Monthly Project: June

Make a Postcard

Project Overview

June’s Making Art Everyday’s theme is Vacation Mode. We’ll be drawing all kinds of vacation destinations and modes of travel. We thought it would be a fun monthly project to utilize those vacation-style drawings in a travel postcard!

If you’re a beginner, choose one or two simple things to illustrate (maybe a popular or notable thing about your chosen location.) If you’re looking to challenge yourself a bit you can try drawing a scene or include character’s in your postcard.

Before we get into the project details, I wanted to share with you that I have a NEW Skillshare class coming soon!

In this class you’ll learn how to manipulate text while you create a vintage style postcard in Procreate! I’ll teach you a handful of text effects like 3D block shadowing, inner strokes and more! At the end of the class, you’ll have an awesome postcard that you can mail to a friend or family member!

Let’s Break it Down

Step-by-Step

  1. Decide on a location.
This could be somewhere you want to visit this summer, or a dream vacation location… or even somewhere you’ve already been. You can even send a family member or friend a postcard featuring your home town. The possibilities here are endless!
 
As long as you pick a place you’re excited about, this project will be a lot of fun!

2. Get Inspired!

This step can be really exciting as you will get to research the place you’re wanting to draw about. You might find out hidden gems that make your location even more enticing. After you’ve done your location research, you can visit Pinterest to get some layout and style inspiration.
 
Take some visual notes about art styles, brushes or techniques you’d like to try.
 
Tip: After doing your Visual Notetaking, put away the Pinterest images when it comes time to create. This will ensure that you’re not accidently being too inspired by other artist’s work and that you create something that’s just as unique as you are!

3. Do some practice sketches of your location.

Keep this step rough, quick and exploratory. This is the time you want to experiment with art style or drawing techniques. You can even render a few of your sketches using color to see what type of color palette you might be drawn to.

4. Create your final postcard rendering.

Use whatever brushes or method you enjoyed during your experimental phase when you were doing your practice sketches. Don’t forget to create the backside of your postcard too!

 
5. Mail your illustrated postcard!
 
It’s always a rush to see your art off of your iPad screen and hold it on your hands. I recommend printing out your postcard on a thick card stock so you can mail it out to a friend or family member.
Participation is free! Join thousands of participants worldwide who are making art right alongside you. 

MAE Monthly Project

The Monthly Project is a part of the Making Art Everyday challenge. For occasional art-makers or those who would like to work on one project over several sessions, this beginner to intermediate-level monthly project will is accompanied by in-depth resources, presented in sections so you can put it down and pick it up throughout the month.

Making Art Everyday is a series of daily, weekly, and monthly prompts and challenges to help you overcome creative fears and develop your art-making practice. Every month, we will feature a new theme that will allow you to hone a set of skills, practice drawing something specific, or complete a project.

View Past Projects