Transcripts
1. Introduction: Just like with any other skill, being more creative is something you can actually work on. The little time you take
each day to nurture your creativity will go a long way in helping
you feel more inspired. Hi, I'm Anya Perepelkina, and I'm a digital
illustrator and animator. I've been working
independently for almost five years
now on all projects, from editorial illustration to frame-by-frame animation
and everything in between. I've been through it all. If you're creative, it's inevitable that at some
point you're going to be all out of ideas or not feeling
creative or even burnt out. We're not machines created
to endlessly generate ideas, so it's a natural
part of the gig. But it can be discouraging
to feel that way, especially if this is your
livelihood or if it's something that usually
brings you so much joy. So how do you bring that back? Drawing challenges
are a great way to shake things up if you've been
feeling down for a while. The commitment you make at
the start of a challenge is what makes it more likely
that you stick with it. Sticking with it means you're
getting more practice. More practice means you feel more confident and
you get the rest. Drawing prompts are basically little easily
achievable challenges that will help you feel creative again and make you
want to draw more. You already have a
list of prompts, which means you don't have
to think about what to draw. That gives you more space to
focus on the act of drawing itself and how fun and
liberating and silly it can be. In this class, we will work on completing a week of prompts. Yes, this means
that we're going to draw every day for a whole week. It's going to be lots of fun. I will also walk you through easy steps you can take
to make sure that it goes smoothly and doesn't take up a huge part of your day. After you're finished,
I'll tell you what you can do to keep the
momentum going. As an artist and a creative, the best thing you can
do for yourself is create just for the sake of it. I hope that this fun prompt
list that I lovingly put together will help you
feel a little more free, a little more silly, and a little more eager to draw. This is going to be so
much fun. Let's get to it.
2. Class Project: In this class, we
will be completing a drawing prompt
every day for a week. But more than that, we'll
be working on bringing your creativity and inspiration back into your daily life. If you're not familiar
with drawing prompts, it's basically a drawing
challenge where you draw based on a word or
a phrase from a list. There are a few famous
prompt lists out there, which you may have heard
of, such as Inktober. These prompts are usually open to your artistic interpretation, which means that they're
more of a starting point from which you can do
whatever you want. Now that we've got that covered, you might be thinking,
why do prompts? There are a lot of ways to
help you feel inspired again. The reason why
drawing prompts are my personal favorite way to deal with lack
of inspiration, is because it's
basically a list of ideas that you can just
take and start drawing. As I said, they're
very low pressure and open to artistic
interpretation, which means that
there's a lot of freedom to do whatever you want. Which is exactly why
I've always found that drawing prompts are the
perfect opportunity to try something new, like maybe a new brush, or a new technique, or something that you've
never tried before. Sometimes we unconsciously
put constraints in ourselves. With prompts, even though
you have a list to follow, you do feel a lot of freedom. The desire to experiment a
little bit comes naturally. For the prompts in this class, I chose homonyms, which are words that
have the same spelling and sound the same but
mean different things. I thought it would
be a good idea, especially if this is your
first time dealing with prompts to have a list of words that have
multiple meanings. There are some nouns
and verbs in the mix, which I feel are always a
little easier to start with. You don't need any previous
drawing experience to draw in this class. All you need is a
little bit of time every day and a desire to
reconnect with your creativity. Since we will be doing
drawing prompts, you're going to want to
have something to draw on and something to draw with. It really doesn't have to be
anything fancy or special. What matters most is
that you personally feel comfortable
using these tools. It could be a memo pad, a sketchbook, random
piece of paper. If it works, it works. For me, it's the tried
and true combination of Apple Pencil, iPad Pro, and Procreate. With all that said, I
hope I've managed to convince you to give this
week of prompts a try. If it seems like quite an
undertaking, do not worry. There are very easy
steps that you can take to make it
easier for yourself. We'll talk about that
in the next lesson. I hope you're excited to start. Let's jump right in.
3. Set Yourself Up For Success: How do you tackle a prompt? If you've never done any
type of prompt list before, here's what you do. First, you read the prompt. There could be an idea in your head the moment you see it, but sometimes it takes a bit of thinking to come to something
that you could use. If you're staring at the prompt and there's just nothing, you might want to think
about phrases you can coin with the word and
then go from there. In this class, since every
prompt has multiple meanings, you can even jump
from one meaning to another if you feel like
it's not working for you. I know that drawing
every day for a whole week can seem like
a bit of a challenge, but it really doesn't
have to take up a big part of your
schedule every day. There are actually some
very easy steps you can take to make sure
that it stays fun, easy, and something
that you'd be very excited to do each day. First off, think about your illustration style and how you can simplify
it so that it's sustainable enough to repeat for seven days in a row amidst
your other daily commitments. This can go a lot of
different ways, of course, depending on your current
style and workflow. You can opt for a
quick line art kind of hand-drawn
illustrations or simply choose to add less details or try a looser style
or go monochrome. It's nice to already
have an idea of what you want to do before
diving into the list. Also, I've said this already, but I really do
think that this is the perfect time to
try something new. For me personally,
every prompt list I've ever done added
something new to my style. Experimenting is very cool. Next tip is to
sketch beforehand. If you sit down the day before and write down your
very first thoughts about each prompt and do some really quick
and rough sketches. You're not going
to have to spend that time on each
day of the prompt. It doesn't have to
be a finished sketch or anything like that. It could even just be a
direction that you want to take. But also, on the other hand, if you're doing this
to challenge yourself, you can just go ahead and tackle each prompt on its given day. I think that some level of
spontaneity is actually beneficial to your creativity and the novelty of your ideas. If things don't go
like you imagined you first roll with it and think
about ways to improve it. Moving on, if you've
decided to work with color, I recommend you choose
your color palette. It's like choosing an
outfit for tomorrow. It takes care of a big chunk of the process so you don't
have to worry about it. For me personally, it
even makes me more excited to sit down
and draw every day and it's also a fun
mini challenge to try and make your color palette work with different prompts. You can always add to it on the first day when
you inevitably realize that something
is missing or just doesn't work with the
sketch you came up with. Next up, don't overthink it. Every prompt is completely
open to interpretation, which gives you a lot of freedom and that can be a
blessing and a curse. It's so easy to waste your time thinking about the
most perfect idea. For me personally,
I always have to outsmart everyone with my
genius interpretation. But you've got to trust
your creative intuition. If you catch yourself
overthinking it, go back to your initial idea. What's the very first thing that came to your mind when
you saw the prompt? Think it over for a
while and most likely it will evolve into
something you're happy with. My last suggestion is to
embrace the imperfections. We are not trying to
spend a whole day or even three hours on an illustration every
day that's insane. You really have to
let your mistakes go. I promise they're all
mostly in your head. You have my full permission and encouragement to be silly, let loose, and have fun. Perfection is not real anyway, and you're going to have
a lot more progress if you let it go. While it's great to
challenge yourself, you can still take a
break if you need it. Skip a prompt that you really don't like for whatever reason. Take a day off and start
again where you left off. The most important thing
is that you feel inspired again and that you're genuinely excited to sit down
and draw every day. To make sure that
you have a lot of fun doing this prompt
list in the next lesson, we're going to take
our time and do all of these
preparations together.
4. The Day Before: Hello from the day before
you start the prompt list. As I said, this is the time for you to do some preparations that will make your job a lot
easier and a lot more fun. I'll be talking to you
through my process here so you can see what it
could look like for you. First, I want to think
about what I can do to simplify my
illustration style. I've done a lot of prompt list before and what I
really enjoy the most is when I can be a little
silly and a little messy. I think that for me,
simple spot illustrations is the way to go. I also know that these kinds of illustrations don't take
me too long to finish, so that's a great thing as well. For you it could be the
same or maybe simply using less details
or deciding to limit yourself to
only one character in each illustration or scaling
back the size of them. You've got to think about how you're going
to fit this into your everyday life and how much time you can
actually spend on this. I think that's going to
help you decide what to do. Now that I know what I want my illustrations to look like, I can sketch my ideas. If you want to look at the
prompt list along with the different definitions of
the words all in one place, you can find a handy file in the class resources
below the class. I will talk more in detail about every sketch on the
day of the prompt. For now, I'll say that
some came really easily, some took a little time. But I'd say that all in all, it took me maybe
almost two hours to finish all of them and it was a very chill sketching session that I've
[LAUGHTER] really enjoyed, so I hope it's going to
be the same for you. I really recommend writing stuff down like your very
first thoughts when you saw the prompt, maybe even word associations. It all really helps to
develop your ideas. Now, the last step in the preparations will
be choosing the colors. I know that just in terms
of time management, I really don't want a big
color palette for this, so I'm just going to
use as simple of black for the line work that I
usually use and really bright, almost neon pink and lime
colors for the accents. I might add some messy
shadows as well. Usually if I am doing an
actual color palette, I start with 4-5 colors. I like to change the
background color for each day and then shuffle the
rest of the palette around. That's it. We are
finally ready to kick off this week of
prompts. I'll see you there.
5. Day 1 – WATCH: Welcome to the first day
of this week of prompts. I'm so excited to start. A little heads up
before we start. If you haven't done this yet, you might want to think
about your idea and sketch it out before watching
me do it in each lesson. I really want you to challenge
yourself and the only way you can do this is
by going through the whole process on your own. We want to spark your
creativity here. I feel seeing
others' ideas might spoil what you could have
come up with on your own, or even discourage you
from doing it altogether. At least that's the
case for me sometimes. I still want to give you an idea of what the process
could look like, and how fun and
spontaneous it can be. What you'll be seeing here is basically the raw version of me tackling each prompt
from start to finish. Maybe even go ahead and play this lesson
in the background. This way we can
hang out together while both working
on the prompts. With all that said, let's start. Since my prompt list
consist of homonyms, I'll be giving definitions at
the beginning of each day. For all you linguistic
freaks out there, I've taken most of
the definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary. Today's prompt is watch. The definitions are to look at; to observe, to keep under guard, and a portable timepiece
designed to be worn on the wrist or
carried in the pocket. For today's prompt, I immediately thought
of binge-watching, so I decided to go with that. When I think of binge-watching, I think about my favorite movie of all time, which is Twilight. I really love to include little personal things like
that in my illustrations. I thought it would be perfect. Since I already know what
I'm going for stylistically, I'm sketching this as
a spot illustration. I also want my characters to
look almost a little weird. I love doing a really big head, big ears, and a really
small body like this. This was a really quick sketch. Nothing is super
defined as you can see. I'll be working on
cleaning it up now. Since I've decided on
this almost messy, very casual style,
I'm not trying to be super precious about it. The beautiful thing about
this style is that it doesn't take me too long
to finish an illustration. Even if I didn't
sketch beforehand, I think it would
still be manageable and it's very forgiving too. I feel like I can get
away with a lot of imperfections and I can
add something funny, or quirky into it and it
would still make sense. I want to draw a shot from
Twilight on the screen so I pulled up this picture
to use as a reference. I thought it would be nice to draw a significant
moment from the movie. This one seemed
like it would look good with what I
have drawn so far. Looking at that, I decided
I actually didn't like it. There was just too
much happening. I was like, let me pull
up another shot of my boy Edward and just
redo all of that. I used to be so afraid
of scraping my work, even if I didn't really
like it or didn't necessarily think it
was the best fit. But as I said before, you really got to trust
your creative intuition. That's how you improve and
find your voice as an artist. Every illustration
or a drawing is a collection of little decisions that you make along the way. If you feel somewhere deep down that something just
doesn't sit right, go ahead and just fix it. You'll be a better
artist for it. Anyway, onto the
finishing touches, I'm doing color accents. I'm just going to figure
it out in this first prompt how exactly
I'm going to do it. I think I'll be using
only pink for this one. Then for the second prompt, I'm going to use the lime color. I want to try and draw
trees behind him too, maybe that will look good. I really should have chosen a
blue color to go along with the Twilight Blue but
it's too late now. I want the color to be evenly distributed
across the illustration. I'm coloring one element then
looking at it as a whole and thinking where else could I put that accent so that
it's not too much, or too little color
in one place, or not too close to
what I already have. For the messy shadows, I'll be using this shader brush. I love how it adds
to the messiness of the illustration and
brings it all together. Makes it look
intentional as well. There you go. Prompt
Number 1 is done. This was a really fun one, and I think it was one of the first words that I
put on the list too. I was really excited
to finally draw it. Now onto the next one.
6. Day 2 – ROCK: Today's prompt is rock. The definitions are to move
gently from side to side, popular music usually played on electronically
amplified instruments, and a large mass of
stone forming a cliff, promontory, or peak. For this prompt, I've
decided to go with the more literal definition. I always love drawing
plants and flowers. So I thought of this
little foresty, fantasy moment with
a little person sitting on a pile of rocks. The reason why I have this
blue border, by the way, is because I want all
of my prompts to be approximately the
same size and more or less the same proportion so
this serves just as a guide. This sketch turned
out a little more defined than the one
for the last prompt. But I do think that
I'll have to figure out the composition a little
bit down the line. Since my character
is really small, I'm not going to be
adding a lot of details. But the way that I can
show some attitude and create a story a little
bit is through the posture. Looking at what I have so far, it's very vertical I think. So I'm going to try and add something else to the side here, to maybe balance it
out a little bit. Are we adding colors
and shadows next? I used pink in the previous prompt so this time I'll be using
the lime color, which I think is very
lucky because it should go nicely with this
foresty illustration. This is the prompt
Number 2, very fun. I hope you're going
to like it as well. On to the next one.
7. Day 3 – DATE: Today's prompt is date. The definitions are the day of the month or year as
specified by a number, a social or romantic
appointment or engagement, or a person with whom one has a social or
romantic engagement, and the brown oblong
edible fruit of a palm. For this one, my
very first type was actually this scene from
Lady and the Champ, where they share spaghetti. I thought I would recreate that, but then after trying a
couple of different things, I realized that it just
doesn't really work. I kept thinking about
it and I was like, what is a date? I realized that to me is just being excited to spend
time with your loved one. Then I wanted to draw something
with intertwined arms, how couples sometimes walk
like this. Here we are. This sketch actually
turn out to be pretty clean already, so I am mostly going
to just retrace it, and then we'll see if it
needs any alterations. I got to say that sometimes
when I do an illustration, I don't even really sketch. I just go in and
roll with the vibes. This is why I said that a
little bit of spontaneity can actually be very
beneficial to your art. You're actively solving
problems as you go because you don't
plan anything and you definitely run
into problems and that leads to unexpected
but great solutions. It can be frustrating
too, don't get me wrong, but I'm a very strong
believer in just letting go. I think I need to add
something to this corner, it seemed to be
empty right here. Looks pretty good. Now I'm jumping straight
into the coloring. I'm using the pink for this one. This hand-adding the
shadows is hands down, the most fun part for me. It's nice to see it
all come together. Prompt Number 3 is done baby, this one was a little bit of
work to get to this point, but I think it turned out
pretty fun and a little silly. Onto the next one.
8. Day 4 – RING: We are halfway through the week, which means that we are
halfway through the list. Today's prompt is ring. The definitions are a
small circular band, typically of precious metal and often set with one
or more gemstones, worn on a finger, a loud clear sound or tone, and an enclosed space surrounded by seating
for spectators, in which a sport, performance, or
show takes place. For this one, my
initial idea was, you know how in movies
from the early 2000s when girls are laying in
bed talking on the phone. This was the idea, but I
didn't love this sketch. I was like let me actually jump to a
different definition. I'm so glad that I
did that because this sketch came
together, so naturally. It felt almost like
destiny really. I am so excited to
start this one. This sketch is
already really nice. Actually, I don't think
I'll be changing it at all. I'll just trace it more
intentionally and that's it. When I say him intentionally, I just mean that like it's still sketch so I can't really use it. I need to retrace it
anyway because there are some awkward wobbly lines here and there and
things like that. It's the same sketch, but I draw it with a
little more intention. Yes, I added some sparkle to
really accentuate the ring. I also want to add this shadow under the girl to give the
illustration some ground. In terms of color, I'm
using lime for this prompt, and I thought it was
essential to color the ring itself to
make it really pop. Here's the finished
illustration. We're halfway through
the prompt list and I hope you're still
holding on just like me. This is definitely one
of my favorites so far. I absolutely love it when
it just clicks like that. Doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it feels good. Now, to the next one.
9. Day 5 – MEAN: Today's prompt is mean. The definitions are:
To intend to convey, indicate, or refer to a
particular thing or notion, to signify unkind, spiteful, or unfair, and in plural, resources available
for disposal. For this one, I have the
craziest inspiration. I wrote down little
devil because, for some reason, thinking
about this prompt, I remember this extremely
bad '90s movie, Problem Child, which
basically led me to the idea. In this sketch, I'm trying
to make the character look mean by giving them
this really wide, almost insane smile, like they're really thinking
of mischief or something. I think that for me, the more
solid the idea in my head, the cleaner the sketch
that I get in the end. In this case, again, I don't think that I'll be
making any big changes, I just need to trace
this, once again, with more intention and
we'll see how that goes. In another lucky
turnover events, I am using pink for this
one because I used lime for the previous prompt and I think that out of the two
colors that I have, this one definitely works
better with the idea. Actually, I do think that
hot pink is a mean color, I think maybe a
little bit, yeah, which is probably why
it feels like it works. Here's the finished illustration
for today's prompt. For me, this was a
really smooth ride from sketch to the
finished illustration. I'm actually really curious what you'll think
of this prompt. Now onto the next one.
10. Day 6 – CRUSH: Today's prompt is crush. The definitions are to compress or squeeze forcefully
so as to break, damage, or distort in shape, to bring about a feeling of overwhelming disappointment
or embarrassment in someone, and a brief but intense
infatuation for someone, especially someone
unattainable or inappropriate. The sketching process
for this one was crazy. I really wanted to go
with the concept of crush as being in
love with yourself, but I tried several ideas and
none of them really worked. After several failed attempts, I remembered about the idea
I had for the prompt ring, so I decided to recycle that. Crush to me really
screams teenage years, so I think that works. Remember how I said that the last prompt
came really easily. I think this one really
had it out for me, it was really trying to test me. I will say that I'm not
insanely happy with the sketch, but I'm sure I can make it work. I really didn't want to spend any more time on this
than I already had. This one took by far the most time in the
sketching process. I'm going to work on it
and see how it goes. I think it worked out in
the end as it usually does. Anything that's a good
example of how it goes sometimes for these types
of prompt challenges. The ideas are not always there, like let's be honest, but if you trust your
creative abilities, you can take a sketch that may do a finished illustration
that works nicely. There you go. This is the
finished illustration for today's prompt. We struggled, but we
got there in the end, so it's all good. Now onto the last one.
11. Day 7 – DROP: Welcome to the very last day
of this week of prompts. I am simultaneously very excited and very sad that
it's coming to an end. Today's prompt is drop. The definitions are to let or make something
fall vertically, a small, round, or bell-shaped portion
of liquid that hangs or falls or adheres to the
surface, and a delivery. For this prompt, I wrote down raindrops and drops of sweat. I definitely was leaning towards raindrops at first
but I was just sitting there with no ideas whatsoever so I thought let
me switch to drops of sweat. Immediately I remembered how I was taking my
shopping bags up to my apartment and how I was sweating profusely
like a crazy person. This is what I sketched.
With this one, the sketch is a little messy but I feel like I have a
really solid idea. There shouldn't be
any problem here, I'm not trying to jinx it. We'll see, of course, but I have a good feeling about this one. I feel like this
illustration is really fun and silly so I really actually, I'm enjoying working
on this one. Now the coloring part is, as usual, pretty
straightforward, but I didn't really do any fun things with color
like I did the trees in the first prompt
so I thought I'd add a little something
to the produce bags. Just a nice little touch of something a little
bit different. Here we are, last prompt, last day of this challenge. We did this together and
I'm so happy about that. If you feel like you're
on a roll from this, I'll be talking about next steps you can take in the next lesson.
12. What's Next?: Congrats. You just
finished the prompt list. Whether you did all of
the prompts or chose to rest on some days or just didn't care about
some of the prompts, I'm so proud of you. Now you understand how
beneficial giant prompts can be, so I'm about to drop
some wisdom on you. You can actually make
your own prompt lists and use them whenever you need
help with your join ideas. Honestly, you can just throw some cool sounding
words together and use that as
your prompt list. I am not going to pretend like there are actual rules to this. But if you want it to flow nicely or you just don't
know where to start, here are some questions to ask yourself when making your list. First, you need to
decide whether you want to make your
list cohesive or not. In other words, do you
want it to have a theme? Having a theme can make it so much easier to
choose your prompts, but not having a theme could
give you more freedom. Next, do you want it to be one word for each
prompt or a phrase? One word gives more freedom to create whatever
comes to your mind, where a phrase
gives more context, so coming up with ideas
can be a little easier. Moving on, do you
want your prompts to be abstract or concrete? I think both are very fun
to translate into drawings. It could definitely be a
mix like in my prompt list. But still deciding on one or the other can make it easier to choose what to add to your list. Like I said before, there are no rules to this. There is nothing
really stopping you from choosing a bunch of random words or phrases and creating a prompt list
that works for you. If you're not really
looking to create your own prompt list but
you enjoy the challenge, there are actually
a lot of stuff out there that you can try. One of the most popular
drawing prompt challenges is InkTober. Officially, it's a
month-long challenge where every day in October you create an ink drawing
and post it online. I used to do it every year, but now I prefer more casual variations
of it, like PeachTober. Both of these are great
challenges though because there's a huge
community around them. In any case, October
is definitely the month of drawing
prompts for sure. Another big one is
called 36 days of type, which is an even longer
challenge where you create daily interpretations
of letters and numbers from the Latin alphabet. Since this one is
based on typography, I personally find it a little more challenging
as an illustrator, but we all already know that challenges are what
makes us better. My absolute favorite
challenge out there is the annual hourly comic day, which happens on February 1st. Is pretty self-explanatory. You basically draw a comic about your day for every hour
that you're awake. I love this one so much because it's by far the
most challenging. But this is why
it's so much fun, and as a nosy person, I love seeing
everyone's entries. Now, this was all to say that you don't
have to stop here. There are a lot of ways
to keep the momentum going and you can always come back to this whenever
you need a little help, getting back on track. Things will get a lot
easier the more you expose yourself to this
stuff. I believe in you.
13. Conclusion: Well, we're finally here. I am so glad that we went
through this together, and I can only hope that
I've successfully made my case as a self-proclaimed
prompt list, enjoy. I hope you enjoyed the
prompt list and had a lot of fun coming up with
ideas for your illustrations. You learned why
drawing prompts are such a great way to reconnect
with your creativity. You also have the
tools now to prepare yourself for any joint
challenge in your future. I'm serious, like you could do one right now if you wanted to and you know how to make your own prompt lists
if you ever need to. The most important thing though, is that you took some time
to nurture your creativity, and now you're on your
way to making drawing a little bit more of a habit
in your everyday life. Please remember that it's okay to feel
uninspired at times, but you also don't have
to feel this way forever. Prompt are best
enjoyed when there is a whole community around them. So please feel free to share your entries in the
class project section. I would love to see your ideas, your sketches, backstories, really anything that served as inspiration for your
final illustrations. As much as you want to
see other people's ideas, we want to see yours. If you want to
share on Instagram, please use the hashtag
a week of prompts and tag me @Wildanya
so I don't miss it. I am so curious to see
what you'll come up with. Thank you for joining me
and for taking this class, this has been such
a great time. Bye.
Anya Perepelkina, Illustrator & animator
