out your beautiful designs from the previous classes using geometric elements for
compositional and. There I say it.
Decorative purposes. Yes, decorative elements
are perfectly allowed in minimalist illustration
if they serve a purpose. In my illustrations, they very
often serve the purpose of balancing out the composition and guiding the
eye of the viewer. So let me show you
how to do that. When I created this artwork, I felt like something
was missing that would bring all the elements,
my composition together. I felt like the objects were
for lack of a better word. Floating around, and
I couldn't shake the feeling that the composition
needed something more. This is a bit of a
intuitive process, and I guarantee you that the more you practice, the
better you will get. Whenever I get this feeling
that something is missing, a go to is usually to place a geometric shape
in the background. Geometric shapes
are very subtle and harmonious and are therefore ideal as background elements. They bring the elements
of a composition together without stealing away the
attention of the main objects. And that's what guiding the eye of the
observer is all about. Apply this to the designs
in our sticker sheet. Experiment what
happens when you place simple geometric shapes such as a circle in the background
of your objects. It could also be an arch, a square, or even a moon, as long as they fulfill the
purpose of rounding out the composition
without stealing away the attention from the
protagonist. Protip. I find inspiration on which
shapes to use in symbolism. One of my favorites are alchemy symbols due
to their simplicity. Another way to round
out a composition is to use smaller shapes
as decorative elements. These elements don't necessarily
have to be geometric, as you can see here and here. But I always make sure
that the elements add to the storytelling or
ambience of my artwork. For example, in
this illustration. Us humans are curious beings. If we add a few intentional and well designed
decorative objects, we provide something the eye
of the viewer can explore and make a seemingly simple, minimalist illustration
intriguing. This process of what
to add and what not to add is a rather intuitive
process, again. So let's practice this a bit by going back to your
sticker designs. Look at each drawing
individually and decide which elements could
enhance the composition. Protip, research how
other minimalized artists use seemingly
deccorative objects in their art and
learn from them. Play around with different
objects, shapes, sizes, et cetera, and find what
works for your style. Practice makes perfect. Wow. Congratulations to you all. This class was definitely one
of the more abstract ones, and I'm so thrilled
you've come this far. Now you know how to use the
elements in your illustration with intention in order to
guide the eye of the viewer. If you're eager to learn more secrets for successful
minimalist illustration, I have more for you waiting
in the next lesson.
9. Limit Your Color Palette: Hello, everyone.
Glad to have you back for yet another
lesson of this class, where we will have a look at the long overdue
topic of colors. Y. So far in this class, we have only used one color because I wanted you to
focus on the principle of minimalist design rather
than getting held up by design choices that were simply not so important
during these lessons. I'm the Queen of overthinking, so I know what I'm
talking about. But now we'll finally
uncover the secret of a minimalist color
palette. Are you ready? Let's go. Right now, all your designs are in black and white, and there's
a reason for that. I always say that if a design doesn't work in black and white, color won't make it work either. In other words, a
successful design always looks good in
only black and white. So since our designs have
already passed that test, they are ready to be
enhanced with color. Most of my illustrations
use one main color, one or two neutral colors, and one or two accent colors. When it comes to color, I again follow the principle
of less is more, and I only add tints or shades to my palette
when absolutely needed. I love to challenge
myself by intentionally reducing my color palette
to the bare minimum. Let's apply this to
our class project. The first step will be to pick the background
or main color. I will pick this dusty pink, but feel free to choose
any color you either like or that is inspired by
the topic of your designs. For example, a light green that matches
the botanical topic of all the leaves
and flowers we drew in the lesson about
simplifying objects. The second step, we will pick
the color for the lines, which should be a more
neutral color that generates a nice contrast
with the background color. I love this dark indigo
blue for three reasons. It matches wonderfully
with the dusty pink, generates plenty of contrast
and is neutral enough, so it doesn't draw too
much attention to it even when used in big areas
within my composition. If you pick the light
green for your background, a dark green would be an
ideal color for your lines. Are two ways of how I usually approach picking
my neutral color. The first one is to create
a shade from a main color. If you're unfamiliar with
this term in color theory, a shade is when there is
black added to a color. I create shades of my
colors by lowering the brightness slider in the
colors tape here in value. This means that if my main
color is this light pink, I simply adjust
the brightness of the color until it
becomes a dark pink. Other approach is to pick the complimentary color
to your main color, which in color
theory is the color opposed of the color wheel
according to Johannes Iin, and then also adjust
the brightness slider until it becomes a beautiful
dark color. But don't worry. You don't need to be a
color theory expert. P create again, provides
you with a useful tool that helps you find the complimentary color for your main color. Tap on the color tool. Make sure your main
color is selected. Then tap on harmony and up here, right underneath colors,
tap and pick complimentary. Then tap the color here in
the disc and tap value. Now, in this tab, you can adjust the brightness of your
selected neutral color. I always test my colors in my illustrations to
make sure they work. If necessary, I
make adjustments. For example, the
complimentary color of this dusty pink
doesn't quite work. It is a little bit too dull, and I add a bit
more saturation in the value tab and change
the hue ever so slightly. Another example is this blue, which doesn't quite work
either because it is too vibrant and competes too much with a dusty
pink background. But if it make it a bit darker and more neutral,
it works great. If the complimentary
color is too dull, you can also try in the
harmony tab a shade of one of the triadic instead
of the complimentary colors. For the third step, we
will pick an accent color. This might be the most fun
color because I like it to be a vibrant color that adds
some life to my composition, like this electric coral. I pick my accent color either by adjusting the
saturation slider here in the value tab of either my background color
or my neutral color, which, in this case, would result in this
vibrant electric coral or this electric blue. I'm not entirely satisfied
with the color just yet, I can always adjust
the hue a bit as well. I could also use the
complimentary or triadic tool by procreate again and
adjust brightness, saturation, and hue to my needs. The important thing is
to always make sure the colors harmonize and make
adjustments if necessary. Now, give your color Piette a test drive by applying
it to your designs. Use the neutral color
for your main objects, and the accent colors four, as the name suggests, your accents, and
decorative elements. My rule of thumb is to
use the neutral color for bigger objects and the accent
colors for smaller objects. Pip. If you feel like you need a fourth or fifth
color in your composition, create shades or tints of your existing colors by adding
black or white to them. You can do so easily
and procreate by playing around with
the brightness lighter in the value tab. Now that you're an expert on creating minimalist
color palettes, let's see how else we
can create big effects with a limited palette in the
next lesson. See you there.
10. Using Shadows with Intention: Si. Hello, and welcome back to another lesson on how to create successful
minimalist art. In this lesson, we
will cover the topic of shadows or the lack of. Much as it is with
perspective and depth, this classic drawing principle
that some of you might have learned about in school is another drawing technique. We tend to skip in minimalist illustration
almost entirely. Obviously, this is not a must, but as I've mentioned several times
throughout this class, I always ask myself, can this artwork
do without this? Same goes for shadows. In this lesson, I will
teach you how to use shadows purposefully within your minimalist
illustrations. I will show you three ways to use shadows and
minimal illustration. One for dramatic effects, like the artist behind
Leesvillef does, to suggest a certain
time of day and mood. Two, to add some depths to otherwise flat objects like I did in this illustration
with the leaves, or three to entirely skip them, which is what I
often do in my work. First, let's cover some
drawing principles. There are two types of
shadows in art theory, core shadows and drop shadows. The first type is the shadows you find on an object itself. Much as you can see in this
example by Malika Favre. And the other type is
the shadow the object itself creates,
usually on the floor. In this artwork, the
artists use the drop shadow for storytelling by turning
them into skyscrapers. This lesson, we
will apply one or both shadows to the designs
of your sticker sheet. The goal of this exercise is for you to find both your
personal preference, as well as gather an
understanding of how to use or not use shadows
intentionally, favoring the
minimalist nature of your artwork. So
let's get started. Usually, the core
shadows of an object are a darker hue of a color or what we've learned
to name shade. So let's start with that. I create a new layer. Let's call it shadow, and over a part of my object, I will draw a smaller shape I can fill with the shade color. I like to set up this shadow
layer as a clipping mask, so it's bound to the shape of the object on
the layer below. This is particularly
useful for when I add shadows with
a texture brush, which I will show you
later in this lesson. The drop shadow,
we will also use a shade of one of our
colors in our illustration. But here I will use the
color of the element, the shadow lies on top
of as a reference. Like in this piece, I will use a shade of
the color of the ocean, so basically the color of my background to create a
drop shadow of the mountains. Spite of what I
learned in art class, I don't apply shadows to all the elements in
my illustrations. I use shadows consciously
to either enhance the protagonism of an object or to give the composition
more complexity. However, always remember that minimalist illustration lives by the principle of less is more. So don't add both core
and drop shadows to all of your objects or your illustration
will get cluttered. Pt. If you want to not only add shadows,
but also texture, explore different
brushes that add texture instead of using the same
brush of your outline again. My personal favorite is the fat nuzzle brush of the
spray paint set in Procreate. But feel free to experiment and find out what suits
your style the most. Now, you're a pro
when it comes to using shadows in
minimalist illustration. I hope you enjoy this
lesson where you learned how to enhance
your designs by intentionally using or not using shadows and adding depth and
texture to your objects. We're almost at the
end of this class, but there is one last secret
I want to share with you, so I'll see you in
the next lesson.
11. Outline vs. Fills: Highlighting Essential Elements: Hello again. I'm
excited to have you back for the last practical
lesson of this class, where I will share with you my last secret for a successful
minimalist illustration, the power of balancing a
composition by leaving certain objects as outline only versus using
a solid color fil. In the previous classes, I've been talking a lot about
how to guide the eye of the viewer because that's an essential part of
minimalist illustration. Mist illustration is usually
rather straightforward, getting the message across quickly with little to no fuss. Therefore, many minimalist
illustrations show only very few
objects. But beware. It is an art to create successful illustrations that
keep the viewer engaged, but only use a reduced
amount of elements. My last secret I want
to share with you is what I call the power
of outline versus fill. I oftentimes keep my
compositions intriguing by mixing objects I draw
with a solid color fill, and objects I draw
in outlines only. Objects seem heavier and
attract the eye more. The goal is to use
them mindfully. It makes sense to apply
a solid color fill to the main object of
your illustration as I did here and here. Whereas, if an object
has a compositional, supportive or
decorative purpose, leaving it in an outline can help guide the
eye of the viewer, yet leave something subtle
for it to explore further. This might be the right time
to mention that by outline, I mean the same object
without a solid color fill and not a black comic style
outline around any object. Since minimalist
illustration is all about reducing your
composition to the essential, these kind of comic outlines become unnecessary and removing them creates a cleaner and more minimalistic look
for your artwork. Let's put this into
practice by applying solid color fills to some of the objects of your
sticker sheets. Observe what it does
to the balance of this composition when I add a solid color fill
to this object, or if I leave it without. F how this little
decorative element became a bit more attention grabbing
with a solid color fill, just enough for it to
round out to composition. You combine this outline versus fill principle
with color, you open up yet another
set of tools that allow you to round out the composition and
guide the viewer. Just remember,
solid color objects attract more attention than outline only objects and the more your objects color
contrast the background, the more it will
attract the eye. Protip. I always create my
outline object first and then create a backup layer
before experimenting with solid color fill
and color changes. Simply create a
copy of your layer, toggle its visibility off, and then fill certain areas of the copied layer and see how
it behaves in your artwork. The best thing about this
with only one click, you can compare the outline
versus the fill version and decide which one works
best. And that's it. Design your elements
intentionally. Now that you know
how you can use outline and fill to
balance your designs. I want to encourage you to
apply these principles a bit more in your sticker sheet and find your
personal preference. I guarantee you it
will be worth it. I'll be waiting for you in the next lesson where we
wrap up this entire class.
12. Course Recap: Wrapping Up Your Minimalist Art Journey: You are a rock star. You made it to the
end of this class. Congratulations to that. I hope you were participating
during the lessons. And if you missed a
few, don't worry, just go back and
rewatch what you missed in order to complete
your sticker sheet. Before you send off your
sticker sheet to a printer, add your signature because signing your work is important. I can't wait to see all
your amazing creations in the project section
of this class, so please don't forget
to upload them. Also, please add your
social handle to them so I can share
your successes as well. I hope now you feel
confident to handle minimalist design principles
like a pro, because you are. You learned how to
use a variety of design basics in your
art and you ended up creating a beautiful
sticker sheet by putting everything
into practice. Hopefully, what you
learned will keep you intrigued with
illustration and design, even if it's not minimalist. I wish you a lot of fun on further exploring
what you learned. If you did enjoy this class,
please leave it a review. It helps other students find it, and it helps me as an
independent creator. So thank you in advance for
that. You're wonderful. Last but not least, I want to encourage you to reach out to me if you have questions or
want to share your successes. You can drop me your questions in your class
project description in the class discussions or reach out to me via
DM on Instagram. My handle is at Sandra Staup. And I'm not just saying this. I will be genuinely
thrilled to hear from you. Thank you for watching my class. I hope it taught you as
much as it taught me. If you like my work, follow
me on Skillshare for more classes and on Instagram
for more minimalist art. Thank you. Have a
wonderful day. And bye.
Sandra Staub, illustration & design
