Acrylic Sketchbook Challenge: Five Days of Fall

1. Introduction: It's autumn again, and that is my absolute favorite season. Life can be hectic this time of year, but this autumn, I invite you to slow down for five days and paint in your sketchbook with me, you'll examine the sensory delights of fall and capture the things that really matter to you. I'm Laura Irrgang and I'm an artist living in Lone Oak, Texas. I spend my days in my studio near the woods, painting, illustrating books, writing, and cartooning. I also paint murals and make music. People often ask me what they can do to boost their creativity and my first suggestion is usually to start a daily art practice. I love painting in my sketchbook and documenting things that are important to me, and this class is a great place for you to learn to do that too. We are going to use acrylic paints to paint the five senses of ball over five days. We're going take a fall field trip. It's going to be super fun. I'm going to send you out in the world to collect sights, and sounds, and smells, and touches, and tastes of fall that you might want to paint. I'll show you my whole process for keeping a painted sketchbook. The materials I use, how to brainstorm ideas, planning your layout and sketching, choosing colors, and basic painting tips. Then I'll show you what to do next, how to share your project in the class gallery, and I'll give you ideas for what to do when you're done to keep your creativity moving forward. You can paint anything you want to. But if you're feeling like you're having a creative block, don't worry, I'll give you lots of props to get you started for each day. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned artist, the sensory sketchbook will help you improve your acrylic skills in a satisfying and calming way. Look around you from the dazzling display of leaves and the crackle of fires to your first trip to the pumpkin patch or apple orchard. This season offers so many delightful experiences. What we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell can route us in the present moment and increase our sense of joy and connection. This project will help you to really be present in the moments unfolding around you, and by painting them in your sketchbook, you'll have a snapshot of this special time. This autumn, I hope you'll give yourself the gift of painting in your sketchbook. This can be a special time that's just for you, so slow down and paint with me, and let's capture those little things that really matter to you. 2. Class Orientation: Let's get you oriented on what this class is going to be about. Now, I love this whole sketchbook process. I think of working in my sketchbook is my daily art treat I give myself. No matter what else I have going on, workwise or just lifewise, I really look forward to the time I sit down and work in my sketchbook. Our project is going to be working in a sketchbook capturing things that represent the five senses. For example, for site, leaves, I love leaves, that's a no-brainer for fall. It's so fun to look at all the variations of color you get in an individual leaf, and there's like a whole world in one leaf. Then you can blow it out from the microcosm to this huge whole landscape of leaves and fiery sunsets you see in autumn. We're trying to get each visual sense in our sketchbook. For example, for the sense of touch, we have velvet pumpkin, smooth real pumpkins. I love to go to a yarn store and touch all yarns, I love sweaters, I love the knobby feeling of a sweater. Another one you might not think of instantly that I enjoy is the sensory pleasure of makeup in fall. I like all the different colors that come out and it's just a fun sensory experience. For the sense of sound, I like to think of crackling fires and all timey music. The scratchy sound of a record player reminds me of that vintage back to school vibe. As far as the sense of smell, I love a whispered smoke in the air or some of the million candles there are out there. I go candle crazy this time of year, so it was fun for me to document all of my favorite sense. For sense of taste, there are so many wonderful things to nibble on this time of year. We have a variety of teas you might think of depicting or yummy hot drinks, and there's always something good with pumpkin and there's a variety of things you might eat at Thanksgiving or Halloween candy. We're going to capture the sense of taste in some sketchbook pages too. First, I'm going to show you all of the materials I use, and then I'm going to talk to you about how I brainstorm ideas and we're going to take a far field trip, it's going to be super fun, I'm going to send you out in the world to collect sights, and sounds, and smells, and touches, and tastes of fall that you might want to paint. Then I'll talk to you about layout and sketching on the actual pages, and then we'll talk a little bit about picking out really strong colors to make a fun autumn palette. Then we'll move on to the fun part; we'll paint and then I'll show you what to do next, how to share your project in the class gallery, and I'll give you ideas for what to do when you're done to keep your creativity moving forward. Are you ready? Let's go. 3. Supplies: In this video, I'm going to talk to you about the supplies I use. The first thing you need is something to paint on. What I used for this class is a small bound sketchbook like this. I like one that will lay flat, see how it will lay completely flat. Some people like spirals, I like one that will lay flat just because it gives me more room to work in the seam there. This one's about, let's say four by six inches, and one thing I like to use are small binder clips. The reason I like these binder clips is that when I'm painting, I like to clip the edges so that while the paint's wet, it doesn't accidentally blow shut or flip shut with two wet pages together, so I like to use that. If you want to go super simple and budget, just fold over some copy paper or paper you have lying around, that'll work fine. If you want something nicer, I prefer to paint on a heavier paper. I think the paper accepts the paint better, but anything will work, but I like notebooks that will lay flat. I also really enjoy this feature, it's a little rubber band that will help you, again, secure your edges like that and sometimes it's fun if they have a little ribbon bookmark that'll help me remember where I was the last time I was painting. You would maybe want to look for something that says, wet media, mixed media, made for paint. If you have a notebook that's made for watercolor, it's also going to accept acrylic paint really well, so that's fine. Some people like spirals, if you plan to use your art for anything later, you might look for the detachable paper that has the little dots in it so that you can rip it out, maybe you can frame it, maybe you're working in a size that's postcard size, maybe you want to send them as a postcard later, that can be fun too. Sometimes I'll even buy a real book at a thrift store or a garage sale or something like that. I might find something with a nice pretty binding, sometimes I'll find vintage children's books that may be have a page or two ripped out or maybe a child has scribbled in them and I just hate to see them go to waste, I like to recycle things. If you find a pretty old book that maybe has a little bit of damage but you can't bear to throw it away, you just open the book up and you will paint the page completely with an acrylic paint color as a background, and then you can just paint over it. That's a neat way to reuse books too. Sometimes I'll buy a pre-made notebook that has a theme. This was a Fallen Leaves notebook. I just thought it was pretty, it had nice autumn-themed colors. This one had blank and lined pages in it and one feature I particularly like in this one is it has waxed paper pockets, and that's really fun because you can put leaves in it. You can put leaves, flowers, a ticket stub, a menu, anything that's flat, you can put in these wax paper envelopes and you can see through it or vellum and it's really pretty. You can just use regular wax paper and you can glue it in or you can make a pocket and tape it in, just any way you'd like to attach it in your book. I think that's a fun feature. Now you have to have paint, it's a painting class, we have to have paint. I don't have any particular brand loyalty, people will ask me about paints sometimes and I think you really should try different ones. A lot of this is going to boil down to your personal preferences and the more you paint, the more you'll know what kind of paint you like. Some of it you're just going to have to experiment with them. Let's see. I have Van Gogh paint, this is Master's Touch, that was a set that had a lot of different colors in it, you can mix your own or you can buy them pre-made. The nice thing about acrylic paints is they come in a ton of colors, you can mix your own, but you can also just buy some that are already in a really wide array of shades. Here's a Grumbacher, I've got Daler-Rowney, sometimes if I'm going to be using a lot of one particular color, for example, I love red, I will buy acrylic interior house paint samples. You can't use oil, latex or anything like that, but you can buy acrylic house paint and sometimes these fern samples are neat to use if you're going to use a lot of a particular color. Now, when I sketch, some people use pencil, I will use pencils sometimes. The way I prefer to sketch is using chalk. The reason I like to do that is it's easy to remove later and if you're painting in a particularly dark or bold acrylic color, chalk will stand out really well. For example, if the background is blue, I might pick the opposite color on the color wheel, which is orange, and sketch in orange or vice versa. You might try chalk, I think that's a fun way to sketch. Now you need something to put your paint on. I like these pallets with the wells in it, I think it's satisfying to mix up different colors and put them in these little circular wells, I like doing that. I also use dinner plates, just regular plates, that way you're not constantly throwing away palettes and things like that and you can recycle them. If I'm doing a smaller project like my sketchbook I'm working in that's this size, sometimes I'll make some smaller amounts of paint on a little saucer, something like this. It has a nice heavy bottom so you don't feel like it going to slide away on you and they're really easy to clean, so that's an option. You probably need paper towels or a rag, I like something to dab my paintbrush on as I work and of course paint brushes. Anything will work that you already have but I would definitely recommend a small variety, at least. I would, for your backgrounds, want a larger brush and in this instance, for something this size, I probably use an inch brush. This one's about an inch, just something you can lie in a background quickly so you're not painting tiny strokes, then I'd get some medium size brush and a small brush. Medium size brushes can come in rounds, filberts, flats, angles, that describes what the tip of them look like. You'll probably just want to play around and see what marks you like. One thing I would definitely get is a liner brush. It's a real skinny brush that has a small tip and I like to be able to make fine lines, sometimes I think that helps make your image really crisp, so go ahead and get a real fine lined brush too. Now a lot of people want to throw away a brush once it gets junky and splayed out, but these are treasures, I promise you, they're treasures. Keep them, they make all kinds of fun marks like foliage, fur, they can help you blend. If a brush looks unloved and junky, it has a place in your artistic arsenals, so don't throw it away. Now, there are a few other things you might use that aren't acrylic paints that gives some neat marks. Paint pens, I think paint pens are fun to use. Plain old markers, colored pencils can work. Sharpies, are always fun. Sharpies can draw on top of any acrylic. Now, if you were going to get anything new for this class that you didn't already have, I was going to share two products that I really like with you. I adore Tombow pens and I will put all of these in the class resources so you can see how they're spelled and everything, but they are a type of calligraphy pen, they come in a variety of colors, but I prefer black. I just like that bold graphic punch of black but you can try other colors too. They come in a mix of soft, long, brush tips that are like a paintbrush, even though it is a marker or smaller, much harder controlled nibs that give you boulders stark lines, really straight lines. You might just experiment with some of these to see what kind of marks you like. The other thing that I like on acrylic a lot are Gelly Roll pens. This is G - E- L - L - Y, but you can find them in all brands. They're basically just paint in a roller ball pen. I'm sure you've seen them. They are in pretty much any office supply store or art supply store and they're fun. I like white in particular because acrylic paints tend to be really saturated and bold and white can give you some really fun lines on top of those paints. Get your supplies together and then in the next video, I'm going to talk to you about brainstorming ideas and we are going to go on a field trip and it's going to be really fun. I'll see you in a minute. 4. Fall Field Trip: In this video, we are going to decide what to paint and you are going to go on a far field trip. I love field trips. Did you love field trips? I think we all love field trips. Pretend little tiny you is going to get on this little tiny bus and we're going to go somewhere magical. You can take yourself somewhere familiar and comfortable, like your favorite pumpkin patch, or maybe go to a state park you love and take a hike. Or you can go somewhere new and exciting, maybe that has a bit of mystery to you. A new area of town you've always wanted to go to where a spooky haunted house or a section of shops that looks like somewhere you normally wouldn't shop but you're curious about. The main thing is we want you to get out there in the autumn, immerse yourself in all of these sites and senses and just see what delights you. What tickles your creative fancy, what are you noticing? What are your eyes drawn to? Really think about what you like? What do you hear? What are you smelling? Walk through a farmers market and pick up some of the smooth gourds, treat yourself to some hot cider or a yummy pumpkin donut. I like to bring a camera with me, either a bigger nicer camera or just snapshots on my cell phone, that's easier. It always fits in your pocket so you can bring it anywhere. I particularly like to take photos of something that's not visual, like the source of a sound or something that smells or tastes really good. Take a snapshot of that source and then later when you go back through your photos, it'll help jog your memory. You can also collect leaves or acorns or anything that you can touch and bring home, and surround yourself with it later as a reminder for inspiration, when you start your sketchbook. Take your notebook with you and jot down anything that catches your attention. You can just write notes to yourself or you can do quick sketches if you want them for reference later. I like to divide a page into five categories to get me started. You can use a page for each sense or do it all on one page, it's up to you. I use the labels, sight, sounds, smells, touches, and tastes. Now, let's take a look at each category and simply pick your favorite. There aren't any wrong answers here, just go with your intuition and pick your favorite. Just pick what you want to paint. You're almost ready. In each video for each sense, I'll talk a little bit more about that particular sketch book page, but we're almost ready to go. In the next video, I'm going to talk to you about making good color choices, let's go on to that. 5. Choosing Colors: In this section, I'll help you choose colors for maximum color impact. I tend to use a somewhat limited color palette in my sketchbook. I love color and sometimes, I do want to use every color in the crayon box, but if you use a huge rainbow of colors, sometimes it can be a little bit visually overwhelming. If you're aiming for a specific field or season like autumn, it can be helpful to limit your colors a little bit to help you distill that ambiance down and make a more powerful color punch. I think we all associate the changing leaf colors with this season, but beyond that, our color palette is very personal. If you let your specific tastes guide you, it'll help make your sketch book more unique. For example, you might think of fall as having strong ties to agriculture and the produce you see at the farmers' market so your palate might have shades of green. Someone else might think of autumn as a high knitting time and include the colors of sheep and yarn they plan to knit with this season. Or maybe you're like me and you love Halloween. You might find that your palate has lots of oranges and bright yellow and black. Or perhaps your autumn palette is more subtle. Think shades of smoke and cloudy skies and rain rolling down. Now, another factor to consider is balance. In my sketchbooks, I like them to have a nice visual flow, and for me that means variation in color. For example, I want the predominant color of the background of the page to be different as you flip through the sketchbook. This sketch book page is blue and then the next sketch book page I work on might be purple or orange. But, for example, I don't want four orange pages in a row. For me, that would be too repetitive, so I'd like to break it up a little bit. Now, color can be more subtle. Even if you were working in black and white, for example, you could still have balanced variation with your color. For example, you might have a medium gray background, then you have a black background, then a very light gray background, then you might have a mishmash of checkerboard background. Just vary that color and vary that tone of light and dark and it'll give you more visual interest. This is such a fun part of the process for me. I love to get all the paints together that I'm going to use. It's like gathering up little jewels and treasures. I feel like a dragon with all my gold, my paint. I like this part and I think it's really fun so I really hope you'll relish choosing your colors too. Now, once you've decided what color palette you're going to use, we're going to move onto your first sketchbook page. In the next video, we're going to talk about sketching and your layout. 6. Layout & Sketch: You've chosen a beautiful fall pallets. Now it's time to think about sketching and layout. When I choose a subject, I like to sketch out a few thumbnails first to figure out which arrangement is going to be most visually pleasing to me. I wanted to paint a blazing autumn sunset with start trees silhouetted in front of the sky. I spent some time trying out different layouts. I thought about making a sky on each side of the page, or maybe four small frames with sunsets. That looked okay, but it didn't have the big color impact I wanted. I decided that carrying the bright sky all the way to the edge of the paper would work best. When I painted candles, I started with some sketches. I could draw them on a grid. Maybe I would write candles in a scroll across the page, or maybe I could have a small section where I did a bit of journaling. I could have one really large in the foreground and the one in the background. I could do a huge candle that stretches across both pages. I ended up going with a loose pattern of candles with multiple candles across both pages and labels underneath. I knew I'd be including a recipe, so the spacing was important. I drew it in lightly with the pencil to make sure that my title and text had room. I don't necessarily write every word, but it can be helpful to show squiggles that approximate how much text you have. Once you choose a layout you like, you can either paint directly on the page or make a light sketch first in pencil. I prefer a light sketch to ensure everything is where I want it. I like my composition to feel balanced, and for me, it's easier to put a light drawing down first. If you've already prepped the page with a painted background, you can draw in chalk. I like how it shows up well and can easily be wiped off with your fingers, a paper towel, or a wet paint brush. You've got your first sketch ready and it's time to paint. In the next video, we're going to work on the very first day, the first prompt, which is site. 7. Day 1: Sight: It is day one to actually paint in our sketch books. We're going to work on the sense of sight. I'm a very visual person, so I find this category to be the easiest. I actually have a hard time narrowing down my choices. This is a good time to review your photos and notes from your field trip. Did you go somewhere familiar or did you seek out a new place that held a bit of mystery? Did you go out into nature? Did you seek calm? Or did you decide to go out looking for excitement? What caught your eye the most? Did you bring anything home with you? What colors and patterns made your heart happy? Pick your favorite and let's get started. Pumpkin scream fall to me, so that's what I wanted to start with. As you can see with this page, I already had the background painted blue. You can start with a bear page or you can prime the page with color. If you want to paint a background now is a good time to use your blow dryer or heat gun. That way you're sure the background is totally dry before you start sketching or painting another layer. If it's not totally dry, you could accidentally tear your paper when sketching or smear the two paint colors together without meaning to. I started by sketching the outlines of pumpkins with chalk. I like the contrast of the blue background and bright orange pumpkins. Blue and orange are opposites on the color wheel. Placing them next to each other really makes them stand out. I keep adding lighter and brighter shades of orange to the ribs of the pumpkin. Then I start adding in details to the stem. I'm not aiming to make them super realistic, I'm just enjoying the colors and shapes. Okay, now it's time to blow dry the pages a bit. Sometimes I like to add lettering with markers or pencils. I'm using a yellow paint pen here. I'm trying out different styles of texts all around the page in different directions. I'm filling in the negative space between the pumpkins. Next, I'm using the same marker to add lines and details to the pumpkins. In my sketchbooks, I'm always experimenting. So I wanted to try a dot pattern to see what texture that would make. See that little clip at the edge, I like to clip one or two corners of my sketchbooks so the pages don't slip shut while I'm painting. Now, I'm going to show you the leaves I picked for this prompt. I started by priming the page in neutral gray. I particularly liked the pointy shape at the leaf tips and the fate of the rusty orange to a mustard color. For the leaves, I'm going to start without a sketch. I'm going to paint the outline of the shape directly on my pages, then I work a few colors together while the paint is still wet. One thing I enjoy about fall leaves is how the colors blend and smear together within one leaf. I try to mimic this look by smooshing wet colors together. I find it helpful to have the actual leaves in front of me. Notice how I work in almost exactly the same size. For a more detailed image, this helps me get the exact details right. If you're wanting to get a more realistic final result, painting from life is a great way to help you do that. The veins made an interesting line pattern. So I decided I wanted to paint them, but only on the lighter leaf. You can make decisions like this ahead of time or just as you go along. Experiment with different levels of planning and see what works best for you. Done. Now we move on to our next prompt, sound. Here are some prompts to help you get started on today's sense. In the next video, we're going to work on our next prompt, which is sound. 8. Day 2: Sound: Welcome to day 2. We are going to work on our second prompt, which is sound. You can interpret these prompts as literally or as loosely as you want. You might like the sound of dry leaves crunching under a foot or the giggles that a pumpkin patch, it could be really specific like an album you are into right now. You could actually letter the song titles or depict a scene from your favorite lyrics. Get creative with this one. I love the sound of happy tricker treaters that always snaps me back to my past. Think back to your field trip. What did you hear that seemed to specifically autumn in nature? Close your eyes and try to remember the autumns of your childhood. What sounds are coming back to you? Choose a memory that brings you happiness or peace. Here is a page I made about the crackle of fire, that's slightly dangerous but still soothing, crinkling, poppy sound always makes me feel in an autumn mood. I wanted the paint to be wild and leaping off the page so I put it on thick and carried it off all the way to the edge. Here's a demonstration of my sketchbook page with a gramophone and a School Bus. This time, I flipped my sketchbook vertically. I think it's fun to change the direction of the layout sometimes. When you're flipping through your sketchbook later, it's an unexpected surprise and I think you'll like it. I painted the pages a deep plum and the color of a dawn sky. I started with the chalk sketch. Here's a tip. Choose a chalk and color that contrast with the background and that way it will show up better. My daughters are returning to school and the sounds of the school year always remind me of fall. The hiss of the bus door opening, the rumble of that big motor and scratchy music on a record player or our radio. I always enjoy nostalgic music when the school year rolls around, I paint in the basic shapes of the gramophone and the bus. It's hard to get yellow to cover that really deep purple. If you put a darker color over a lighter color or use a color that has some transparency to it that can happen, but that's okay. In this case, I'll just put it on really thick or add another layer later. I like to run up against challenges like this in my sketchbook. That way I'm learning little tricks all the time that help me when I'm doing client work or painting on a larger commission. Painting, a sketchbook is so freeing because the stakes are low. It's just so much less intimidating to make mistakes or try out new things when you can turn the page when you're done. Now I'll use a much finer brush for some details. If your paint feels too thick or you're having trouble making thin lines, you could add just a touch of water to your paint, not too much or it'll be see-through and hard to control, but just a drop or two helps give you a more workable consistency. I think I'll make this a little more interesting by adding a sort of a sound bubble. It's almost like a speech bubble in a comic book. I like that little touch of whimsy and something unexpected. Next, I'm going to use my blow dryer to speed up the drying time. For more detailed lines, I'm going in with a paint pen and a fine Sharpie. You can also paint these in, but I enjoy mixing up my media in my sketchbooks. Most drawing tools work great on top of acrylics. Just make sure they're really dry. Experiment to see which drawing materials you like on top of acrylic paint. Here's a tip, keep a piece of scratch paper to the side of your work. Some pens like jelly rollers or paint pens need a little help to get started some times and getting the paint and ink flowing can make a blob and you don't necessarily want to see that on your image. Get the pen started on your scratch paper. Here are a few prompts to help you figure out ideas for today's scenes. Okay, now we're going to move on to day 3, which is the sense of smell. 9. Day 3: Smell: Welcome to day three. We're going to paint our sense of smell. What sense immerse you in the feeling of fall? For me, that list is long. I'm obsessed with perfumes and candles and spend a little too much time shopping at that big store with all the sprays and lotions and soaps. You know what store I'm talking about, right? You know. Now, as you may have noticed, some of our five senses can mingle. We can't really taste without also seeing and smelling, and it's hard to touch something without also seeing it, and sometimes you hear all of these things. It's hard to separate some of our senses, but that's fine. It adds more layers and complexity to our project. Although many scents I enjoy are one-note wonders, there are many more that are a mixture of more smells than I can count. Think about how many notes there are to the perfume of a fall county fair. Buttery corn, the scent of hay, a hint of smoke in the air, leather from the craft stalls, fresh apples, and I love that friendly barnyard smell of horses, and then you've got turkey legs roasting. Well, you get the idea. This might be a good page to use a more scattered layout. If you have several scents to paint, it might be fun to paint multiple icons. If it does your heart good to label things like it does mine, go for it. I find that adding text helps me remember details when I revisit my sketchbooks later and it gives a more personal journaling aspect to your work. You could even create boxes specifically for a short diary entry. I chose to paint a variety of candles. I wanted to keep their shape relatively similar since there would be so many of them. I really like that sense of repetition. So I started by mixing up a really watery cream color to give a transparent glow to the candles. I went with an opaque yellow to make the flame. Time for the dryer, got to get it all dry before those next layers. Now I mixed a thin black and added wix with a liner brush. Next I added lettering with my white gel pen. I tried to emulate calligraphy, even though it wasn't a calligraphy brush. I wanted the white frilly lettering to echo the whitish glow from the candles. Finally, I add a text to each candle describing the specific scent. I wanted a little bit more of that fine white line, so I added more white marks above each candle. Here are a few prompts to help you get started with today's sense. All right, we're done for today. Tomorrow we're going to move on to day four, our scents of touch. 10. Day 4: Touch : Hi there. You've made it to day 4, today's sense is touch. What did you want to touch when you were on your field trip? Did you try to pick up every single pumpkin and Apple? Did they tell you to quit man handling the miracles and moms? How about the wonderful feeling of thick fur? Our dogs and cats get a little extra snugly this time of year. I really enjoy the sensory pleasure of putting on makeup and nail polish and fall shades. I'll show you a page from my sketchbook and how I started it. When I finish a day, sometimes I'll go ahead and prep my paper for the next day. I knew I was going to concentrate on makeup and I wanted to set the images apart in frame somehow. I picked up the colors I wanted and started laying out big areas of shape. Notice how I put a piece of scrap paper underneath the pages I painted. This keeps the color from getting on the previous pages and the edges of the books. I chose light and bright colors for the oval and filled in the areas around them with bright pumpkin orange and a deep chocolate shade, I let them dry overnight. When I returned to the next day, I was ready to start painting again. I wanted this spread to be sort of lighthearted and have a graphic feel. I wanted to paint eyes and lips and then label the features with a name of a makeup shade. You can use real names, but I made these up. I always thought that would be a really great job to get to be the person at the makeup company who makes up the color names for the cosmetics. Is that a real job? Hey, cosmetic companies, you should hire me to do that. I'm so available. My aim was to make these fun, not super realistic. Once I've finished painting the features, I realized that I might have a hard time with the lettering on that dark background. In the moment, I just decided to add some yellow oval shapes so that I could write on top of them, that it was time to blow dry. When you'll be doing lettering, you must have a super dry surface or it can damage your pens and it's also just really frustrating to try to write on simply wet paint because it just doesn't work. You can smear your paint underneath it could smear your ink on top. If you have a roller ball pen, it can get paint stuck in there and it's just a pain, so make sure it's really dry. Next, I put on my thinking cap and created some autumn cosmetic names. I went with a frilly calligraphy look because I thought it would just fit the overall style. I added some dots and dashes around the frames for a little bit more oomph. For my sweater spread. I skipped the sketching and I went right into painting. I used a reference photo from the Internet, but I only followed it loosely. Mainly I wanted to give the impression of a fuzzy navy sweater that squeezes you and fit you like a hug. I decided on three text boxes to the right because I wanted to include a fair amount of text and I like to jot down my thoughts and I was just thinking about how much I like touching yarn at a craft store. To tie in the text, I painted a trailing bit of yarn around the perimeter. Sometimes you don't have to draw an entire object, just a hint or a piece of it. It's a fun way to include bits and bobs without spinning forever trying to depict the whole thing. Here are some prompts for the sense of touch to help get you started. All right. We are done with day 4 so we're moving on to our last day, day 5, which is going to be sense of taste. 11. Day 5: Taste: Hello there. You've made it to day 5, sense of taste. There are so many delicious things to taste during the fall. What are your favorites? What do you absolutely have to eat or drink during the autumn months? I know it's a cliche, but for me it's pumpkin everything. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin coffee, all the lattes, and the list goes on and on. Here is a sketchbook spread of pumpkin pancakes. Sometimes I like subtle color, but not today. I wanted an on the nose bright orange pumpkin background. I sketched out a design I liked first. I knew I'd be including a recipe, so the spacing was important. I drew it in lightly with the pencil to be sure my title and text had room. I don't necessarily write every word, but it can be helpful to show squiggles that approximate about how much text you have. I used very watered-down brown paint to sketch out my pancakes and the plate with a fine liner brush. Do you see my phone propped up to the left? I usually keep a reference photo there or a photo I've pulled up on my phone. I was using a picture of a stack of pancakes, and I kept looking at it. You can use a laptop or a magazine page or print out an image, or even use real life pancakes. Sometimes I paint from my imagination, but I often find it easiest to have an image to look at while I paint. Try out different ways and see how you like to work best. Butter and syrup. I tried to make sure I got a lighter highlight on the syrup to make it look nice and drippy and yummy. I followed the edge of the pancake to make it look like the syrup was smashing down the steps and rolling down each level of pancake. I wanted the recipe to be legible, so I painted a big rectangular shape in light cream on the opposite page. Then I used the dryer to make sure it was bone dry. I followed my sketch carefully to make sure the text placement came out right. Here's an example of when I used one of the black Tombow pens. I really like how textbooks with these pens. Next I'll share my pine needle T sketchbook pages. My daughter and I enjoy foraging and we've been talking a little bit about pine needle T lately. I wanted a more organized look this time, so I painted rounded rectangles for the background in the colors of rust and a dusky apricot. As always, dry these before adding the next layers. I used a pine cone as a reference so I could paint from life. My pine cone painting ended up much taller and skinnier than this real one, but I don't mind, these pages are just for me, so I can relax and have fun and try out new things. It's not a place I'm looking for perfection. But it was really helpful to have that real pine cones so I could see the shapes, the shingles, or a complex shape. It's nice to be able to look at them while painting. I added a pine sprig along the bottom right to anchor the page with a horizontal line. This mug is just a nostalgic blast from the past. It reminds me of the hand thrown pottery I remember grownups drinking out of when I was a child. I always liked seeing the speckly glazes on those homemade cups and plates. Now for the lettering, I used a thin line or brush, but feel free to use markers or pens or pencils or whatever you want. Sometimes I like to switch it up so I have different styles. Here are a few prompts to help you with today's sense. Well, that's a wrap. You guys, we have painted the five senses of fall over five days in our painted sketchbook. Now, in the next video, I'm going to give you some ideas about what to paint next. 12. What to Do Next: Hi, you did it. You finished five pages in your painted autumn sketchbook. I hope you had as much fun doing this as I did. I love painting, I love keeping a sketchbook, and oh my gosh, I just love autumn, so it's just pure joy for me. I love doing this. Now, what I'd like you to do next is share some of your art in our class project gallery. I would just love to see what you're working on. You can do this a couple of different ways. You can scan it flat on an old scanner like that, or you could just take a picture with your phone or your camera and share it that way. But I would love to see how you handled these prompts and I'm really curious about what you like about autumn. Please share that with me. If you like the class, please leave me a review. Now, if you're wondering what to paint next, I have a bunch of ideas. First off, if you enjoyed this, do five more days. That's 10 days, or five senses times six days is 30 days. That's basically a month. If you really love it, continue for the whole season, painting the five senses of autumn for the entire season. You can do it every season of the year. You can give yourself individual challenges. For example, maybe you paint a leaf a day for five days. Maybe you document what you're wearing every day for five days, or if it seems too overwhelming to paint an entire outfit, paint five pieces of jewelry you really love or maybe that matters to you. This was my grandmother's, this was my mema's. Maybe you paint something that has nostalgic meaning for you or something like that. If you're feeling nostalgic, you can take one of my other Skillshare classes called Acrylic Painting for Beginners: Painting Childhood Toys. That's something fun to do with family members too. You could give yourself a challenge to look around you. Just see something in your daily life that brings you joy. Maybe you paint your car, maybe you paint the view in your rear-view mirror, maybe you paint your floor mats and then your license plate, something like that. Or you could take something that's a little more conceptual and view that through the filter of five senses, like your favorite TV show, maybe a favorite movie, your favorite novel. You could find pieces in each of those that reflect some of these five senses, and then turn those into sketchbook pages too. Or you could look at your environment in a new way. For example, if you go on vacation, maybe you start documenting five senses from your vacation. Or if you go on a camping trip with your girlfriends, maybe you do the five senses from a cabin or from the tent we stayed in, or maybe five senses are your grandmother's house or your best friend's house. It'll make you look at your surroundings in a new way to try to be distilling down five senses that you might want to paint. Costumes are coming up. You could paint costumes. You could steal your kid's Halloween candy. I would never do that, but if you wanted to paint the candy till it's gone, that's a fun graphic thing to paint. There's no limit to what you can paint in your life. Just look around, see what brings you joy, and find a way to put it down on these pages. By making time for you and your creativity. You're reminding yourself on a daily basis that you matter. The very unique and individual way you see your world and the way you get your thoughts and feelings down on paper matters. Treat it that way. More than anything, thank you for painting with me. Art and creativity are truly at the heart of everything I do. They're such a big part of my life and it brings me a lot of comfort and peace, and I really hope I was able to help you find some joy and comfort in this process too. I'll see you next time. Bye.