At the end of 2017 my Pink Punch art collective colleague told me about Victoria Johnson’s “Create Christmas” class. I immediately signed onto the class because I have always lacked Christmas illustrations in my portfolio and a lot of time I have no idea where to start. I always remember when we started our art collective website and I was so stressed out that I had nothing to put in the “Holiday” section of our gallery. That’s why when I found out about this class I immediately signed on without a second though.

I have to admit I didn’t know Victoria Johnson was before this class. I’ve seen her beautiful work on Pinterest a million times but I knew her work but not her name (sorry Victoria!). I really enjoyed the structure of her class; it’s a three week class and every Monday morning we get a new brief, a fresh colour palette and a trend board from her. The brief was very detailed, information and there are many important bits of information about the Christmas ark market. The colour palette was really refreshing also, it made me realise the colours of Christmas are not just about red and green!

My first week assignment was to draw anything related to “Gingerbread” with rose gold and minty blue, sage green colours. The moment I received my brief and trend board I had an “ah-ha” moment to illustrated a gingerbread house in a dome. I’ve always liked cake domes and the magic world inside of them so this is a perfect first brief for me!

I struggled with time a little bit at the time of this course so I could only complete one illustration for this first week assignment but I would love to revisit the brief in the future to complete a whole collection of Christmas art based on this week’s brief and colour palette.

The second week’s brief and colour palette is all about the ‘Enchanted Forest”, so I created three illustrations. The first one is Christmas ornaments on a tree, the second is an owl with a pink background and the third one is of two robins on the a tree. If you follow me you know I’ve alway been that kind of person to try to get as much as I can out of a course I’ve joined. So for this second week I’ve created three illustrations versus one for the first week.

Two other designs that I illustrated but didn’t into cards were for the third week’s brief which was about “Festive Bohemian and Snowman”. I always really enjoyed this brief so I created two different kinds of illustrations inspired by the brief and colour palettes. I tried to bring a sense of cuteness into both of these illustrations.

So the first one is a Christmas Cactus. I’ve always wanted to have a giant cactus in my home and I love the idea of an unconventional Christmas tree so a Christmas cactus is perfect for me and also for people who want, like me, something unconventional. Cactus and other trees can be just as festive in your home as a traditional tree!

Another illustrated I created is a snowman in bohemian style accessories. I love drawing things bohemian or folksy as they’re often fun and pretty. I used different shades of pink for the illustration as the main target market is for women aged 25-45, which I’m in the middle of, and I love pink!

I really enjoy this three week class and I hope I can create more Christmas illustrations, cards and even complete a few different collections and submit to different greeting cards companies in the future!