Illustrated Calendar + FREE Printable

Hey guys! I know it's been a while but I'm back...and just now getting around to posting about some projects I did over Christmas. How is it February already?! Anyway, click below to see the photos and read more about how I created an illustrated calendar for my sister for Christmas-and get a freebie for yourself while you're at it. ;)

My family is full of crazy talented people so for the past couple years, we've decided to drop the traditional Christmas gift-giving in favor of DIY gifts. It always feels so much more more special and intentional and I love it! This year, I decided to go with an illustrated calendar for my sister. She loves flowers and Beyonce so I wanted to incorporate those things into a monthly drawing. It seemed simple enough..then I realized that that meant I would have to make twelve drawings. If you were to ask anyone that knows me, they would tell you I love to draw, but I am a perfectionist, which often makes me suuuuper slow. So this project was a real doozy but I am completely obsessed with the finished product. Check out the photos below for the step by step process!

The first step, of course, was to sketch out the drawings in pencil. This was the long part. Between looking at bouquets in grocery stores, flowers in my back yard and on my drive home, and scrolling through a million pages of mesmerizing flowers on the internet, I spent a long time on this step. Luckily it's my favorite part. (:

After the twelve months were drawn in pencil, I whipped out my trusty lightpad and traced the pencil drawings onto watercolor paper. I would highly recommend doing this! I know it's an extra step and it feels like you could just draw straight onto the watercolor paper...and maybe you can! I, for one, cannot draw anything without erasing a couple (or a million) times and drawing the original on a sketch paper that is easy to erase has been my watercolor paper's saving grace! 

The next step is the fun part-paint! For each flower arrangement, I chose a color palette, mixed up some watercolors, and went to town. I am absolutely loving my Qor paints, by the way. So vibrant and pretty and super easy to work with! 

After everything was painted and dried, I cut them out and scanned them using my Epson V600. Nathan got me this scanner last Christmas and it is ahhhh-mazing for scanning watercolor. It captures all the color and texture and little details perfectly. I then cleaned up those scans in Photoshop and put them together with a calendar template. I chose to make the calendar myself in Illustrator but you can find calendar templates online-or you can take your images to a print shop and have them put them onto a calendar! 

Once the calendar files were all designed, I sent them off to my favorite local print shop and they printed them as 5x7 cards on heavy cardstock. Beautiful quality, as always.

​Now I had a stack of beautiful calendar cards, but I had to find a way to display them. For this stand, I had Nathan cut a piece of scrap wood (upcycling means free, y'all) a little larger than the cards, I stained it, let it dry and then I used some super glue to adhere these adorable binder clips that I found on Amazon (super cheap and super cute) to the top of the piece of wood. I let that dry overnight and voila!

It seems like a lot of work, and it is, but it was such a fun process and totally worth it. Now Jess has a whole year of Beyonce and flowers to look forward to! Comment below and tell me what your illustrated calendar theme would be!
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If you're interested in getting your very own calendar drawn and designed by ForeverWhitneyYoung, shoot me an e-mail through my contact page!

And don't forget your freebie! Click the download link below to get a printable calendar for February using one of the flower designs I used for Jess' calendar! 

Free Calendar!
File Size:	6745 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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