Transcripts
1. Welcome!: Have you ever realized that whatever art comes out of you can actually only and exclusively be created by you? Like no one else has your hands, your life experiences, your feelings, your thoughts. Really, no one in this whole playmate can create exactly what you create. Even you, you are not the same person you were two minutes ago. If you think about it, each drawing, painting or whatever art you create carries your energy from that specific moment and it can never truly be replicated. It's totally unique. Now, what if you could actually channel that energy of that specific moment in time to find the answers you're looking for, or even to manifest something you want in your life? What if you could create art that actually speaks to you? Art that has power to connect you with yourself and your highest wisdom? In this Skillshare class, we will create a beautiful fairy tale illustration inspired by our own personal goals and intentions. First, we're going to tune in with our feelings and our inner wisdom. You're really going to learn how to let your intuition guide you through this drawing. After that, I'm going to show you four different inking techniques that I'm going to use in my drawing, and that will help you create texture, depth, and emotion in your drawing. Then of course were going to draw together. We're going to really explore the unexpected and try to tell a story through the details. To wrap it up, I'm going to show you how to understand the meanings behind it and to really use this drawing process to become more self aware. Who knows, by moving the energy around you through the process of destroying, you might move the energy in your reality and change things for the better. Today's class is very personal to each one of us. During our class, we're going to talk about manifestation, bringing your dreams into reality, and how art can be such a powerful tool to help us in the process. Now, grab your fine liner ink pens, pencil and eraser, and good drawing paper, and meet me on the next video so we can get started. Before you go, don't forget to follow me here on Skillshare, so you can be the first one to know about my new classes that are coming up. Well, frankly, I would like to hit that. See you soon.
2. Visualization Exercise: Today's drawing is really not about making something pretty or impressive. I think that's a consequence, and if you're really in tune with what you want, you're probably going to put a lot of energy into it and you will be impressed with what you can do in this class. Ten out of 10 would recommend. Yeah. But just like when we eat foods that was made with a lot of intention and a lot of love and a lot of care. We can feel. Like our bodies can feel the good food and how it nurtures us. That's not really about the food only, it's about the energy and what was put into it. The same thing happens with art. You could have the best technique, but if you don't know how to use the technique to express yourself, your art doesn't become that beautiful channel that it could be for who you really are. From my experience, if you are not in tune with who you are outside of your art, it's going to be really hard for you to put that in your art. This doesn't have to be something conscious in your mind. You don't need labels to know who you are. It's something right here. It's a feeling. I could feel it. What we're going to do here today is connect with that feeling. From there, the drawing will simply come out of you. Find a comfortable position. You don't have to be in a super awesome posture or anything. Close your eyes and listen to your body a little bit. Maybe you need a little stretch. Maybe you need to move your neck a little bit. Just listen to your body and answer to its requests for now. Let's take a few deep breaths, inhale through the nose, and then let go through the mouth, opening your throat. Let your shoulders go down. Let's do it one more time. Just allow yourself to tune in and do a little emotional check-in. How am I feeling today? Maybe you're feeling tired, maybe you're feeling happy. Maybe you're excited, maybe you're sad. No judgment. Just observe and allow yourself to accept what you're feeling. You're not trying to change it. Not labeling feelings as good or bad. Whatever you feeling right now is valid, is important and it's part of you. Now then connected with the energy of that feeling, our feelings that you have in you right now. I want you to visualize a little spark of light that appears inside of your heart. Visualize that spark and imagine this spark lights up another spark and then another spark, and then another spark until your whole heart is completely lit up, filled with beautiful light, and imagine that this light keeps growing. Each spark sparks another spark until your whole body is filled with light. I want you to visualize this beautiful light traveling up. It goes through the crown of your head, beyond your body, and it keeps going up and up. Imagine that this light is traveling and your consciousness is together with this light and you're going up, you're going to go through the roof of your house. You're going to go through the clouds. You're going to go beyond the atmosphere of the Earth. Keep going up. Enter the whole universe and travel through the planets. You keep going up. Visualize all the stars and all the planets. Go beyond the whole universe. You're going to keep going up until you visualize all the way up there. This beautiful white light. You connect with the white light, get closer to it, and you feel your light merging with this beautiful white light. You feel safe, and you remember that from this space, seeing everything from above, everything is going to be all right, no matter what you're going through, just go up a little bit more, and the more you travel up, the more you overflow with love. Now, I want you to look all the way down there on Earth, where your body is sitting down with your eyes closed. Just look at that beautiful being from above. Look at their life. What's going on down there? What's going on in their minds? What are their worries? What are their dreams? What are they looking for in their lives? I want you to connect with that intention, what is today's intention? What do you want to put in your art today? Maybe you want to ask a question to your art. Maybe you have a dream or you're manifesting something. That you really want a new job. A new partner, it could be anything. Maybe you have a big challenge that you really want to solve, whatever it is, I want you to connect with that and turn that into a little sentence for you to remember throughout the process of this class. If it's a question, it's a question, if it's an affirmation, it's an affirmation. If you're manifesting something, try to think of a sentence in the present. Not I want this, but I am this, or I have this in my life, turned that into a present tense because somewhere in the future, you already do have that. You already are that if you're dreaming about it. From that intention, I want you to visualize a beautiful door. Maybe the door is round, maybe it's square and maybe it's rectangular. Imagine that you have this door that you need to open and go in to find what you're looking for, imagine this door, whatever it looks like for you. Once you open the door, you go inside and you see this beautiful magical garden, and this garden could be anything and everything, but you do feel your best self in this garden. You are the best version of yourself inside of this garden. Just observe, what's in there. Observe beliefs. Observe this sky, is it night time or the day time? Is there water around it? Is there a fire? What animals are there? Are there insects, birds, big animals? Is there someone you know in there? Do you see other people? Are you alone? Do you see anywhere to sit? How are you traveling through this garden? Are their flowers or is it more of like a jungle? Just observe. Really acknowledge what's in this garden right now. All the elements that you need to connect with, being something you know or being something magical that you've never seen before, whatever it is, acknowledge it. Now, when you're ready, you just going to start coming back. Imagine all that beautiful colorful lights that you have, flying, traveling, flowing back to your body, traveling all the way down through the Earth, to the center of the Earth, re-energizing, re-grounding yourself. This energy goes back up and re-install itself in your body, in each cell of your body. If you're completely back into yourself, remember that this garden is part of you. You can access it anytime. Now, we're going to use our drawing to tie everything together that you saw through that door. Once you're ready, just take a deep breath again. Maybe move your body a little bit and no rush very gently, to open your eyes. Now that we've finished this exercise, I want you to grab a simple pen and paper, not your drawing paper just yet, and I'll let you know when you're going to need it. Now meet me on the next lesson, where we're going to tie all of these ideas together and come up with a beautiful concept for your drawing.
3. Concept Creation: Hi. Now that you have your pen and paper in hand, we're going to simply write down everything we saw in that garden. It could be literally anything. It could be objects, animals, abstract things, colors, shapes, feelings. Anything you saw, experienced, or thought about while you were in that garden is relevant for this part of this exercise. Some of us are better at hearing things or thinking about things and we're not too visual when it comes to our intuition. If this is your case, what I want you to do right now is just free flow of consciousness. Write down everything that comes to your mind at this point. When you think about the word garden and you think about your intention, what words come up? You can also answer the question in your head, why do I need to fulfill my intention? Now, I'm going to tell you a little bit about my garden and what I saw there, and what my intentions are for this drawing. The first thing I saw there was a frog and I also remember seeing mushrooms. The whole time I was there, I felt like I wanted to go to the beach, I'm writing this down as well. It's a little random, but beach makes me think of sea and shells. Notice that this is an active exercise. Some new things might come up to you at this point. Just allow anything that comes to your mind to come down to paper. Just keep writing down anything and everything without judgment. If you need to close your eyes to remember about your garden, go for it. Anything you feel like writing down is valid, don't limit yourself and allow the messages to come to your mind. If you didn't see anything in the garden, ask yourself, how do you feel right now? How do I feel when I think about my intention? In my case, for example, my intention is to manifest a new home for me, my partner, and our dog. I'm writing down house. I'm writing down home. After you have a good amount of words to work with, the next step is to choose which elements connect with you more. This can be, of course, very subjective, but look down at the words you have on paper and ask yourself, which of these elements do I like? Which ones do I feel like I could learn something from? Which of those elements would like to draw? Connect with the words and circle the ones you would like to incorporate in your drawing. You don't need to use them all. Choose a few of them that you think would be interesting. You just have to feel which of these elements are actually important to you. This is all, of course, intuition. Don't question yourself too much. Don't think too much. Just circle the ones that you feel like for some reason, I want to circle this word, you know what I mean. After you're done, we're finally going to get creative. It's time to connect all of these elements in your first sketch. Again, this is not your final sketch just yet. Right now we're just going to develop the concept and put some ideas on paper. Just ask yourself, how would these elements go together well in a composition? What is a creative way I can represent these elements on my drawing? How can I draw these elements in an unexpected way? When we get out of these boxes that we create for ourselves, that's when we really end up depending on our intuition. Because when you keep doing always the same things, drawing the same things in the same ways, you start getting automatic. It's like riding the bike. Once you learn how to ride the bike, you're always going to know how to ride a bike. It's simply automatic. You don't think anymore, it just simply goes. It's very mechanic. To allow our intuition to come up and to guide us in this drawing, it's really important that you don't go mechanic. Trying to do something new here. For now, just draw something quick. Five minutes sketch of your idea. Of course, just remember to keep it magical. When we connect with the magical aspect of our subconscious mind, we distance ourselves from the rational mind a little bit. This also helps us connect with our intuition even more because it helps you connect with your inner child. You know that part of you that's keeping the magic alive, that part of you that believes that everything is possible, that knows how to play and how to have fun. This part of you that's creative and believes they can do anything they want in life. It's not a judgmental side of you. It's the side of you that has that sparkle in their eyes. This is the energy we want for this drawing. To make it magical, maybe you want to mix your elements together in a very unusual way. Draw an elephant with butterfly wings. Or maybe you want to draw a tree that's also a face or a bird with human hands. I don't know, but really anything is possible right now, so allow yourself to mix these elements and create a composition that is completely unique. As you can see, I'm drawing a frog on top of a mushroom, and I'm making the mushroom into a tiny house. Now mind you, I don't really know how to draw frogs by memories, so I'm just doing a really rough draft of my idea and then I'll figure out how to draw this frog later. You might not really know why you had a certain idea, but that doesn't really matter at this point, because this is how intuition works. If you try to rationalize that and to try to ask yourself why at this point, you might block a few things that are still coming up from your subconscious mind. Just don't question it, just go with it. Now that you have a rough draft of your composition, we're going to look for reference photos. Reference photos are great when you don't know how to draw something because it's a source of information. You'll learn about the shapes, you learn about sizes, and proportions, and the movement, textures. The three best websites to find reference photos, in my opinion, are unsplash.com, pexels.com, and of course, Pinterest, which is the one I'm going to use today. The good thing about Pinterest is that you can create a board and save all the pictures you want to use as a reference. The first thing I'm going to look for is frog pictures, I'm going to try to find something similar to what I have in my mind, in my first draft. I drew a frog on top of a mushroom. It's important that I have the front of the frog and not the frog sideways. I'm just going to save a few pictures until I find one that's really good or a combination. You don't have to follow one picture. You can combine pictures to create your own frog, in my case. Always remember that your intuition is guiding you. The pictures are not the ones who are in deciding what you're going to draw and how you're going to draw. You're deciding how your drawing is going to be and the pictures are there to support you. I like when you led, I feel like it feels right. Mushrooms, of course, I want a mushroom that looks cozy and comfy to become a little house. I don't want any thin mushrooms. I want the chubby mushrooms. Now I'm going to look for tree roots. There's some interesting ones here. This is exactly what I want. I've never really done any drawings like this. Let's see how this is going to go. Dragonflies. I really want the dragonfly to be sideways on the right side of the mushroom. I want to be able to see the four wings of the dragonfly. But I'm not really loving any of the positions of the dragonflies I have here, but I'm going to save them anyway because I don't find it. Now we have a board of references ready, join me on the next lesson where we're going to finally start drawing our final artwork. See you there.
4. Sketching & Outlining: In this lesson, we're going to dedicate a little more time to our sketch and start our final artwork. Now is the time for you to grab a good paper you were saving for your drawing. I'm using a 4H pencil, that's a very hard pencil and it's really easy to erase. The first thing I do always before any final sketch is to mark a few guidelines. This composition I came up with is centered on the canvas. I'm marking a vertical line in the center, and another horizontal line where I went to position the mushroom, and marks where the floor underneath the mushroom is going to be. Your guidelines will really depend on your composition. Look at your initial draft and think which lines are important for me to follow, and then when you're ready start positioning the most important elements first. In my case, the mushroom is the one thing that connects all of the elements together. I'm going to draw that first. If you're using reference pictures, think about the geometrical shapes that fit into that element. For example, this mushroom is like a rectangle with a semi-circle on top. This will make drawing from reference much easier for you. You draw the shapes first and then you add the details later. I'm doing the same thing with the frog, the main shapes are basically two big circles, one on top of the other, one is the head, and one is the belly. From there I can add details. The eyes are also two smaller circles and the mouth is basically this big straight horizontal line. Just keep following your reference photos, your imagination, and trust your intuition. It's still time to change things or add new elements to the drawing at this point, so if you have any new ideas, if anything comes to mind, if there's something on your sketch that you're not really liking it, just don't draw that. Make sure you feel great about your sketch and everything is possible guys, the truth is, every invention, new technology, everything awesome that exists came from an idea. Your ideas can really create magic. Look at your drawing as a gift from you to yourself. Just go with the flow. Nice and zen, baby. Now, let me show you this amazing thing that happened while I was doing this sketch. After I finished filming for today, I turned off everything, cameras, lights, everything, and then I noticed this tiny moth laying on my crystal. I even filmed it for you guys. Look at her. I really love this, this is an example of how the universe works. Sometimes we ask for signs and we don't even notice them right in front of us. Nature is amazing. The next morning, I decided to add the moth to my drawing. I really encourage you to open yourself to your surroundings now. Maybe you're listening to music while you're drawing, and then the song mentioned something that connects to you. Maybe you see a bird outside, maybe a dog barks in a distance. Maybe the food you order has a message for you. I don't know. I know this sounds a little crazy, but just allow yourself to listen and to be in a receptive position at this time, you don't know how the universe might be trying to talk to you, observe and draw, and don't think too much. That's very important. Once you have your sketch ready, it's time to use your ink pens to outline the drawing and make it official. Yeah. I'm going to be using a 01 fine line ink pen. I just want you to outline the sketch and always start with where you feel more confident about, maybe there's a spot or another that it's still not too clear to you, leave that for last. The more you use your pens, the more confident you will get. Just start where it's comfortable. Here, I'm drawing little circles that are going to be stars in the night sky. You have two ways of drawing a night sky with stars, a fast one and a slow one. I'm doing a slow one because you know me, why make it easier if you can make it harder. I think the best thing that you can do is reach out and get help. I'm joking, but I do like this slow process more, which is making the little circles and then painting around the little circles with black, leaving the circles empty so they can be stars versus the fast way which is painting it all black and then making the white dots with a white gel pen or calligraphy ink. It's looking great, guys. Now meet me in the next lesson where I'm going to show you four inking techniques that you're going to use to create some awesome textures and details in your artwork and make it super amazing. See you there.
5. Inking Techniques: Hey guys. Let me show you a few ways to create textures with the fine line pens and how to add lights and shadows at the same time. If you guys have seen my previous classes, I'm a sucker for some drama. You've heard this story before, right? Yes, but the drama. In my arts and I do that by adding lots of shadows and contrast. The thing that makes it look good and gives that impressive look to your art, is making the transition from light to shadow very smooth. I'm going to show you a few ways to do that. Here, I'm starting with the stippling style, which is one of my favorites. You basically just do a bunch of dots like this. Moving from shadow to light, you're going to add more dots where you want it to be darker and of course less dots where you want the line to shine in your drawing. It's pretty cool. I totally recommend you use it somewhere in your drawing just for practice, but keep in mind that this takes forever, like you're going to hate me at some point, but remember, the results are worth it. Like really so worth it. Look at this, I love this style. I think it's super cute and it's kind of a meditation. You should put some good music in the background and you start doing it. You almost forget that you're doing it, and it's like really relaxing. If you don't love this style, it's okay because you can also try hatching. This is also a very common style. It's less time consuming and it looks super nice. You want to use an older pen because it releases less ink and then you're going to have a smoother result. Unless you're really like to see the pen strokes, you're going to want to use an older pen. You basically do a bunch of short strokes in all directions like this. If you want somewhere to be darker, you add more strokes, and of course, if you wanted to be lighter, you add less strokes. Now let me show you the difference in pens, to make a more dramatic, darker look, I'm going to use new pen to hatch where I want a lot of shade. Look at how much ink is coming out of the pen. It's almost too much to be real with you. I would honestly only use the old pen and hatch more with the old pen on top of where you want more darkness, you're going to get a better result, so much smoother result. But I wanted to show you the difference between new and old pens. Our next style is also a hatching style, but in only one direction, you're going to create longer lines with your pen finishing each line with the pen lifted from the paper, so you do this rapid movement like this. You start with a pen on the shadow side and finish on the light side. Keep adding lines like this, and to make it more dramatic, you're going to add new layers of shorter lines on top in the same direction to reach a darker tone. This is very useful to draw hair, leaves, petals, and lots of elements from nature. If you watched my botanical drawing class, this is the style I use to draw the realistic flowers. At last, we have the angled lines style. I love this style. It's less realistic, a lot more simple, interesting, and super quick. You just draw a quick sharp lines parallel to each other at an angle and you can change the angle if you want. I've seen artists creating amazing drawings using this style with the same angle throughout the whole piece. You want to avoid the lines to touch each other. That's how you create this interesting effect. To make it darker, I'm going to add a new layer of short lines on top of the first layer, fading from shadow to light, like this. These are the four styles I'm going to use throughout my drawing and that you can do so much with, I hope this inspired you and gave you some ideas on how to finish your drawing on our last lesson. See you there.
6. Storytelling Through The Details: Hey guys. In this lesson, we're going to finish our final artwork. I'm so excited. Now we're going to get even more creative and connect with our very own subconscious fairy tale. We're going to use those four styles of inking to create textures and add a little spice. Just a little bit. To your drawing. Depending on the style you will choose, you will make elements in your drawing look smoother or softer or harder or shinier. For example, I'm going to start with the frog, and looking at my reference pictures, it seems like he has a rougher texture in his belly than he has in the rest of his body. I think that the stippling style can create more of that rougher look. This is what I'm going to use for the belly and I'm going to use the crosshatching style on the rest of his body to make it seem a little smoother and shinier and that amphibious texture. Keep in mind that your choices and texture also carries a lot of energy and can be a source of information for you. All of this information is already inside of you. For example, a texture that looks softer and smoother, it might make you think of your bed or when you lay on your bed with your pillows, this might represent your safe space, might mean comfort safety. It really has a unique meaning just for you, based on your life and your experience. A texture that looks hard and shiny, for example, like metal or glass. It might mean clarity, being stern, and making good decisions, but also it could mean danger, it could mean something fragile, it could mean coldness. What does it mean to you? That's how we're going to interpret our drawing later and decode all the hidden messages in it. But I don't want to give you any more spoilers. For now, just focus on telling the story of your drawing through the textures and the lighting. You don't need to have a story in your head to tell a story. The story is already being told, it's already there. You are simply translating that into those textures. Keep following your intuition here. For example, the top of my mushroom could be done with basically any of those inking styles. But if you look in the reference picture is you can see those veins like those lines coming from the top of the mushroom. I'm going to choose to use the hatching style to create those lines. Just try to follow your reference photos if you're not too sure what to do, look at it and understand what kind of texture is this. Do I want to keep this texture, do I want to make it into a different one. What inking style better represents the texture I want to create. After you decide on your texture and style, ask yourself, where is this light coming from? How is it hitting this object? Where are the shadows? Always start inking from shadow to light. This way if you make a little mistake, it's okay because then it's easy to fix. As you can see, I really like adding a lot of shadow, lots of ink, lots of black, because it makes it more dramatic and I really like this darker look. If you want to create something similar, the key is to create a lot of contrast. When you create a lot of darkness, it's important to have lots of light to balance it out. I notice in some of your works from my previous classes, that sometimes you guys are a little shy with your shadows. Here's an invitation for you to not be so shy. Darkness is good. You know, our universe loves the contrasts. We're all here to learn things and sometimes recreate situations in our lives to learn about the opposite things, you know what I mean? Like sometimes we get into a bad relationship to learn about love, sometimes we experience betrayal to learn about trust. Sometimes it feels sad to learn about self-love and self-care. If you think about it, we're always creating the situations in our lives to learn the opposite thing. Does that make sense to you? If you think about it, there must be darkness, so there can be light, which means we do not reject our shadows, my friends, our shadows are on our side. That's a good thing to remember sometimes. Here's to being dramatic and philosophical while we're drawing, so much fun. What is the most inspiring thing I ever said to you? Don't be an idiot, change my life. Now, as you may have noticed the video of this drawing process is very sped up, took me a whole day to finish, guys. I want you to remember that you are not in a race with yourself. You don't have to rush, take your time. It's so okay if you don't finish it in one sitting, I didn't. To me, the time we dedicate to our drawing and in this case to our intention is a very strong act of love. Time is love. When we give our time to something or someone, we're spreading love in a direction. If you're trying to manifest something into your life or maybe solve a challenge or find an answer by dedicating time to your drawing, you are really putting something out there to the universe and this will come back to you. Keep your intention in mind while you're drawing and trust the process. Trust your creative power and trust that the best will come to you at the right time. As I'm getting to the end of my drawing, I'm going to use a white gel pen to fix little mistakes here and there and to add some light in places that I feel like it could use some. The white gel pen is great because it covers the black ink really well. If you use it in small little details, you won't even notice that it's there. If you'd like to be careful with the details, get to your drawing more neat and clean. Now, this is my finished drawing. I hope you like it and I hope it gave you great ideas for your drawing. I hope it inspired you. Now I will see you in my next lesson where we're going to start interpreting our artwork.
7. Interpreting Your Drawing: Hi, everyone. Finally, we're going to interpret our drawing and understand the messages and the signs that may be hidden in it, and remember that this is all coming from the wisest part of you. This is all coming from your subconscious mind and we're going to find messages and things that might bring us closer to our intentions. To analyze this drawing, we're going to answer a few questions together and I'm going to be interpreting my drawing, so you have a few examples of how you can interpret your drawing. Just remember that everything is very personal to you, maybe I'm going to say things that won't make any sense to you, and that's totally fine. This is the beauty of this class, it's really understanding what's going on with each one of us and I'm helping you understand yourself. The first thing you're going to do is look at it, this is my drawing, you've seen it. I really want you to take a good stare at your drawing and just really take a moment to acknowledge every detail, every shadow, everything has a meaning and when you're looking at your drawing, the first thing that I want you to ask yourself is, what's the story of my drawing? Imagine that there is a parallel reality where this is going on, you go there and you just simply snapped a picture of that moment specifically and this is what's in your drawing. Well, what's happening there? Who are the people or the beings in this composition? What were you doing? How do they relate to each other? What are their roles in this drawing and yeah, you are making this story up in your head. This is not necessarily real or it is, but we don't know. Oh, okay. Tell me a story, it could be like a once upon a time story, like once upon a time, this frog was walking and then he met the dragonfly. It could be something like this or not necessarily, it just could be like the roles or what's happening in this specific moment. I'm going to start interpreting my drawing, let's see what I can come up with. I imagine that there are people inside of this house, it's nighttime. People are inside of this house and they are having dinner and they are getting cozy. There's this like little detail that I put here, two pairs of shoes, which is me and my husband's shoes, I wanted to create like something that reminded me of him. The frog, the feeling I have is that he's some like a guardian, he's protecting the mushroom and he's protecting whoever is inside that mushroom. It's a big frog, it's the size of the house which is really cool. I feel like the dragonfly is also a guardian. She's a little more free and she's more like flying around, keeping the magic, and I have this feeling like the mushroom was taken from the ground, we can see the roots in the air, gives me this feeling of traveling. I think they are traveling through space and in a way I think the moth is also there to protect, but the moth gives me this energy of like a spy. This is almost like the moth is taking a peek and she's underneath the ground and she's coming up. Maybe the moth is protecting the ground side, frog and dragonfly are protecting the dream, the magic, and the good fortune, everything going well, and then the moth is protecting the real stuff, like the real Earth things that we have to deal with every day, we have to pay bills and we have responsibilities and maybe the moth, she's the guardian of the ground things, is that making any sense? It's making a lot of sense to me, this is the little story I can tell about this drawing, me and my husband are having dinner inside of this mushroom, taking care of our home while the moth, the frog, and the dragonfly are protecting us while we travel. Yeah, that makes so much sense, you guys don't even know, this makes much sense. This is exciting, I feel like there's so many messages coming up. Now, I hope this made some sense to you and gave you an idea of what story you can tell. Just look at it and think, is this animal that I drew, is it a threatening animal, is it a guardian animal, is this animal in peace, this animal moving, what are they trying to do? What's in their minds? What is their goal in this specific moment where you took this picture and once you have a little story, it could be the most abstract nonsensical story. We're going to go deeper into each element. If you want, you can even write this down, but I want to let it flow, I'm not going to write it down, but you can. If you're writing it down, you're going to list each important element you notice in your drawing. In my case, for example, would be the frog, the mushroom, dragonfly, the moth, the ground, the tree roots, the eye, maybe the moon, maybe the sun. You're going to pick the elements, make a little list, and this could be done in your mind and now, we're going to understand what each element means to us. Now that we have the story and we understand the roles of each element in the story, we're going to understand what each element alone means, and then we're going to tie everything together later. Example, let me talk about my drawing because that might help you. I'm going to start with the frog because it's like looking right at me. Well, frogs in general, making me think this one specific person in my life, this person was a very important presence in my childhood, her presence brought me that feeling of abundance, she gave me gifts that my parents would never be able to afford. Imagine you're a child and you have this reality, you start understanding what's possible and what's not possible to you, what your parents can and cannot afford. Basically, this fairy godmother comes to your life and she shows you, don't worry you can have more than that, like it's possible. This frog represents this breaking of this limit of what I believe is possible for me, is this making sense? The frog represents this person that represented this for me in my childhood. A great question you can ask yourself about your elements is, what is my first memory of this element? What is the first experience I've ever had with a frog or whatever element you're analyzing in your drawing. My second element that I'm going to analyze is the dragonfly, again, what is my first memory of a dragonfly? The first impression I had of a dragonfly. Dragonflies make me think of this time in my life when I was around like eight years old, me and my sister, we go to my grandma's house, she had a pool and we would be playing in the pool all day and we would see these dragonflies flying and taking sips in the water and taking little jumps touching the water and then flying away and it was this time where me and my sisters would create realities to play our games during the day and keep ourselves entertained. We would play mermaids and we would play princesses, it would create these imaginary scenarios to play in and create characters for ourselves. I really think this represents creativity and this capacity of letting my imagination fly, it's the joy of the childhood, creativity, being playful. The next element that I think is important in my drawing are the tree roots and whenever I think of roots, I think of my family traditions and whatever happened before me, whatever I carry from my ancestors. The moth is something that when I think of like my first experience with a moth, I think of like a moth that flew in my house and it was like one of those big black moths and I don't know, got scared because I was a kid, for a child to see this big thing flying inside the house, fear, maybe means fear to me. It's funny because it's a guardian in the first exercise, I found out that the moth is a guardian, but it's also fear. It's guarding through fear and this makes a lot of sense to be around the family area and to being pulled from the ground because I really think this means like growing up and becoming my own person and letting go a little bit of family expectations and this whole limitation box that we all have. We all grew up in certain scenarios that made us learn what is possible, what is right, what is wrong, who I am, and I think this moth's trying to help me break out of this, the frog, the creativity, the moth, they all trying to help me break out of those limiting patterns. Now, the fact that the ground is not on the Earth gives me the feeling of instability, it gives me this feeling of again, traveling, moving, and being in the air, like you are not really stable, fixed somewhere. Which makes sense because me and my husband, we travel a lot and we want to keep traveling, we wanted to create this life where we travel and we live on the road, but at the same time, we want to have a house to come back to. It makes sense that this house is grounded in instability. I don't know what you think about that just yet. Let's keep going and I think the last element that is important in my drawing is the eye, which is being a little covered by the wing of the moth that I did not do intentionally, but the moth is the fear covering the eye and the eye, it's a human eye on the outside but the inside, a little circle inside is like a cat eye or a snake eye and both cats and snakes, they mean like mystery and something hidden. They're really quiet, kept to themselves, and you never know what's going on in their head, if they like you or not, it's mysterious to me and enigmatic, in a way it makes me think of secrets and things that are hidden. Also, cats and snakes make me think of they do what they want and they don't care. They decide and they do it. They're free, they're not codependent on anyone, they are good with boundaries. Boundaries This is a therapy. Cats and snakes, they don't let you cross their path, do you know what I mean? This is a part of me that is really repressed. I'm really a people pleaser and I am not the best with setting my own boundaries and saying no, so many times I say yes but I want to say no, sometimes I don't even know that I want to say no, do you know someone like that? Are you trying to hurt my feelings because if so you are succeeding. I think this eye is this cat-snake personality. That I need to improve. It's funny because it's in the ground. Why is it in the ground? I don't know. Who knows. It's on the ground. The ground is to support, it's the base that holds the house. Maybe I need to be better at this to have my house. I don't know. I think it is. That makes total sense because I feel like I need to be more decisive with what I want so that I can actually create this house situation for myself. Out of my comfort zone. Anyway, let's go to the third part of this exercise, which is finding positive messages. This is very important, okay, guys, it's really easy to confuse your intuition with a side of you that's being super self-critical and super mean to yourself. This part that is self-critical and mean to yourself is not the one we're talking about in this drawing. Who are you talking to through your drawing, through your art? You're talking to your inner child, you're talking to a spirit guide or a guardian angel, you're talking to your soul, your soul's wisdom, you are talking to you in the future after you've already lived so much and then you have all this wisdom to share. None of this is necessarily real, but I want you to have these archetypes in your head because I don't want you to be talking to the part of you that's telling you that you're not good enough for, you know what I mean? If these messages are coming to you, then you are not tuning in with the right source of information. I could be looking at my drawing and seeing how I've sucked at doing this part and then I did this wrong, and then this looks horrible. Then the floor is tilted to the left. I couldn't even do a horizontal. I could be doing this but this is not what this is about. It's not about self-criticism, judgment, no, just stop. If this is coming at you, just stop right now, and tune in with a part of you that knows how amazing you are and how you deserve the best of the best. I'm telling you, you do, because I know it's a 100 percent true. If you can't love yourself, how in the hell you're going to love somebody else. Can I get an amen up in here? For example, in my drawing, I have a moth that represents fear. The drawing is not telling me to feel fear, the drawing is not telling me to feel afraid, this is not what this drawing is going to be telling me. Do you understand? The drawing is probably telling me that I am feeling fear and this fear might be keeping me from getting where I want to be. Always look through the positive perspectives and now I will need to tie everything together. You already have the story, you already have the roles of each element in your drawing. Now, think of your intention again. What is your intention? What is that intention that you tuned in with during your meditation, manifesting something in your life, you were solving a problem or you were looking for an answer, what is it? Tune in with that intention. One more time. What do you think all of these elements together that are telling this story to you that mean all of this. What are they trying to tell you? What is it that you need to accomplish that intention in your life? If the answer was here in your drawing, what would it be? What is this answer? I'm going to tell you my interpretation. In my case, the fact that the roots are taken from the ground, brings me to this feeling of growing up and going beyond the limitations that my family and my background set up for me, I feel like it's really telling me that I can accomplish more than what I'm right now. I think it's really cool that the dragonfly represents creativity because now my work is becoming very creative. I feel like this makes a lot of sense. It gives me a feeling that I'm on the right track. Of course, I feel like being called to own up to what I want. Be myself, be more authentic, be more truthful to what I want. Set up my boundaries, my limits and say no when I need to say no, say yes when I need to say yes. I feel like all of this is growing up in a way for me and really accept the responsibility and the invitation to fulfill this intention that I want. The messages I took out of my drawing are super relevant for me, for my life, for what I'm feeling, for what really makes sense to me. Maybe it didn't make any sense to you, but I hope that with my example, you are able to find those answers in your drawing. I really hope you are able to answer those questions for yourself to find the story and the roles and the meanings of each element and tie them together. Remember, there is no right or wrong. What you find in your drawing is probably what's right, you know what I mean? Our wisest self that is talking to us through this drawing knows what message is exactly we need and we are capable of interpreting. Really trust whatever you pick up from your drawing and you might not finish interpreting this today. You might receive new signs in the next few days, maybe, just keep your intuition open, keep yourself aware of your surroundings and allow the universe to keep complementing and helping you out on understanding what's really going on in this drawing. Now I really hope this was a great self-awareness experience for you. I really hope too that you were able to practice and develop all of your drawing skills. I feel like all of this goes together super well. If you feel this connection with the drawing, probably this is a very important tool for you to understand more about yourself and connect with yourself on a much deeper level. I hope this class was a good step in that direction.
8. Thank You! :): Now guys, we came to the end of this class. I am so grateful for you and for you being here, sharing this moment with me. Thank you so much. This is a very personal process that I shared with you guys. It's really a step in the unknown for me, so I'm really grateful that you're here to listen to my words. I hope this makes sense to you and this connects with you in your life, in your experience, and it helps you somehow. If you don't follow me yet here on Skillshare, just click on the Follow button up here and I can share more classes with you. Don't forget to post your drawing in the project section down below, so we can all get inspired with your art. I'm sending you so much love and amazing energy to the rest of your day and your life. I hope to see you soon on my next lessons. Thank you so much.
⋒ artsygio ⋒, Visual Artist
