Research Resource Discovery

Drawing is for everyone. It just takes practice! Exercise your drawing skills and become better at seeing and capturing the world around you with Von Glitschka's 5-day drawing challenges. This installment asks you to consider different ways of drawing: from thinking "renewably" to getting surrealistic.

Von will assign a drawing challenge for each day. Take the time you need to finish each challenge, and then watch the video where Von shares his own hand-drawn solution. There are no right answers here; his solutions should serve as inspiration. For more encouragement, check out the chapter on staying inspired, featuring artist Stephanie Smith. And don't forget to share your drawings via Twitter and Facebook! Use the hashtag #5daydraw.

Tired of drawing the same subjects day after day? Take five days to shake up your drawing habits and diversify your art. In this 5-Day Drawing Challenge, Von Glitschka provides five more opportunities to flex your creative muscle and challenge your preconceived notions about what tools and subjects are "appropriate" in art. Learn how to give people more character by distorting their features; make drawings not of rocks, but on them; imagine your own mythical creature; incorporate found objects into illustrations; and make your drawings "jump" with some cardboard and string.

These challenges are designed so that they're suitable for artists of any level. Don't be afraid to share your work! Join the rest of our community on Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram by posting your drawings with the hashtag #5DayDraw.

Drawing is for everyone. It just takes practice! Exercise your drawing skills and become better at seeing and capturing the world around you with Von Glitschka's 5-day drawing challenges. This installment asks you to reconsider the fascinating subjects Mother Nature provides and reinterpret them using your own imagination and a pen, pencil, or stylus.

Von will assign a drawing challenge for each day. Take the time you need to finish each challenge, and then watch the video where Von shares his own hand-drawn solution. There are no right answers here; his solutions should serve as inspiration. For more encouragement, check out the chapter on staying inspired, featuring artist Oguzhan Secir. And don't forget to share your drawings via Twitter and Facebook! Use the hashtag #5daydraw.

Von Glitschka is back with another 5-day drawing challenge. In this installment, he provides some drawing inspiration. These challenges ask you to put away your normal drawing tools and draw outside your comfort zone. For example, day one involves white pigment on dark paper, while day four is about drawing with shapes—and without lines. At the end of the five days, we hope you'll be inspired to stretch creatively and reach for new tools when you feel stuck in a routine.

Remember: This series is designed for artists and nonartists alike. Don't be afraid to share your drawings with the rest of our community. Post them on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram using the hashtag #5DayDraw.

Drawing is for everyone. It just takes practice! Exercise your drawing skills and become better at seeing and capturing the world around you with Von Glitschka's 5-day drawing challenges. This installment asks you draw a few alternate takes on reality: the contents of someone else's mind, an animal/activity mash-up, a character cutout, an imaginary friend, and even a parallel universe.

Von will assign a challenge for each day. Take the time you need to finish each assignment, and then watch the video where Von shares his own hand-drawn solution. There are no right answers here; his solutions should serve as inspiration. For more encouragement, check out the chapter on staying inspired, featuring artist Marty Cooper. And don't forget to share your drawings via Twitter and Facebook! Use the hashtag #5daydraw.

Improve your mograph skills one day at a time with this 5-day motion graphics challenge. Author EJ Hassenfratz asks artists to create a different animated GIF each day for 5 days in a row. These challenges are designed to get your creative juices flowing and help you work out of any creative rut. Turn creating into a daily habit—for at least 5 days—and then post your work to Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #5dayMograph. You can also submit your work to our Tumblr page at 5daymograph.tumblr.com.

Want to learn how to put client's branding in motion? Practice it one day at a time with this 5-day mograph challenge. Author EJ Hassenfratz asks artists to create a different animated icon each day, taking existing logos and putting them into motion. These challenges help you solve creative problems and round out your portfolio, while building on skills you've learned in previous 5-day mograph challenges.

Get feedback by sharing your work on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #5dayMograph, and by posting it to our Tumblr page at 5daymograph.tumblr.com.

Daily practice is important to your growth as a motion graphics artist. In this 5-day challenge, EJ Hassenfratz asks you to animate five classic elements: earth, fire, water, wind, and light/dark. Each day will build on what you've learned in previous installments of 5-Day Mograph Challenge, and help you create some cool animated GIFs to add to your demo reel.

Remember to show us your work on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #5dayMograph, and posting it to our Tumblr page at 5daymograph.tumblr.com.

Even if you went to school for animation, the terminology can be confusing: follow through, anticipation, timing, and spacing. This fun, 5-day challenge concentrates on the basic principles of animation. Follow along with motion graphics veteran EJ Hassenfratz as he explains the concepts and asks you to put what you've learned into practice. In just 5 days, you'll have a broader understanding of just what makes certain animations successful and why!

We encourage you to showcase your work online using the hashtag #5dayMograph, to get feedback on your work and stay inspired. You can also submit your projects to our Tumblr page at 5daymograph.tumblr.com.

You've learned how to put company logos in motion. Now, the challenge is to reflect that same energy and branding using only type. This 5-day mograph challenge builds your motion graphics skills one day at a time by asking you to create a different typographic animation each day. Along the way, author EJ Hassenfratz offers tips and techniques to guide you through the challenge.

We'd love to see your solutions. Show us your work on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #5dayMograph, and by posting it to our Tumblr page at 5daymograph.tumblr.com.

How do you get better at photography? By challenging yourself every day. In this five-day photo challenge, Ben Long introduces five shooting techniques that, if you can master them, will lead to better compositions. Learn how to find good light, shoot with leading lines, frame a subject, "dirty up" your frame, and compose with black and white in mind—even when you're shooting in color. For each assignment, Ben offers his own solution, so you can see how a master photographer tackles the same challenge.

Make sure to share your results with Ben and other fellow photographers on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook using the hashtag #5DayPhoto.

How do you get better at photography? By challenging yourself every day. Justin Reznick offers a variety of creative and technical challenges that encourage you to get out of your chair—and your comfort zone—and start taking better landscape photos. Learn to work the "golden hour," incorporate tools such as filters and medium-length lenses, shoot iconic landscapes in new, intimate ways, and find a different perspective by moving your feet. Justin offers his own solution for each challenge, so you can see how a master photographer tackles the same subject.

Make sure to share your results with Justin and other fellow photographers on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook using the hashtag #5DayPhoto.

Improve your photography skills one day at a time. This 5-day photo challenge focuses on portraiture: "people photography." Whether you're a new photographer or a seasoned pro, these challenges will ask you to use composition, texture, light, and even your lenses to craft better portraits. After you complete a challenge, come back to watch author Chris Orwig's solution and get a new assignment.

Remember to share your results on Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram using the hashtag #5DayPhoto.

Take a five-day photo challenge that will help you look at your city and the people who live there in new ways. Author Steve Simon provides five challenges: working with light and reflections, isolating subjects, shooting at night, and overcoming nervousness by approaching strangers. He shares his own solutions as he works the streets of New York City, but you can follow along from anywhere. At the end of each day, remember to share your work with LinkedIn Learning's community of photographers using the hashtag #5DayPhoto.

Struggling with your personal finances? Professors Jim and Kay Stice outline five basic tips to help you get a better handle on your money. This short course provides time-tested tips on managing your spending, managing your fixed costs (regular monthly expenses), creating a budget, investing, and saving money.

We all want our financial lives to be healthy and well organized. But where do you start? Get on the right track with these helpful tips and start building your financial future.

Everybody wants more time. While you can't make more hours in the day, you can find more time for the most important things in your life. In this course, Chris Croft introduces 5 simple time management tips to reduce distractions and stay focused on what matters.

The first—saying no—is simple in theory, but hard in practice. Chris explains how to reclaim the power of "no" to make room for true priority items. The second step, negotiation, allows you to spend less time on unimportant tasks. The third way is to delegate sometimes, and the fourth is improving systems and processes so that repetitive tasks are quickly and easily managed. Last but not least, Chris explains how to overcome perfectionism and nitpicking. He explains how to apply the five methods to all time-stealers, including meetings, interruptions, and more.

In the initial chapters, he'll help you clarify your life and work goals, prioritize to-dos using Eisenhower's matrix of tasks, and answers questions like "Does working longer hours actually get more done?" The worksheets included with the exercise files will help you apply the lessons to your own work and life, and hone your time management skills—one step at a time.

Lynda.com is a PMI Registered Education Provider. This course qualifies for professional development units (PDUs). To view the activity and PDU details for this course, click here.

The PMI Registered Education Provider logo is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.

Most logos aren't designed in fifteen minutes, but most designers aren't Aaron Draplin. Aaron's a Portland fixture by way of the Midwest, the owner of Draplin Design Co., and an advocate of "blue collar" design: design that works. Here he takes our logo design challenge, creating a dozen iterations of a logo for a fictional construction company. Not inspired? Just wait. Watch as he sketches, brings his ideas into Illustrator, and tests and tunes the different iterations. The logos Aaron creates prove design can elevate any company or brand. Along the way, he provides tips for freelancing, finding inspiration, and providing clients context for logos that won't just live in PDFs.

Create music in real time, on stage, or while producing in the studio, with Ableton Live 10. In this course, music professor Rick Schmunk shows how to compose, record, remix, improvise, produce, and edit your musical ideas using this powerful software. Get familiar with the Live interface, learn how to set up your audio and MIDI hardware, and explore how to create a Live set. Plus, discover how to record and edit both MIDI and audio, shape the sound of your projects by applying effects to your tracks, warp audio, and much more. As you get acquainted with Live 10, you'll learn real-world production skills that can be applied to songwriting, studio production, and DJing.

Create music in real time, on stage, or while producing in the studio, with Ableton Live 10. In this course, music professor Rick Schmunk shows how to compose, record, remix, improvise, produce, and edit your musical ideas using this powerful software. Get familiar with the Live interface, learn how to set up your audio and MIDI hardware, and explore how to create a Live set. Plus, discover how to record and edit both MIDI and audio, shape the sound of your projects by applying effects to your tracks, warp audio, and much more. As you get acquainted with Live 10, you'll learn real-world production skills that can be applied to songwriting, studio production, and DJing.

Create music in real time, on stage, or while producing in the studio, with Ableton Live. In this course, music professor Rick Schmunk shows you how to compose, record, remix, improvise, produce, and edit your musical ideas. Along the way, get familiar with the Live interface, work with its views for recording and editing audio and MIDI, and explore its unique real-time recording and mixing capabilities. Plus, learn real-world production skills that can be applied to songwriting, studio production, and DJing. The final chapters offer an inside look at features added in Live 9, such as new Instrument Racks containing over 3,000 production-ready sounds, and Max for Live, a toolkit for building custom devices.

In this course, Ableton Certified Trainer Yeuda Ben-Atar demonstrates how to use Ableton Live to its fullest potential in a live performance setting. First, learn how to choose the best MIDI controller to use with Ableton Live, and how to set it up properly to be used on stage. Then dive deeper into how to use MIDI mapping to get the most out of your controllers with Live. Next, Yeuda shares a number of techniques he employs as a live performer, like using cue points, looping, scratching, applying effects, and playing samples. He then shows how to create a live set, including organizing, exporting, and adding instruments and building custom effect racks.

Along the way, Yeuda reveals many live performance tricks using control surfaces and custom MIDI controllers that he's built, plus tips for playing and syncing up with other musicians and recording your live performance.

The drum track is part of the hidden chemistry of a great song. This is your beat making lab. Yeuda Ben-Atar, educator and producer who performs as DJ Side Brain, shows you how to make beats in a variety of genres, from dubstep to hip-hop. Yeuda works with Ableton Live—but you can use these tutorials to make beats in whatever DAW you have accessible.

First get some basic rhythmic theory, including counting music and note subdivisions, and learn how elements like cymbals, percussive instruments like congas, and even homemade sounds from cans, bottles, and counters contribute to your beats. The following chapters tackle the particulars of house, dubstep, drum and bass, trap, juke, and hip-hop. In each of these chapters, Yeuda discusses how to choose the appropriate tempo and drum sounds for the style and how to sequence the kick, snare, and cymbals. The course closes with some pro mixing techniques that balance punch and presence, so your drums will cut through the mix and sound their best.

Join Ableton Live expert Mike Kiraly as he dives deep into some of the advanced features that Live offers for unique and creative manipulation of sound. First, discover how to use clip envelopes to create constantly changing transitions between clips. Then Mike demonstrates how to create playable effects and effects transitions with dummy clips, build automated playlists and song arrangements with follow actions, and use dummy clips and follow actions together to generate complex effects.

DJing is a growing profession. Ableton Live takes your live performances beyond anything achievable with turntables or CD players, making your sets powerful and unique. In this course, author J. Scott Giaquinta demonstrates the techniques DJs around the world use with Ableton Live. He starts with setting up your software and hardware controllers, and importing, warping, and keying tracks in Ableton. Next he discusses cueing and playing tracks, and using fades and the crossfader to mix tracks. Then learn when you should use a DJ mixer as opposed to Ableton's internal mixer, and how to incorporate a microphone into the setup.

Scott next introduces some performance tricks to wow your audience, by integrating loops, samples, and FX. He also provides a demo of alternative controllers that can make your performances more dynamic, including a Wiimote, joystick, MIDI keyboard, and live vocoder. Finally, he discusses methods to record your live DJ set and fine-tune it after the fact.