Transcripts
1. Introduction : Interesting. Yes. Okay. Oh, I see it's upside down. Yeah, that makes more sense. Oh, hello. I didn't see you there. I'm author and illustrator and avid sketchbook keeper, Mike Lowery. Have you ever wanted to keep a daily sketchbook of your own but you always seem to fail for some reason? Maybe life kept getting in the way, but more likely, maybe you couldn't think of what to draw. Well, I'm here to help. In this nine-volume VHS collection, I'm going to give you some tips and tricks and advice that will change your life forever. I'm going to teach you how to keep a daily sketchbook. Join me now on Always Drawing with Mike Lowery.
2. Class Orientation: [MUSIC] Hello. I'm offering illustrator, Mike Lowery. Welcome to the Always Drawing sketchbooking series. This is a new type of course that I'm going to be doing where we will be exploring every aspect of keeping a sketchbook, starting with materials to use, why to keep a sketch book. We're going to explore later on some activities that you can do in your sketchbook if you can't think of something to draw. The goal for the whole course is for you to keep a sketchbook of your own. We're going to talk about style, watercolor brushes, pen and ink, pencils, and paper. Again, the whole goal is for you to keep a daily sketchbook. This class is geared towards anybody. It's for people that are just starting out with keeping a sketchbook. It's for people that have tried to keep sketchbooks in the past and for some reason something got in the way and they weren't able to do it. It's for people of all different variety of skill levels. Maybe you're a beginner, you're just experimenting a little bit or maybe you've been drawing for really a long time and you just want to start being better about keeping a daily sketchbook. [MUSIC] I feel like maybe before we begin, I have to introduce myself. I feel like it would be weird if I didn't. I mentioned I'm Mike Lowery. I am a New York Times bestselling Illustrator. They make you say that if you make it to the list. I don't know if you know that or not, but even at a family reunion and stuff, my mom will say, "This is your aunt" and I'll say, " I am New York Times bestselling Illustrator." I'm a New York Times bestselling illustrator. I'm also an author who's worked on dozens and dozens of books. I have also written illustrated greeting cards for companies like Hallmark and I've even done food trucks and other fun things like that. The most important thing about me that you should know is that I'm an avid sketchbook keeper. These are some of my sketchbooks here. I've been keeping a sketchbook almost every day for about 23 years. If you're thinking, just from the looks of it, then you must have been maybe four to six years old when you started keeping a sketchbook, and you're right. That's exactly right. That's not right. I've been keeping a sketch book for a long time and I keep getting questions either through Instagram or through my website with some specific questions about keeping sketchbooks. I think that they're good questions so I decided rather than responding to every single one, I've decided to make this class where I can talk about some of those things.
3. What is a Sketchbook + Why Keep One?: Now we're going to talk
about what a sketchbook is. Now, I know that you know
what a sketchbook is, but I don't know
if you know what a sketchbook could be or
what it could become. And I think that there's
a couple of things that you should maybe
put into your brain about the way that you
think about a sketchbook. Sketchbook is a place
for you to experiment, to explore new materials
and techniques. It's a place to make mistakes, and it's a place for you to ultimately learn
from those mistakes. Hopefully, I don't
know if I have ever learned anything, but I try to. Hopefully, it's a
place that you will learn from those
mistakes and that you will exercise the
way that you draw, and then you get
stronger and more confident or more comfortable. And ultimately, this
is where you end up finding your
voice or your style. So that's a pretty big thing
to maybe come out of it. For you, it might
also be that maybe you're not interested in
making a living from art, you just do it as a way of relaxing or doing something new. Another big reason that
for many years that I kept a sketchbook was just to
keep a journal of my life, to keep drawings that would kind of
illustrate some things that I did during the day. And some days it's
really boring. Some days it's just
food that I ate. Some days it was a
little funny thing that happened, maybe
a little note. But some days it might be
remembering the way that I felt the first time that I
saw a kid on an ultrasound, not just a kid, I like my kid, but I didn't just randomly go into someone
else's ultrasound appointment. That would be sort of Anyway, but it might be stuff, you know, I would have probably
remembered that day anyway, but there might be other things where I think
traveling especially. There's all these little
things that happen. When you're traveling,
you try new food and you meet new people,
little things happen. There's these little
moments where you feel awkward or uncomfortable
potentially, and you can make some
notes about that, and those things
are really great to revisit later in a sketchbook. But a sketchbook kind of
does all of these things. And, you know, I think that it's a really great place to
keep track of these things. Let me also add that
a sketchbook is not a place where you generate
content for social media. It can be, and I will admit
that on my Instagram account, I show a lot of drawings
from my sketchbooks, which I could potentially still kind of perpetuate
this concept, that every artist is making incredible artwork
every single day in their sketchbook
and that you're not. And it's just not true. I make mistakes in my sketchbook, too. I just don't post those things. And I think that maybe a lot of people don't post the days
that where it didn't work. And so then if you're
just following along, if you're somebody who's not keeping a
regular sketchbook, you're thinking to yourself,
Well, I could never do it. These people are
profic and they're creating new content
every single day, and I am unable to do that. And I think You know, I do think that part of it is
just drawing all the time, but you also have to be
willing to make mistakes and learn how to kind of fix
pages and things like that. And I'm going to show
you some examples from my sketchbooks
over the years, and maybe that I'll kick off some ideas for you on how you'd like to keep
your sketchbook.
4. Sketchbook Tour: Russia: Alright, here's a really
short sketch book tour from a trip to Russia that
I took before I left. I just collected some
weird Russia facts to kind of get
prepped for the trip. And there was once a
beard tax in Russia. And there are some
wealthy Russians they'll hire fake ambulances
to get through traffic. I thought that was
kind of insane. Alaska used to belong to Russia. We bought it in 18 67. We being the United States. I wasn't part of that deal. And while I was there, I just made some
notes to myself. Again, you'll notice,
I kind of keep rough sketchy notes
over here on one side. One of my favorite
stops was to go into this Museum of Soviet
arcade machines and set out all these video
games from the Soviet era. So I sat and drew a lot of
those while I was there. There was a Christmas
market going on, which actually looked a lot like the Christmas
markets in Germany. I was surprised, but
here's one of the tents or one of the little cabin things at the Moscow Christmas Market. And then one last
thing that I'll show you. I think
that's the last thing. One last thing that I'll show
you is I bought a bunch of these enamel Soviet era pins,
and I really liked those. So I just sat one day, I didn't know what to draw,
so I just sat and drew them. And that's my little tour
of my Russian sketchbook.
5. Sketchbook Tools and Materials: One of the questions that I get the most is what pen are you using. No one ever asks me about my daily skincare routine, which is what I thought Instagram, like the little question area was formed and no one asks me about that. They always ask me what pen are you using. So here, once and for all, I will make a comprehensive list. I'm going to show you some of the tools that I really like to use. I am not a materials marketing person, I'm not a sales rep or whatever, I am the person who will show you some things that I like to use. Then I think for some of you, you'll look at what I'm using and you'll say, well then that's what I will be using forever, and that is definitely not what I want. I don't love to answer the question because I think that there are some people that will say, “What kind of pen are using?“ I'll say I'm using this pilot pen or whatever, and they think that is the pen that all artists need to use and that's the one that I will use. That's why I don't love answering that question. What I would prefer would be for you to try a bunch of materials out for yourself. I didn't know that I would love watercolor until I started really playing around with it. I didn't know that I would end up using ink and gray wash. Sometimes I go through windows where all I use is pencils, but anyway, in this next section, I'm going to show you some of the materials that I really like and materials that I've used in the past or that have been recommended to me, and I'll show you some of those now. First off, let's look at the sketch books. This is a little moleskine sketchbook. The paper is pretty good. It's a heavy weight, but it's better for maybe pen or pencil. I like those because they're small, but when I'm working large, I like to get one of these large Strathmore sketchbooks with heavy duty paper in it. But a sketchbook can be any size. I prefer to pick something that I can carry with me, something like this. Here's one that I carried with me to Iceland and it was a good size to get in there and work and do some drawings of some of the geysers. But a sketchbook doesn't have to be some fancy, I don't even know where this one came from. This is some old one. It's from maybe 15 years ago. I don't know where I got it. The paper was awful. I hated it. Here's one for moleskine, it's watercolor sketch book. These are great. There's less pages in it, but these are great if you use a lot of wet media like watercolor. Posca marker is really heavy ink stuff. Moleskine makes these larger format ones too. I think these are really good. I mostly like these for pencil. Here's a drawing that I started on a flight to Turkey where I just started drawing. I didn't like using a lot of wet media with a book like this. But here's a sailor that we saw in Samos. We didn't really see him, but I just made him up. I carry a little sketchbook like this with me sometimes for just really quick pencil drawings and for making notes. I've gone and spent a lot of time making by hand a sketchbook. Here's one that I made a decade ago now. Red screen print at the ends and put this nice paper. Even these little moleskine ones, they're good for just pencil drawing and things like that. The thing that I've been using the most recently is speed ball makes these handbook journals. I've been using these for a couple years now and the paper is good. I'm not saying that this is the sketchbook that you should get, I hope that I make that clear. This is just something that I use. It's a good size for me. It handles wet media pretty well. It's really good with pen and ink. Anyway, so that's a speed ball handbook journal. Now let's take a look at some pens. Uni-ball vision is probably the pen that I use the most. It's got a uniform line. It dries pretty quickly, and it's pretty water safe. So if I'm going to do any watercolor or ink wash over top of it, then it works really well for that. It's not the only pen that I use. I'm going to show you some other pens, but this is a good one. I'm just going to draw a couple of bats. So there's a bat with a uni-ball pen. Next up, I'm going to show you this tombow pen. It's a brush pen, and it's got a lot more variation in the line. Take a look at this. It's good with water too. I can do some ink wash over top of them. I'm going to show you that at the end. There's another bat. It's got a little bit more of a brush pen feel to it. Now this is the tool that I use the most, just a real cheap mechanical pencil, 0.7 lead. I carry one of these all the time. I make notes with them. I draw with these a lot. I like that the lead is really soft so that the line breaks up a little bit. But I have some fancy mechanical pencils too that I also carry, but I like this a lot. Those fancy ones always had those metal tips that can scratch like these cheap plastic ones. You can just throw them in your bag and not really worry about it. Now, these are Posca markers. You might have seen some stuff about these. They've gotten pretty popular. It's an acrylic paint marker and it's got this really great fluid line to it. You can fill in shapes really easily. I like to use these as background color a lot. I'm going to show you that a little later on. I'm drawing with it here as like a regular pen, but it's pretty easy to fill in big, very opaque, very flat shapes, and so I like to use these a lot. There's a lot of different tips forum, the color selection is really good. It's one of the tools that I use a lot for color. It's a Posca marker. Here's another one. I'm going to show you a different width as a thicker line with this one. I really like these markers a lot. Can't forget to draw the legs here. Now, next is a Kuretake brush pen. Now these are not great with water, but it's another brush pen that I'll carry with me because it's got a firm but flexible brush tip to it. So that's not really a brush tip, but it's got this rubbery feel to the tip. So I really like drawing with this. If you're not going to be working with anything wet over top of that, I really recommend this brush. Well, not brush, but you know what I mean, brush pen. I'll make more detailed notes about all these pens that I'm using below so that you can actually pick up some of the ones that you really like. This is one of my favorite brush pens. It can be a mix of this brush pen, and it's got this really great rough texture to it. You can get really fine points. Now, I'm painting more of a chunky line here. But you can get really fine lines. If you haven't really played with a brush pen before, this is one that I highly recommend because it's a lot of fun, it's really easy, it's not real messy. Look at this fantastic type of artwork that you get from it. Look at this. Here's another tombow brush pen. It's just a different weight. It's a little bit firmer, but I like this one a lot. Again, I'm not trying to tell you all. These are the best art supplies ever. These are just things that I have used over the years that I tend to like. I think that there's stuff that didn't make the list maybe because it leaked too much. I had a couple of pens that would do that a lot. This is just another brush pen. This one's from Muji. It's got a very soft point to it. Now, I'm not always recommending a brush pen over a brush with ink, I'm only suggesting it for this because they're easy to carry, they're just a little bit less mess. I like ink wash a lot. This is one of the things that I like to carry with me. I just mix water and a little bit of ink inside one of these water brushes, and then you can carry this with you. You can't take them on a plane because they'll leak, but you can change the gray in it or you can make it a color if you want to add ink in water and mix with any kind of ink. It makes this light wash. I use this a lot. You'll see this a lot in my sketchbooks. If I'm at home, I use a brush and ink wash that I've made. But if I'm traveling, I like to carry it in one of these water brushes like those. I keep talking about gray wash. So I'm going to show you how I make it for when I'm at the house. I use India ink like this and I put a few drops in a glass of water. Maybe I should put some psychedelic music on. Stir it up. You just want to test the consistency but I've checked mine. Now look at how I've just painted on. It's just India ink watered down, but it makes really a nice gray tone to it. I'm not going to get into this a lot, but I'm going to show you my travel watercolor set. The reason I'm not going to get into it is I want to do a whole travel sketch booking watercolor section later. So just look at cheap watercolor sets and you'll find something like this. One last thing, look at this big acrylic marker. These are great in a sketchbook. Now, I'm doing mine on a pad right now just because I'm testing some stuff out. But you can make really big shapes like this, and you can fill it in. Just like the Posca marker, these acrylic markers are really good for laying down color flat in a sketchbook. Now, I'll let it dry. You didn't see that, I fast forwarded through that but once it's completely dry, then you can take a brush pen like this one and you can draw right over top of it. I think that this would be a fun sketchbook exercise to do later together. Let me know if that's something that you'd want to see for a class later on. That's the end of my sketchbooking tools section. Come to the next section where I want to show you some more sketchbooks stuff and we're even going to talk about a 30 minutes a day sketchbooking challenge. Now it's your turn. You need to find a sketchbook that you're going to be happy with for a little bit. Maybe you can go to an art supply store and try some out. Maybe some pens, maybe you get a little watercolor also. I'll see you in the next section and we're going to experiment a little bit more with our materials.
6. What to Draw on the First Page: All right. The day has come. You've got yourself
a new sketchbook. It's the paper that you like. You've got your pen picked out that you
want to draw with. Maybe you've got
some watercolor, but it's that
dreaded first page. The first page in a
sketchbook, right? It's always super
intimidating because you've got this
great nice paper. You don't know what to draw. So here's an exercise for you for your first
page in a sketchbook, just to kind of
get things moving. What I like to do
is I like to start by doing a little
something about myself. Now, first thing, put your
information over here. I'm not going to write mine,
but you can draw that. Maybe that's the first
thing that you do. Write your name, your
contact information, your e mail address. And then on this page, just start drawing
something about yourself. I'm going to do a little
drawing of myself. I'm going to go straight to pen. Maybe you don't necessarily
want to do this. I'm going to draw a little
thing about myself here. What this does is, don't
think of something new. Just think of something
that you like to draw or not even something
that you like to draw. Just think about
something about yourself. Maybe you have other
hobbies other than drawing. Here's my hair. Here's my cal. It's my beard. All right. So I'm
going to start there. And I'm just going
to add a few things about me here on
this first page. I typically wear a VN like this. Okay. And let's see.
Something else about me. I like to draw keyboards. Maybe this is just a page
where you just start drawing some of the things
that you like to draw. Maybe you don't
know what to draw. Maybe you are a knitter, and you want to draw
some knitting supplies, or a sewing machine could be a lot of fun if
you like to sew. For me, here I'm drawing
this old synthesizer. And these are all things that I'm drawing quickly
because I've drawn them a lot. So maybe you don't have
something like that. Again, that's totally fine. Maybe you want to
start with pencil. Maybe that's a really good idea. Start with pencil here. And
I got this old keyboard. Does anybody out there have some old keyboards
at their house? That they I can sent
pop up my address. Well, maybe you have
to message, man, I don't think I should
just put my address in the message board.
It's an old keyboard. Oh. And what I'm doing is, I'm just trying to do a bunch of doodles that fill up the page. Again, for me, it's something that these are things
that I just like to draw, but it might be maybe
you have a, you know, collection of synthesizers
that you really like, or maybe you play the drums. Maybe I'll draw a drum. Okay? I like guitar puddles. So drama self a little
guitar pedal here. Okay. And now I'm
going to finish mine off with a little
bit of ink wash. So I've got my wash saved
in a jar like this. And going to open that up. I've got my watercolor rush. And I like to use the left hand
side of the page to just kind of test things out. Again, you're going to put your contact information up here. And then maybe for this one, you're going to use watercolor. I'm going to use this ink wash just to add some value here. And there you go. We did it. We were able to fill
in the weird and sort of dreaded first
page in a sketchbook. It can be intimidating,
but it doesn't have to be. Once you kind of get started, now we've got a sketchbook
that's rolling, and now it's just time to
move on to the next day. Your turn, draw something on the very first page
of your sketchbook. I know you can do it. I'll
see in the next chapter, we we'll keep exploring.
7. Sketchbook Tour: India: Here's another super quick sketchbook tour. This was a trip to India that I took a while back. Just a few things that really stood out for me on the trip that I made notes about like eating soup on the little flight. It was real small and empty flight and I paid to settle soup. I had a layover in Turkey, and I ended up buying another neck pillow because and I don't like my neck pillow. Waiting in line. This was 2:45 in the morning, heard heard people yelling. Then the next day I was in a market in old Delhi. Made some drawings from that. Of course, I drew all the food that I tried, and I saved some tickets. Here's a little story from India, from a market in India, I had a guide. He kept pointing at stuff, and asking if I knew what it was, and he said, "Sir, do you know what this is? Do you know what this is?" No. No, I don't know what it is. He would point at stuff, and it would be dried figs, he'd say. He'd laugh because I didn't know anything. Do you know what this is? This is coconut, and I'm thinking, "How did I not get coconut?" It was always dried fruit, or some form of dried fruit, I never got it right. Then, he pointed at something. Ready? He pointed at something. He wanted to know if I knew what it was. It was a big sign that said water gun. It felt like a trick question, and I said it's a water gun. He seemed totally shocked. He said, "What? Oh, yes. That's right." So you know, if I'm traveling, I might keep track of, here's another ticket, but I am going to keep track of food, and maybe one moment, but I do like to try and keep track of some of these interesting stories, other things that happen on trips like that.
8. The 30 Minutes a Day Challenge: This chapter for some of you is going to maybe just make you a little nervous because it involves a very big challenge for you. This isn't necessarily your homework, I'll get to that later, but it's something for you to start thinking about for your sketchbook. That would be the 30 minutes a day challenge, okay? Here's the 30 minute a day challenge. You probably couldn't guess from the title of the challenge, what you're going to do is you are going to start working in your sketchbook for 30 minutes a day, every single day, okay? You could start with seven days, which we're going to talk about for the homework, but the goal would be to maybe try it for a month. What you're going to do is this, it's very simple, you're going to start by taking your sketchbook. Let me pick up one here. This is not my most recent sketchbook. This is an older one. You're going to take your sketchbook and you're going to, well, first of all, you need to write your name and your contact information. I don't think a lot of people don't talk about that with their sketchbooks, but I always keep mine. I'm not going to show you mine because then you'll start calling me or whatever. But I'm always worried that if I lose my sketchbook, if I leave it on an airplane or if I drop it somewhere in our gardens here on the Lowery estate property, if I drop it, then hopefully somebody will find it when they're taking the tour at the Lowery homestead and then it will be returned to me. Although I assume they would see the name, they would never return it because they will just know how it's valuable. Anyway, but I put my contact information, my name, and my email address, and my phone number. Luckily, I've never lost it before, but just in case. Anyway, what you're going to do is you're going to start, put your contact information in it, and then I start by dating the pages. You don't have to predate them, okay? You just start with today's date and then we'll go from there. The drawing for 30 minutes a day challenge, what that does is you are going to sit down and find your time, 30 minutes to focus on it. Just like any other form of exercise, physical, or any other skill that you've wanted to be better at, you have to find time to do it. It might mean that you have to wake up early and set an alarm for yourself to get up slightly earlier than you normally do. I know for some of you that would be really tough, it is for me at points. Or maybe it's during your lunch break while you're snacking, you're going to start drawing for 30 minutes, but you're going to set a timer and you're really going to be actively drawing for 30 minutes. Or maybe it's at night. But over the years, I know that we have so many excuses and things that fill up our time. But I've had it just for years and years, like, "I would love to keep a sketchbook, but I don't really have time to do that." I would like to challenge you and say if you've ever said, "Well, I don't really have time to keep a sketchbook." I would like for you to think about, are there any games on your phone or other apps that you flip through that are not directly related to your work or directly related to your family? Maybe it's even a word, Scrabble type app. Can you say Scrabble or is it like copier? But it might mean you cutting something out. It might mean you not being able to binge that latest television show that you've heard so much about a New Yorker who just keeps, "You've not watch this yet? You need to watch it right now." Maybe just pause it for now and really try and focus on drawing. It'll end up doing a lot of really good things for your brain and it'll help you calm down a little bit at points. That's what it does for me at least. It will also really help you push some of these skill techniques that we were talking about earlier.
9. Wait, What Should I Draw!?: You're ready to start the 30 minutes a day sketch booking challenge, but you cannot think of what to draw. Well, that's why I made Part 2 of Always Drawing, which is seven creative exercises to jumpstart your sketchbook. In that class, I'm going to show you seven things that you can do not just to fill up one week of drawing when you can't think of something to draw, but it's seven things that you can do that can be repeated throughout your month of drawing to really help open your brain, unlock some ideas, help you be more creative in your sketchbook, and ultimately keep you on this target of drawing for 30 minutes every single day. The class also includes a free downloadable PDF with suggestions for every single day for a full month. When you're done with Part 1 of Always Drawing and your sketch book is ready to go, be sure to check out Part 2, seven creative exercises to jumpstart your sketch book. It's available now.
10. Final Thoughts and Homework: This is the end. But before I go, I wanted to say thank you for following along. Sketchbook is something that I've been really passionate about for a long time, and I hope that a class like this would just be something to get you a little excited about it too. You do have some homework. Don't think that I'm just going to leave and you don't have to do any work. I did all this work, now you have to do some work. You have two things for homework, which is number 1, I want you to really try that 30 minutes a day challenge. Just start with seven days. If you can do it for seven days, then keep going, and maybe it becomes part of your routine. The second thing that you should try is doing that first page in your sketchbook image, just something about yourself. If you feel comfortable, if you really like it, post it below in the project gallery so that we can get to know you and take a look at it. I also want to remind you that this is a continuing class, this is just part 1, and the following classes will be based on questions and suggestions that you might have based on this class. My idea is that the next one would be exercises that you can do in your sketchbook if you can't think of what to draw. But let me know what your questions are. If there's some materials and techniques that you'd like to see, let me know. Also if you'd like to see more of my daily sketchbooks, you can follow me on Instagram, I'll put all that stuff below, and then also on my website you can see a book where I've collected some of my favorite travel drawings and a guide about travel sketchbook and things like that. But be sure to follow me on Skillshare so that you can see when the next class is going to come out. Maybe it's already out, it depends on when you're watching it. I mean, I assume that you're not watching it today that I'm filming it because that, anyway, but follow me on Skillshare so that you know when the next class comes out. I look forward to seeing you next time on. Always draw with Mike Lowery.
