Learning a new hobby or skill has never been easier with the growth of the internet. If you’re anything like me, what was once hard to learn as you had to try and find books or local instructors is now as simple as jumping online. Whether you want to learn a whole new hobby or skill, or even up your business game with learning how to design logos, build your website, etc, there is so much amazing information out there. One platform that I’ve just recently discovered is Domestika, if you’ve been following along on my social media you may have seen some of my projects from some classes (like some of the images in the gallery below). The classes I’m showing are Vibrant Floral Patterns with Watercolors by Anna Lau, and Botanical Illustration with Watercolors by Paulina Maciel. I’m really enjoying this platform and their content, so I thought I’d share it with you. 🙂
What is Domestika?
Domestika is an online learning platform that boasts the largest creative community on the web. What started as a forum for creative professionals to share their insights and skills with others, quickly grew to become a platform for creative courses. With courses ranging in basically any creative discipline you can think of, their lessons are suitable for complete beginners or experienced users. What sets Domestika apart is the high-quality content that is taught by leading professionals in their trade. The best part is that it’s very affordable and not subscription based. You get to browse for the skill you want to learn, pay one time, and keep the course forever. You can often even buy course bundles, which is an even more economical way to learn.
Every course has the same structure:
- get to know the teacher and their work
- learn how to use your tools and materials
- take thorough step-by-step lessons on the skill at hand with accompanying tasks or practical assignments
- finish with a final project
You’re of course free to share your final project in the forum with other students taking the course or wherever you like (aka on your social media or show your friends and family how clearly brilliant you are…😂).
If you want to connect with other learners, Domestika does have a great sense of community, and I’ve found the teachers often reply to you if you tag them in your posts on social media, or ask them questions inside the course platform. New courses are published daily and are filmed in English, Spanish, and Portuguese (with subtitles), and some I’ve seen also have dubbing available in English. The nice thing about the courses is you can learn at your own pace no matter where you are, we all know what it’s like when life gets in the way.
Check out Domestika Days from June 7 to 14
Domestika Days is a week-long creative extravaganza that’s totally free to anyone who wants to participate (hooorayyyy). Each day, one of Domestika’s courses opens up to the public and is free to access for the next 48 hours. Aaaannd, they’re offering discounts of up to 75% on a wide selection of courses, so there’s no excuse to not get your creative crafty mojo going. 😁
And throughout the week they’ll also publish daily downloadable resources and tutorials to reinforce the subject you’re learning. There will be tutorials like free lessons on crafts, cake design, photography, drawing, illustration, and design, as well as guides and e-books on painting and sewing techniques—and of course heaps more, And here’s a pro tip for you: download everything you want to learn while it’s available for free, and then you can access it whenever you’d like. 😍
Here are some great courses on Domestika you might love, just as an example of what’s available:
Stumpwork Embroidery: Create 3D Ornaments
Learn how to embroider beautiful double-sided flowers and transform them into accessories
Stumpwork embroidery allows your designs to come to life, almost literally. If you’ve never tried stumpwork, it’s a very cool embroidery technique, it’s almost magical turning something that’s 2D into a 3D object. With the added influence of traditional Chinese techniques, embroidery artist Shan Xu teaches you how to create beautiful three-dimensional flowers.
Explore the world of stumpwork embroidery by exploring stitching techniques, learning how to wire your designs, and bringing it all together. Continue exploring your creativity by turning your artwork into a very neat accessory.
Cross-Stitch Portrait Creation
Learn how to draw, chart, and stitch your own handcrafted portrait from scratch
Creating handmade decorations is a wonderful way of relaxing and expressing your ideas in an original format (as you very likely already know). The very talented needlework designer Emily Peacock believes cross-stitching is a haven for creativity, colour, and relaxation. Her approach to teaching and creating needlework is to not follow rules (just like how I teach), but rather she shows you how to come up with ideas and find your own creative path. Emily has played an important role in the resurgence of craft in the UK, and in this course, she shows you how to create modern and original cross-stitch portraits.
Discover the versatility of cross-stitch needlework with Emily’s step-by-step method to creating a colourful portrait. See how to draw your portrait, chart it, choose the right colours, and bring it to life with cross stitches. Learn three different ways of displaying your needlework creations: in a frame, for a pillow, or a piece of jewelry.
Textile Pattern Design for Home Interiors
Learn to create patterns and illustrations for household products that light up your home
A touch of colour goes a long way when decorating (or a boatload of colour, as the case may be with my designs… 😂). The teacher of this class, Tatiana Nedialkova, combines patterns, composition, and colour, and she has created a beautiful line of products that can light up any room.
Tatiana is an artist, illustrator, and entrepreneur whose focus is on textile design. In this course, she teaches you how to bring common household items to life by adding beautiful and intricate patterns. After learning to design and create different products, she teaches you how to market and sell them, too. If you’ve never tried pattern design, you may find (as I did) how much fun it is, and how addictive it can be.
Artistic Watercolor Techniques for Illustrating Birds
Bring vivid wildlife compositions to life by exploring modern methods of watercolour painting
Sarah Stokes is a self-taught wildlife artist who translates her passions for creating art and being close to nature into expressive watercolour compositions. Her work can be found in UK galleries like Whitewall Galleries and Clarendon Fine Art, as well as others around the world.
In this course, Sarah guides you through her step-by-step process for creating an expressive wildlife composition using modern watercolour painting methods. Start from the basics, adding artistic techniques to the flow of your paintbrush to create expressive wildlife compositions. If you’ve never tried watercolour but always loved how it looks, it’s definitely a media worth experimenting with.
I hope that’s all inspired you to jump on in to Domestika Days, and start exploring some creative classes! 🙂
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