Making an artsy advent calendar!

Hello everyone!

I challenged myself again in December. This time I created an art advent calendar on my Instagram account!

It took a lot of work and a lot of hours but it was so worth it.

Because I really wanted to have the advent calendar to reveal a surprise item every day, I needed to figure out how to animate a door opening.

Thankfully, it wasn’t too difficult using the Procreate app. Does it look super professional and 3D? Nope! But that doesn’t matter because I learned some new skills and had a lot of fun doing it.

Overall, I probably spent 2 hours per drawing (door + item) for the first 12 days. If you followed the calendar on Instagram, you might have noticed that the door shape remained the same after Day 12. That’s because I re-used the design from Day 12 (art hack!) and re-coloured it and changed the wreath on the door to save myself some time.

Because this was an illustrated calendar, I was able to put whatever I wanted behind the doors, often taking suggestions from friends and family.

From cozy Christmas socks to a cute deer to the treat-filled boots that kids find on St. Nikolaus morning (a German tradition I grew up with), there were so many fun things to draw this December.

For all of you who followed this Christmassy adventure, I hope the illustrations brought some cheer to your day (and maybe even surprised you or made you smile!). I love to create art that makes other people happy and I hope I get to make much more of it as the years go by!

I hope you all had a wonderful, cozy holiday season in 2022 and that 2023 treats you well! :)