First goal of 2015 accomplished, learning Adobe Illustrator

Late last year I decided I wanted to learn Adobe Illustrator and InDesign in 2015. Not just stumble my way through it, but really learn it. I’ve just come up against too many situations that left me frustrated that I didn’t know my way around these programs and I felt like it was time to learn as I’m moving forward with my work. With all the repair work going on in my studio this month, no better time than the present.
I have slogged along slowly over the past few weeks, wondering if was ever going to feel intuitive. But just like a kid learning to read, I’m happy to say that at some point the wall in my brain came down and things started to make a lot of sense! I was jumping up and down in the studio that day this happened. Actually I still am!
Everybody learns differently, so they way I am learning may not be what works for you. I combined  Bonnie Christine’s Design Surface Patterns From Scratch on CreativeLive. I don’t know if I will actually ever design surface patterns myself (most days I’m spread out all over as it is), but the things that Bonnie teaches in the class helped me with some of the things I wanted to learn. I also took a Udemy course to learn from a different angle. The combination of both of those worked for me. Instructional books didn’t help me at all. And Peter and I would probably ruin our marriage if he was tasked with teaching me :D.
Now that the wall is down, its practice practice practice.