Creativebug Class: Creative Bootcamp Review – Part 1

The web is teeming with so many amazing resources for creative learning. There are a few sites that I’m totally in love with and one of them is Creativebug. I tried the free trial a while ago, and loved it so much that I am a committed subscriber. For $5 a month it is an amazing resource for so many Creativebug classes! There are literally hundreds of lessons for everyone. They cover anything from illustration and painting, to crocheting, to upholstery, to cake decorating, to party planning and everything in between. If it’s art/craft/diy related, they likely have a class on an activity you’ve been wanting to try. Creativebug has produced the classes at such a great quality and cover such a wide range of topics that the subscription is worth every penny

At the start of the year, there was a new Creativebug class released by Lisa Congdon (who I am a total fan of!) called Creative Bootcamp. It’s a 6 part class, and each part has a new exercise to work through. The class was easy to follow along with and is perfect for beginners or novice artists. You create a lot of end projects with the courses on Creativebug, however this class is focused around sparking your creativity and exploring new ideas. Each week explores a different exercise to play around with to develop new ideas for yourself. I was amazed how inspiring the exercises were, and as a result they generated so many new ideas of my own.

Most of the weeks were exercises I hadn’t really done before but used materials I was very familiar. The whole class was really approachable, and it was easy to feel successful with it.

 

One of the weeks centered around creating collages, which I have been really into lately! It was perfect. I got a bit carried away with it in the best way. That week I spent a lot of nights cutting and gluing while binge watching The Walking Dead (YES. So good.) I loved coming up with colour palettes outside my usual picks while adding some patterns in there too. I had a TON of fun making the shape ones below. It was a super fun way to work on creating color palettes!

 

 

 

Another exercise that was new to me was working in monochrome. I naturally want to use all. the. colours. when I’m creating. No surprise there. The page on the left  I used instant coffee at different strengths to create different shades of brown. It’s a bit sticky though!

The second last week of exercises prompted me to draw some cityscapes, which is something I haven’t drawn a lot of. I tend to shy away from landscapes because drawing realistically isn’t really my strong suit. However, Lisa really inspired me to let go  and just draw, even if it came out all wonky. Once I let go of that perfectionism, I ended up LOVING drawing buildings! This actually caused me to start a new sketchbook/art journal dedicated just to buildings, cityscapes and the like.

The Creative Bootcamp was so much fun to take! It was a great exercise in loosening up and trying new methods in my sketchbook. It was a relatively simple class, but the beauty is these simple exercises are a fantastic channel for stirring up creativity.

The final lesson was creating one cute little book to work in the future. I love it so much that I’m planning to share it in it’s own post! You can see the first couple pages below. The Creative Bootcamp is great for both beginners and experienced artist’s alike due to the approachable and easy exercises in each lesson. Right now you can get 1 month and one class to keep forever for just $1 plus 30% off at Jo-Ann’s. It’s the perfect time to give this easy and fun class a try!