How to Crush Your New Years Goals (And the Rest of 2019) with the Help of Skillshare (Sponsored)

Leah Goren show­ing how she paints in her sketchbook.

New Years is my favorite hol­i­day. After all, you get to dress up and toast that this upcom­ing trip around the sun will def­i­nite­ly be bet­ter than the last. It’s also a great time for reflec­tion and goal set­ting. Maybe you want to final­ly turn your side hus­tle into a full-fledged busi­ness, or you’re look­ing to enrich your life by learn­ing new skills. What­ev­er you want to accom­plish in the new year, Skill­share can help you do it.

For the unini­ti­at­ed, Skill­share is an online learn­ing com­mu­ni­ty that has more than 24,000 class­es in areas includ­ing illus­tra­tion, fine art, graph­ic design, and even busi­ness and finance. So what­ev­er your goals may be for 2019, Skill­share can help you achieve them; their class­es are taught by indus­try pro­fes­sion­als whose resumes and work boast years of expe­ri­ence. But, you’re get­ting more than the instruc­tion of a tech­nique or con­cept; you’re learn­ing how some­one thinks and the deci­sions that go into every­thing they do. It’s the kind of guid­ance you’d find in a col­lege class, but you’re get­ting to view it online, at your own pace, in your paja­mas.

Skillshare is now offering Brown Paper Bag readers two months of Skillshare Premium for FREE.

With a Pre­mi­um Mem­ber­ship, you have unlim­it­ed access to all of Skill­share’s class­es. Hav­ing this resource at your dis­pos­al will help you learn all there is to know about your a cho­sen top­ic.  Once the two months have passed, you can con­tin­ue your sub­scrip­tion for less than $10 a month—a small price to pay for all that knowledge!

Want a place to start? Here are the top five classes that fellow Brown Paper Bag readers love.

Sur­face Pat­tern Design 2.0: Design a Col­lec­tion | Start a Career — Do you dream of becom­ing a pro­fes­sion­al sur­face pat­tern design­er? Instruc­tor Bon­nie Chris­tine will walk you through the process of cre­at­ing your own col­lec­tion and shares indus­try secrets along the way.

Illus­tra­tion & Inspi­ra­tion: Keep­ing a Sketch­book — Illus­tra­tor Leah Goren gives us a peek into how she gets inspi­ra­tion and her gor­geous sketch­books. I took this class and loved it. I was fas­ci­nat­ed by how Leah works and found a lot of help­ful tips for main­tain­ing my own sketchbook.

Pat­tern Play: Com­bin­ing Illus­tra­tor and Pho­to­shop — In this class, Dylan Mierzwin­s­ki shows how to use Adobe Illus­tra­tor and Pho­to­shop to cre­ate pat­terns. In Illus­tra­tor, you’ll learn how to build shape, con­struct pat­tern repeats, and have fun test­ing col­or palettes. You’ll then take what you’ve done into Pho­to­shop where Dylan will demon­strate how to add hand­craft­ed ele­ments while build­ing dimen­sion and texture.

Mod­ern Water­col­or Tech­niques: Begin­ner’s Lev­el — If you’ve always want­ed to try water­col­ors, this is the class you’ll want to take. Artist Ana Vic­to­ria Calderón intro­duces basic tech­niques while show­ing you how to com­bine the pig­ments with oth­er medi­ums as well as house­hold supplies.

Water­col­or Mix­ing, Find­ing Your Col­or Iden­ti­ty — Ana Vic­to­ria Calderón is pop­u­lar! This is anoth­er of her water­col­or class­es that will help you dis­cov­er your own palette. You’ll go through the col­or mix­ing basics to prac­tice paint­ing dif­fer­ent com­bi­na­tions of hues. In the end, you’ll cre­ate an abstract art­work that is focused on “intu­itive col­or mixing.”

Try one of those pop­u­lar class­es, or go your own way! Get start­ed today when you take advan­tage of two months of Skill­share for FREE.

This post is spon­sored by Skill­share, but the words and opin­ions are my own. Thanks for sup­port­ing the brands that sup­port Brown Paper Bag!