Review of my Domestika Class with Sarah Van Dongen

Hey guys! I was on facebook the other day and came across an ad for art classes on the website called Domestika. I have never heard of this website before but thought I would take a peek around and check it out. I came across a Sketchbook course by Sarah Van Dongen who is an illustrator in the Netherlands. She has quite a large following over on Instagram. I love working in my sketchbook and loved her style so I thought it would be fun to try her class. I think the class was $14 but when I went to check out it gave me the option of taking two more sketchbook type classes for $21. What a deal! I absolutley loved this little class. She did a great job of talking about who inspired her, what the materials where like, and her process of painting and sketching in her journal. We did several different exercises. Here was my first exercise. We were to create a self portrait in the room where I was creating:

No judging! Ha! Ha! this was my first time creating like this! Here is Prince Fuggles and I in the living room/ kitchen area. This is so different from how I normally sketch and paint in my watercolor book. Here is an example of my typical sketchbook page:

One of my favorite things that I learned in her class was to think ahead and create palettes in our skechbook (see final project book below.) You can also use this area to try out different media and color combinations. Our second project had us creating a page just like the first one but with a different perspective.

I didn't really like how this one turned out. Maybe the table is just too white? I can't tell. I loved using the different materials together, for example laying down the gouche and then coloring over with colored pencil. This is something I haven't reallly experimented with before. We also used Posca paint pens over the top and it really makes the color pop off the page! She taught us how to create charactures, which colors to choose to make a great palette, a little bit about perspective. Our final project was to pull everything together and create our own self portrait illustration. Here is mine:

Overall I would highly recommend taking this class! She is absolutley adorable and it was really fun to draw and create a different way. This is really a great value for the money. I felt like it was a well structured class and fun class! If you are looking to take a new class, go over and check out Domestika. It is based out of Europe and has thousands of classes. The three classes I am taking are english speaking with subtitles. They are all go at your own pace whenever and whereever you want. I will let you know how the other two classes go!

XOXO,

Carla