Work in Progress- Owls

Hello, it's been a very busy month!  I wish I could spend more time on my artwork but the holiday season is always extremely busy (and seems to start earlier and earlier each year)!  Although I have a lot of ideas sketched out in my notebooks, getting them scanned and into the computer takes time. Currently I'm working on digitizing some owl sketches I had done. They don't all match up stylistically but I figure I can use the ones that do in different projects (patterns, illustrations, etc).  Here is a sneak peek on how they are coming along in Adobe Illustrator.

I'm taking care to add textures and using custom brushes that I've created or modified from Illustrator's set of Artistic brushes.  Later I will add some watercolor overlays I recently purchased.

In case you may be interested, I've been purchasing great bundled sets off of DesignCuts. The bundles usually have tons of great stuff at a really spectacular deal.  An example of one I bought is their current deal. This one includes the watercolor overlays I had previously mentioned.  I'm really excited because these overlays are repeating patterns in Illustrator. Some other great includes are: fonts, vintage/retro photoshop actions, watercolor and paintbrush photoshop brushes, and vector illustrations.  I've also bought other bundles in the past.  Even though I may not have a current project or need I still buy them because I can tell they will be useful one day.

I'll try to post progress shots and highlight when I do use any of the elements I have purchased.

Another site that I've also used recently is Skillshare.com.  I found many of their classes really interesting and motivating.  Although I don't have the time to spend on the actual assignments I was still able to learn a number of new things.  Also, you can try if for free.  I really enjoyed Lydia Nichols class really neat. Her class was about using both Illustrator and Photoshop to create illustrations.  Her tips on creating custom brushes in illustrator and using scanned textures in Photoshop were really well explained and demonstrated.

Other Skillshare classes I enjoyed were Mary Kate McDevitt's intro to hand lettering and Molly Jacques' class on modern calligraphy.  There is a really nice diversity of creative classes on Skillshare.com.

*My reviews of these sites were both initiated without any form of compensation.  I just thought I'd pass on my honest opinion.