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Time to learn some things!

Time to learn some things!

✐ Self-study of: graphic design, photoshop, illustrator, and youtube.

ghostlymatte
June 06, 2025

Hi! I hope you are doing well. <3

I want to share some of things I have been learning and been up to these weeks. It is a slow process, since I have other responsibilities on my plate, but I am happy with putting some more stock in my creative soup.

Overall: I am slowly figuring out what I am doing and what I want to do in my illustration career, thanks to all the new things I have been learning. I know the art industry in particular has not been doing great from what I have seen. Yet I have felt that these new endeavors have been a really good reminder and distraction.

Some things you will read here:

Graphic Design
Photoshop/Illustrator
Youtube
Soft reminders

Hope you enjoy! Let me know your thoughts through comments or message me! :3c

(( Bluesky & Instagram: @ghostlymatte OR email me: [email protected] ))

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Graphic design:

So I started learning graphic design through these videos on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgGbWId6zgaUBj8LZLfsFRzPy5TAezgQZ

Come learn with me! <3

My original purpose was to learn graphic design, illustrator, and photoshop, to apply for graphic design-based jobs… but I have been learning that my heart is truly in illustration and graphic design is something interesting but not my interest. Instead of focusing on fitting into gaphic design spaces, I rather find a nice blend between what I do and what companies would like to hire me to do for them.

It has been interesting understanding the graphic design part more, while still focusing strongly on my illustration practice. : ) I am really excited to learn about typography, and to learn how I can use text to add more variety and interest in my illustration projects.

Anyways, here is a sample of me implementing some of the things I have learned from the graphic design lessons:

The ad for my patreon desktop wallpapers really show how I use various design elements to get the most important information read first, thanks to color, visual hierarchy, and variations.

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Photoshop // Illustrator:

So I have a pretty hateful relationship with these two programs. But thanks to some mmmm helpful people online, I was able to download these programs with no issues. :3c

These are the videos I am using to learn: https://youtu.be/Ib8UBwu3yGA?si=HUvChJRJRtZ9tphK & https://youtu.be/IyR_uYsRdPs?si=ZOEs0w-xnQ_CLv4F

Come learn with me!

I am more familiar with photoshop than illustrator, but it has been about 10 years since I have last used either programs. In just two class sessions, I have already learned so many tools that I have not personally used before, despite fully knowing they exist lol.

I used Photoshop to help me make this seamless repeating pattern for the Dracula project as well as the ghost one that was shown above.

For free-hand drawing, I still very much prefer using Clip Studio Paint and seeing Photoshop strictly as a photo editing program — mainly because of personal preferences of how I work.

For illustrator, it has been challenging for me to learn the many many shortcuts and understanding the symbols. But right now I am learning how to make designs with the rectangle, oval, hexagon, and line shapes. These tools is what I used to make Lee down below!

So far vectoring Lee, took me about an hour and a half. I am pretty impressed since I am definitely out of practice with this program. I enjoy seeing the skeleton of Lee in this practice after the most! :3c

At the moment I am not invested in making vectored art projects, but I am super super excited for the font manipulation section of this course!! >: )

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Youtube:

So I have started making art videos on youtube!! what?????

WATCH THEM HERE:

This was very much a “just-fucking-do-it-already“ decision than I have been thinking of since last year. I was not confident in many aspects of video making, (hearing my voice, editing, youtubes algorithms, etc.). But I truly want to showcase my art process more and talk about my personal projects in a way that is more interesting than just reading text…and also talk about art making!

I just really really love making art and talking about it and I am glad I finally “shut up and just did it“ for the sake of the little demons in my heart lol.

It truly is easy to think my way out of trying new things, like maintaining a youtube channel, but as Vincent van Gogh has said:

❝

“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”

― Vincent van Gogh

And it is true. I have been enjoying editing the videos and even trying to figure out what I will talk about! Who knew!! Not me LOL !!! I truly feel like I am making these videos for myself rather that what I can get out of them, and I am so very glad about that.

Now, to learn the new habit of recording myself drawing to make more videos.

✐⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔*:･⋆.ೃ࿔･