Art Quickies: Stay Creative on Busy and Low Energy Days

1. Art Quickies: Stay Creative on Busy Days: If you are looking for quick and fun art projects for those busy and low energy days, then you're in the right place. In this class, I will guide you through simple and playful projects that are designed to help you create without overwhelm, perfectionism, or needing hours of focus and energy. These exercises are all about experimenting, loosening up, and reconnecting with your creativity in a way that feels doable and enjoyable. If you are a beginner, a busy creative, or maybe you are recovering from burnout, anyone struggling with creative blogs or artists who simply want the softer and more relaxed approach to making art, this class will be perfect for you. Hi, my name is Journey. I am an artist and a creative teacher with a background in art therapy. I work a lot around expressive and intuitive practices, and I create classes that focus on the process over perfectionism and the end result. And what I love to do most of all, is to help artists build creative confidence through playful experimentation and self expression. And another thing, this class is very beginner friendly, but at the same time, I also like to challenge you so that it will not get boring and it's also interesting for more experienced artists, and it will give you lots of tips on how to use your supplies for mixed media. If that sounds like music to your ears, let's get coffee, grab our art supplies, and mix some art together. Come on, let's go. 2. Class Project: Welcome to class. Before we get started, I thought I would suggest how you use this class. Of course, you are very welcome to do all lessons and have some fun with it. But, you know, this is a class for people with a busy schedule or maybe some overwhelm going on, low energy. So I want to take the pressure off. And I'm going to tell you that it's okay to just upload one quickie as your class project. And see this class as more as a library, as opposed to something you have to finish. Just watch the lessons and try to find a quickie that suits your mood, your energy level. And the amount of time you have on your hand, you know? There's no pressure whatsoever, and I know that I'm using lots of different art supplies, but that doesn't mean that you need to run to the art supply store to be able to do this class. In the class resources, you will find a little guide where I explain about art supplies that I'm using. And I give some suggestions on how you can substitute them. So don't stress out about it. And we will do a little bit of everything. We will experiment with collage, with mixed media. I will give you lots of tips along the way on how you can use them. And we will close the class with a couple of ar therapeutic exercises that will help you to ground yourself. So whenever you need them, you can come back into this class. They will help you to calm down and regulate your nervous system. And I think that's it. Let's make some art. 3. Kickstart Collage: Let's kick start a bit of storytelling using a couple of collage pieces. I'm just using this face and a hand, and I am moving them around on the paper to see if it sparks some inspiration inside me. But you can use anything animals, architecture, natural elements, anything that you enjoy. Okay. Now that I've found my position, I'm just going to start by layering some watercolor, so that I have a bit of a background. If you have taken my class unleash your muses on creating intuitive watercolor backgrounds that inspire, you already know that you don't have to be very neat because little pools can um, can turn into blots that inspire you to draw something on top of them. Just let the watercolors dry how they will, and maybe your eye will find something a little piece of a building or an animal, anything. Now, when I'm done with my first color, I'm going to take my collage pieces, and I'm going to see if I like them on top of this color. And I decide to work on it a little bit further, not only because I'm not enjoying the color on its own, but also I don't see that many shapes to help my intuition find something in the paint. And we need a bit of contrast for that. So I'm taking this darker blue and some more water so that it can really flow. And I'm just going to do a layer on top of that. And when I'm done, I'm going to take my heat gun again, and I'm going to make sure that it dries because I want those pools of blue to stay where they are. And now I'm taking this golden color. And as you can see, I'm being really messy about it. Oh, it's all fine. If I wouldn't have liked it so far, I would just continue to build on layers of the paint. But for me, personally, this is enough to have some laid back fun on it. Okay, let's try it again. And let's find that decision. And then I'm going to just paint a very simple body using my acrylic ink. I think this might make paints gray because it's my favorite color. See, you don't need much. This is very sloppily painted and very simplified, and it will do just fine. And because I wasn't being careful, there was a drop landing on his arm. And, you know, if I didn't like that, I could just cut it off or, you know, use something else. But I think it landed perfectly to add to the story. So, you know, sometimes you just have to roll with it. Now, it's time to glue everything down. Just using a glue stick, but if you want to, you can use the MT medium. Well, this is fine for now. It's just a bit of playtime. Now, let's put something on that happy accident there. I'm taking my gel pen, and I'm just trying a little peace sign on there. And I'm thinking about what he might be doing in relation to this little symbol. So I'm putting some seeds of peace coming from his hand spreading across the page. You don't need to know the whole story before you are putting down these features. Just take it step by step, have some fun, and maybe put in something that doesn't make sense, you know? That kind of ambiguity can be very exciting. So don't feel like your story needs to be very clear. It doesn't have to make sense to you, even. Or subconscious is funny that way. Sometimes you will make a drawing and you don't really know what it's about. And then a week later, you can see that something was bubbling beneath the surface, and this was a way to process that. And did you see how I transformed one of my messy spots in my background to a story element? That's the upside of messy watercolor painting. There are always alternative ways to use your art supplies. So if you don't like your watercolors because you're not fond of how they react and you have difficulty to control them, try it this way. Use them for play. And just continue to respond to the page. You can keep it as simple as I did, or you can make it really busy and colorful. Do whatever it is that you enjoy doing, or you just want to try out. This is also a great way to find inspiration for paintings that you want to do later on. Maybe this art cuiqut inspires you so much that you want to create a painting out of that without any collage parts. You can use it as a reference photo and use that as inspiration and maybe you will take it further in your painting, you know? Or maybe you will leave stuff out like this little fellow gobbling up the seeds of peace. Although I really like them, but maybe you'll want to create them in a different way. But above all, this is just a fun little experiment to have a bit of creating time whenever it feels hard to get started. And you can play with this concept whenever you want to using different features, different collage elements, different techniques. Maybe you want to do this on top of acrylics or alcohol inks. I don't know. You can also just collage everything if you're insecure about your drawing skills. The most important thing for our well being is that we create, not how we create. So let's find ourselves some fun collage papers and find the stories that are waiting to come out. Now let's go to the next quickie. 4. Patchwork Portrait: A fun way to have a bit of relaxing art is to find yourself a portrait in a magazine that you enjoy. Just stick it down there and do a bit of patchwork collaging on it. If you want to make it a bit more challenging, you can do a little pencil drawing of a portrait, you know, like we did in my class, small portraits, big progress. Or you can flip through your own sketchbook and find yourself a portrait that you want to expand on. Just see how you feel today and what you're willing to do and how much time you have on hand. And then just look around for some collage papers that you would like to use. I really like these neutral pages. I'm a sucker for them, and they always are an easy way to make it cohesive, but feel free to turn it into really colorful collage as well. My favorite thing is to scroll through the class projects and see all your different interpretations, and I'm looking forward to seeing yours. So listen to your heart, have some fun and allow your art to be around. Don't feel like you have to copy anything, but on the other hand, if it helps you, then you are absolutely welcome to follow the steps exactly as I show them. The end result will be uniquely yours, however you do it, because even if you follow the steps, you'll have your own collage papers, your own way of doodling. So yeah, just do it anyway you want. When you're happy with your patchwork collage, take a drawing tool, something that you enjoy drawing with and add to it. Would you like to add your own story to the portrait, or maybe something in your collage papers is triggering you to draw something. Like, for example, the map that I use, the old map has some lines on there, and I decide to extend them even before I know what to do with them. I'm just extending those lines, and that makes me want to draw little childlike delicate flowers. You can keep it very simple and minimalistic, like I have, or you can go nuts, you know, with a drawing. You can place him in a magical background, maybe a landscape or a cityscape, or maybe you would like to draw some creepy animals surrounding him or something. Or maybe your figure is looking off to the side and you want to draw whatever they are looking at, stuff like that. Again, make it your own. Now, I hope you'll have lots of fun, and I want to invite you to come along with me to Next quickie. 5. Word Play - Illegible Journaling: Et's get started. I've taped off the edges of my sketchbook because it just looks a little bit nicer than if you wouldn't, you know, if you don't want to, feel free to skip this. I've put down a layer of gesso, and I've dried it completely. This is because you can get rougher on your paper without destroying it. The first step is to just do some journaling, and I'm doing this with a tabilo pencil because as water soluble, you can also use watercolor pencils or ink tense pencils, whatever you have on hand. Get all your thoughts on the paper. Don't censor yourself. No matter how embarrassing you think they might be, it doesn't matter because we're going to mess with it, and it won't be really legible. This is a great way to work through your emotions in a way that feels safe, especially if you are sharing your home with someone else and you don't want them to find your journal, you know, get it out there and destroy it. When you're finished, take a spray bottle with some water in it and just spray the text. You can keep it like it is, or you can take paper towel like I am and just blot the text in some places. You can take a baby wipe or something and smudge it in some places. You can think about the composition when you're doing this, or you can just wipe out the text that you really don't want to see ever again anymore. It's up to you. I'm going to remove my masking tape. See how I am zig zagging for that middle part. This is because I don't want to rip my paper. And for the rest, I'm just going to pull away from the page. You can do this step at the end, but I'm just impatient. So do what you want. I'm going to dry my page again, but you can also try drawing with your tobool pencil on the wet paper because it will go very intense and you get nice thick lines. So try it. Right now, I was tempted to create a face with the shapes that I was seeing. But I changed my mind. I thought it would be nice to keep it rather abstract, not only because I want to practice with that myself, but also I thought it would be a nice change from my regular classes where I focus more on portraits and figures. So I'm going to get rid of that. Whenever you do something you don't like, don't stress out about it, put on another layer or rub it out. There's always a way for you to take your art in a different direction. So in this case, I just put a few more words on there. And now I thought it would be nice to introduce some black acrylic ink. You can also use Indian ink, and I was experimenting with my tracing wheel, but it wasn't a huge success. I was hoping to get more interesting marks. So I thought, let's do some finger painting. And with the remaining ink, I'm just going to stamp a couple of marks on the right page there. Now, let's put in a pop of color. I'm going to stamp again, but this time, I'm going to do it with an old cap or something, and I'm taking some more acrylic ink, some kind of red. I'm loading up my cap, and there. Let's go for some repetition. I'm getting a smaller cap, and I'm going to put a few more circles in there in some places. Don't overdo it, though. You know, don't fill the page with all the circles. Try to leave some room to breathe. But on the other hand, don't take it too seriously, either. This is just an art quickie. Have some fun. Now that the page is dried and I can't smudge the paint anymore, I'm taking my new color crayon, and I'm going to write some more. At this moment, I'm listening to some music, so I'm putting in some of the lyrics here and there. Bonus points if you recognize the song. It's an oldie. I often listen to music while I'm creating. It's a nice way to calm down that inner critic. It's especially effective if you're choosing a playlist full of songs that make you happy that you can sing along to, something to ease your mind. Just keep experimenting with layers. Here, I'm taking some of my white gesso and a clay tool, and I'm scratching in some more words. And although I enjoy doing that, I didn't really feel this combination. So I'm going to mess about for moments. Trying to make some marks, and I kind of hate it. So let's switch it up. Yeah, I'm trying the tracing wheel again, still doesn't do anything for me. So I think, oh, well, nothing is working right now. So what I can do is take some more of that black ink, put a light layer on top. It would have been better for me to dry the previous layer, but I didn't it worked anyway. Going to smug it a little bit more again. And now I'm going to do the same thing with the clay tool, and I like this much more because of the contrast. You need some contrast. If you want to, you can later on repeat this process on a different page in your Art Quickies journal. You can try different colors of the SabloO pencil or ink tense pencil. I would also really like to invite you to upload your class project to the classroom so that we can all see the different interpretations of this exercise that's always so inspiring, and I hope you will join in. Let's go to the next lesson. 6. Rhythm & Blues - Abstraction with Masking Tape: For this quickie, let's play with rhythm and blues for a little bit. So just take a dark color. I'm using blue, but you can also use your favorite color. And I'm just going to lighten it up a couple of times using my unbleached titanium because I like that more than white, but you can use white. No problem. This just makes it just a smitchwarmer. Now, what is rhythm in art? It is the feeling of movement your eyes experience while looking at an artwork. Just like a music, rhythm happens through repetition and variation. You can create rhythm by repeating shapes, lines, colors, marks, patterns, textures and movements. Think of it as a visual beat. Your eyes move from one repeated element to another. So for example, dot, dot, dot, line line, line, dark, light, dark, and that movement creates energy and flow. Rhythm becomes more interesting when repetition is not perfectly identical. A little variation makes the artwork feel alive, you know, like jazz instead of a metronome. And for this quickie, we will use masking tape to find ourselves a certain type of rhythm. I'm going to work from a dark background because that's what I enjoy, but feel free to mix it up. I'm just going to fill the whole page with it. No painting skills required. And when you're done, just give it a quick dry because the paint needs to be dry before we put on our tape. So to create some rhythm, I'm going to make three similar shapes, but they're not quite the same. I'm also going to overlap them with my edges for a little bit, just because that seems a bit more exciting to me. My shapes are at approximately the same kind of height, but you can also put them at different heights and make the differences more noticeable between them. And that can be a bit more exciting as well. And if you want to, you can pick out a journal that is a little bit bigger than what I'm using so that you'll have more room to explore. Just keep it very simple for now. If you want to, you can do a second page where you try to switch it up. But for now, this is just a little art quickie, and it's about the experience. And also, it can be a nice inspiration for later on because often we will explore something, we will like it, and then we will forget that we ever did it. So that's why it's really nice to do these art quickies in your journals. It doesn't need to be one journal all the time, but it's nicer than loose sheets of paper, you know, because you can easily flip through them and remind yourself of the time you had fun with something. When you're happy with your shapes, just put a little bit of blue on top of it. Don't be afraid of brushstrokes. They will add some dynamic to it. And I'm looking at my own mini painting. And even though I like this blue, I think I want a bit more contrast. So I'm making a lighter blue, and I'm putting that on top of it. You can create a lot of depth by layering your colors and letting some of it shine through, you know, don't cover up everything. I'm being a little bit careless and I am losing some of that depth. But I will show you what you can do when that happens to you. So let's make another lighter blue. I think I might like this one or maybe a little bit more, yes. Okay. Don't need to mix it perfectly. You know, we are going for variation after all. Okay, now let's put that other layer on there. I kind of regretted that I used this color to cover the whole page. I was just not really paying attention and the way I deal with that is I take a baby wipe or a paper towel or something, and I'm just going to wipe that paint, and then some of it will show through because all these layers are still wet, except the first one, of course. Here, I am wetting my page with some water, and I'm taking a paper towel. And I'm wiping vertically because my shapes are in the same direction as well. And that is another way to add a little bit of rhythm to this page. Now, let's get rid of that masking tape. Isn't it always exciting to have a bit of a review in your art? It always brings me back to the time when I was a little kid, still curious about the world and having to learn everything. And we really need that feeling when we are creating art. We need that sense of wonder and curiosity because when we lose that, we often get stuck in a rut, and that is not really motivating to be creative. So let's just play a whole bunch in this class. Time for another review. Always looks so much better immediately, right? I hope that you enjoyed this inspiration and that this is a first step on your journey to explore rhythm. You can do this in many ways, so I wish you lots of fun to figure it out. And let's go to the next quickie. 7. Badly Drawn Boy: Let's give ourselves permission to make a bad drawing because you know what's worse than a bad drawing, no drawing at all. And you want to know what else. All those bad drawings, they help us to become good at drawing. There's no way around it. We just have to make some sucky drawings and have some fun with them. So let's draw this bad boy. We're going to create in a way that we did in childhood. We're not going to care about proportions or realism or anything. We'll just have some fun. And what do kids love? Watercolors. And we're not going to be precious about that, as well. We just want some color, some shape, nothing deep. Just do something, anything. Because, you know what? We are going to distract from our sucky drawing with some mixed media fun and, you know, random stuff. We're going to maybe play with words, put some thoughts on the paper or some lyrics that you love, whatever. We often tend to quit when we don't like our drawing. But for this quickie, let's see what happens when we just keep adding to it. Let's play with a fine liner and trace some of those pencil marks, and we can leave some of them bare, You know, add some variation to our drawing. It's stuff like that that turns a bad drawing into art. Now, let's give this boy some clothes. And I don't mean anything realistic. We're just going to fill up that body with whatever comes to mind. Doesn't need to make sense at all. Again, have some fun with it. Now, let's go back in with some paints. If you don't want to use watercolor, you can use squash or acrylics or even markers, you know, whatever you like to use, and give this badly drawn boy a badly drawn background. I just want to wet these pages before I go in with my ink tense pencils because I like to draw and write with them on top of a wet background. And check out your figure or whatever you're drawing, you know, can be an animal, something out of your imagination. Try to see if you can add something to it to give it a bit of personality. I decided that my badly drawn boy is going to be bad to the bone. Well, kind of. I'm just going to jot down a random thought that I had, but feel free to give your character surrounding or something. Add some childlike elements to your page. Just follow your gut. And do you see how nice and saturated these ink tens pencils become on top of a wet surface? I really love that, that and the messiness of it. Pattern play is always a nice way to add to your page if you don't really know what to do. And it works around that sun as well. It's nice to have a bit of repetition. And look at your art and try to decide what it needs or what you want to do. You can do some dooding or some journaling with more subtle drawing tool like I'm doing right now. You can add some collage to it, or maybe you want to remove some things that you don't like with some paint or something. The possibilities are endless. Just see this as a nice and relaxed play session where all the mistakes are allowed to happen, and, you know, it's only going to make your drawing more layered if you're going to cover up whatever you don't like and then work on top of that. It's a fun process. Try it out. Right now, I just want to add a bit of color to that face with a couple of neo color crayons. I'm using desert rose that used to be the flashtone and some kind of silver or something. I really love to use these water soluble crayons. They blend beautifully as you are coloring everything in. So it's really low effort. I like low effort. We're inclined to create more art more often when we allow ourselves to be a little bit lazy. And you can badly dry your boy in many ways. We can also pull out our ink and our stick again. This is a great way to just accept whatever is going to happen on the page. It's also really, really quick. So if you only have a couple of minutes to spare today, then this is a great way to play around for a bit. And if later on you have a bit more time, you can just return to your page and add to this, maybe pull out those watercolors or colored inks, you know, or maybe those neo coolor crayons or regular old color pencils. Have fun and experiment. Now, you can make your care free drawing or you can go to the next video. 8. Paint Without a Brush: Oh. Let me show you a fun way to loosen up. You take a stick and some ink, and then you're just going to do some random mark making. Don't worry too much about creating the perfect composition or anything. Just play. You can always focus on that a little bit more at a later stage. But for now, just move your stick around the page and see what kind of marks you can get. You can just keep it totally random, or you can see if you can replicate the effect more consciously. But for now, let's enjoy the element of surprise. For my second page, I want to try something else. So I'm taking a feather, I'm dipping it in the ink. And again, I'm going to see what kind of marks I can make with this. And I want to put a bit more contrast between the halves on my page because I would like to experiment with some white ink as well. Now, let me get that white ink. Don't be like me. Don't double dip your stick in that ink while the Indian ink is still wet. But if you're an impulsive artist like I am, you can wipe your stick off with some paper towel or something before you double dip it. There might still be a little bit of Indian ink in there, but way less than you can see right now. And because that ink underneath is still wet, you will see that the white will kind of bleed into it. It will become brighter if that Indian ink is properly dry. I will show you later on. Let me give this page a dry so that I can show you how much of that white has kind of disappeared. See? So dry your page before you go in with your white ink unless you want that very subtle line in there, but, you know, it's barely visible. It's up to you. Here's some acrylic painting for comparison. I prefer the inks, though. When you're done playing, close your ink bottle because if you bump it, you will regret it and remove the tape of your pages. Of course, you don't need to use that, but everything just looks better with a little frame. I hope you have fun, and let's go to the next quickie. 9. Loose Lines With Twig Art: For this art quickie, let's use our stick to draw something more figuratively. I'm going to choose this little bird because I really like the markings on it, and it's black and white already. And that way, I won't have to try and translate the color photo into a black and white image. And if you don't like to draw a bird, then just pick out anything that you enjoy. You can try and draw a portrait or a landscape. You can draw by heart, you know, adapt this lesson to something that will really bring you joy. And as you can see, I'm not trying to draw this bird in its entirety right away. I'm choosing a kind of anchor point that makes it easier for me to get started, and then I just take it step by step. And I'm not going to put the pressure on myself to get all the stripes exactly right. And when they confuse me, I'm just going to try and make parts of it up. When we give ourselves permission to get things wrong and just go with the flow, often of the times the end result will become more free and the process will be more enjoyable to you. And that is where the magic happens. It's not like you're going to create a drawing that you like each and every time. But if you allow yourself that freedom, then it will result in loose drawings and a couple of little masterpieces along the way. And we can't get there without a whole bunch of badly drawn or mediocre pieces in between because we're learning. So don't be upset when things don't go your way. Just know that it takes a little bit of time to find your groove and try to accept every drawing that you do and even cherish them because they're here to help you to help you grow and to help you to find your style. And that can't happen without all these awkward pieces. So let's just take a risk, and it's only paper, you know, in the end. There's no one grading us. We're not making it for an art gallery or something. These are here for us to grow and to build some skills. And it's so funny, even when we might not enjoy what we're drawing right now, if we keep up our habit and just relentlessly keep drawing and drawing and painting and trying out things when you are going to flip through these sketchbooks and these drawings that you didn't like, you can see your growth, and, you know, that is why these are so valuable because that growth is really motivating. So don't tear up your drawings if you don't like them. Let them be here to document your growth as an artist. And you can see, right, that I'm not nailing the angle or the placement of the beak or that little mask on his face. And it's just because I don't draw birds all that often. So it's only logical that I'm finding my way here if I would make it my mission to really go for birds and make a whole bunch of drawings for a month or so. Then you will see that I will build up some experience, some muscle memory, and a better eye for their anatomy. And then I will get to the cool stuff. And not only will I be able to draw them, you know, correctly, but I can also start making some decisions of how I want to adapt them to my own style and make them more expressive. So be kind and patient with yourself and allow yourself to really take your time and get to know any new subject or way of creating and try not to judge yourself. Focus on play and experimentation. You know, that mentality of, Oh, what would this button do? And try to appreciate distortion and exaggeration, whether you intended to do that, or, you know, even if that happens accidentally, then just take a minute and wonder if that actually helped your drawing because let's be honest here. Sometimes reality can be a little bit boring. So let's forget about realism and reality as a whole for a moment. And just try to embrace our inner world and how we see things because that's what art is. It's not about depicting the real world. It's about how the artist sees the world. And that's what makes the art interesting. So let's make a deal to just draw freely and not worry about the end result so much. You may surprise yourself. Now, let's take some of that white ink to put in that eye. I'm going to start with that little reflective light in the eye, and then I'm going to draw a partial circle around it without dipping it in the ink again because then I'll get a more delicate line. I'm twisting my stick to I need a little bit of it. So I'm putting it in the reflective light first. And yes, now it's better. I hope you enjoyed watching me draw this imperfect bird, and I wish you lots of fun drawing whatever you love to draw. Now, let's go to the next quickie. 10. Collage & Mark Making: When your head is full of overwhelm after a busy day, it's very relaxing to just do some collaging. Just take some papers that you enjoy, put on some music, and don't overthink it too much. You can use a glues stick like in the previous lessons, but for this one, I really enjoy using my MT medium. The pages will just take better to the page. But if all you have is a glue stick, then just use that. It doesn't really matter. The MT medium is just a really nice adhesive, and because I'm going to put it on top of the papers as well, it's nice and sealed, and you can do different kinds of techniques on top of that, but more about that later on in this class. For now, just keep collaging in a way that makes you happy. And and when your pages are dry, let's take some Indian ink and do some mark making. You can also thin out some paint or something, just make sure that it flows nicely. For the ultimate stress free experience, you can just do some mild mark making. But you can also paint some florals or faces, do some journaling on top of this, using the ink. Whatever it makes it the most fun for you in this moment. You can also bring in some mixed media, or you can do another kickstarter collage on here and explore that theme a little bit further. You can add to these pages in any way you want. Here I'll show you what kind of marks you can make with a fan brush. I think these are really, really nice. Just push down those bristles and twist and turn your brush and be amazed with the expressive brush strokes that you can get. And the less ink is in your brush, the more delicate your marks will be. Let's give these pages a dry so that I won't get ink on my hands while I'm removing the tape and see what we got. Somehow, our art always looks a little bit better when we have a nice border around it, right? And there it is. Let's go to the next quickie. 11. Stack and Stick Collage: Let's make a simple collage. All you need to do is gather some collage papers that you enjoy and just tack them on top of each other. This is a really relaxing exercise for those days when we feel overwhelmed and we're not sure what to create. The goal is not to create something impressive or with the perfect composition, but to find out what you enjoy and to learn a little bit more about what a pleasing composition is to you. You will make choices that you really like, and others might have seemed like a good idea in your head like this one that I'm doing now. And you're a little bit underwhelmed by it. But that doesn't matter. Just continue and try to find a way to problem solve and still enjoy your collage in the end and take some risks, you know, it's fun to try new things, even if we are not really sure if it's going to work out. If we always play it safe, then we never grow. Allow yourself to learn and mess up. Nothing is really messed up, especially with collage. If you really hate something, just put another paper on top of that. This is a safe space, so allow yourself to play. I'm still unhappy with my awkward black shape. So I'm taking one of my collage papers that is still a little bit transparent but not too much, and I'm looking for a way that I can cover it, maybe partly, but yeah, I think this is better. I don't want to see most of it. But a hint of it is okay. This is a great way to learn about composition in a very intuitive and laid back way. And, you know, each time where you feel a little bit drained, but you still want to do something, just make one of these. And when you're done with yours, it can be really helpful to observe it for a little while. What does it lack? For example, mine even though I like it, I can see that it lacks some contrast, you know, because I got rid of that shape that I didn't like. So instead of trying to fix this one, I'm going to make a mental note of it, and maybe I can write down my goal for the next collage on this page, somewhere on the bottom in pencil. And that way I can remind myself what I want to do next time. And I love stamps as a focal point. They're quite easy that way. So if yours lacks a little bit of mph, that's a great way to add some interest. I wish you lots of fun exploring this. Now, let's go to the next lesson. 12. Just Play - Mixed Media on Watercolor Backgrounds: Et's just do a laid back mixed media play session. I'm starting with some watercolor, and I'm just going to put very sloppy and wet wash on my page. Don't worry about using it right. Just make sure that there's enough pigment in there and that the layers quite wet because we're going to get some saran wrap and then crumple it up and put it on there. We'll let this dry naturally while we start on the next page. It's going to give some cool textures. Just pick some colors that you love to work with and experiment with them. Because my own journal isn't the Watercolor journal, you'll see a buckle, and if you don't want it, then use one that is suitable for wet media. I personally don't really care, and it only helps me to loosen up because I won't be precious about it. Whenever I get pulls of watercolor like this, I will get some paper towel and just dab it because otherwise it will take too long for the water to evaporate, and I'm impatient. I don't like waiting. If you have some inks, then you can drop them in there and see if you like that. Again, there's not really a technique to worry about. Just drop them in there, and if you don't enjoy it, then you can always take some other media and cover it up. And that is exactly what I will show you after I'm done drying this page. I don't really like these red blobs, so I'm taking my neo color cray, and I'm choosing a color that is close to the watercolor underneath. In this case, it is the golden one. And I'm just scribbling with a light touch around those edges. I don't want to cover up everything. I just want to integrate it into the rest of the painting. It's also a good way to add some additional texture to your art. Something you can experiment with is to take some ink or paint, but ink is easier. Take a stick, dip it in there, and try to draw some shapes with that. Because of that lack of control, the lines you'll get are more unpredictable and playful. Especially with geometrical shapes like these, it's a really nice way to prevent it from becoming a bit boring. Whenever a line is too thick for you because of too much ink on there, just scribble your stick through that a couple more times and it'll break it up like I'm doing right here. Let's do some light splatters. I'm taking some ink, and I'm going to tap on my brush to get a couple of sprinkles on there. Now, let's move that surround wrap. It's best to do this when it's completely dry. But you want to know a secret? I didn't wait and I just dried it before I'm going to put a second layer of watercolor on it. Knowing the rules is great, but knowing that you can choose to ignore those is even better. Okay, I'm taking some water and paper towel, and I'm going to dab it. That way, there's no harsh edge. I'm taking that gold new color cran and I'm just doing a quick mark right here. Not too fond of it, so I'm taking some water, and I'm going to go over it again. And now I like it better. Just keep experimenting with layers and remember that you don't need to submit it to any jury or hang it on your wall or anything. This is here for you to find out what you love. Okay, I'm liking all the textures, but I need some contrast. So I'm taking some acrylic painting, and I'm just going to make some marks. I'm not overthinking it. I'm just kind of twisting my brush for some more unpredictability, and I'm making more ovals. There. I'm going for another mark, more of a line now, again, twisting my brush. And I'm not too fond of it because it's kind of competing with those ovals on the right. So I'm going to give it a quick dry before I'm putting on another layer of watercolor on there to push it into the background. Now it's better. It's better, right? That's better. And even though I wanted to keep it kind of abstract, I'm seeing an eye, and I want to bring it out. So let's do that. I'm taking my Stabilo pencil, deep indigo, and I'm tracing those shapes that I'm seeing. There's a little pupil going to bring in an eyelid right there. And I want to bring in some color. So I'm taking my gold and I'm just filling that in. And I want to put in a reflective light. I thought this was going to be lighter, but I need different color. So I'm taking my silver, and I'm covering up that old mark and see how much that brings that eye to life. It's a really cool trick. I'm putting a couple more highlights around the eye. Then I'm going back to my Stabill pencil, and I'm putting in a little bit of shadow that would be there if it was a face, putting in some kind of eyebrow, very lightly. And I'm going to put more shadow on the side of the eye and around the iris underneath the eylashes as well. And that's how I can bring more form to this eye. Here as well, I need some shadow because it's an eyeball and ball has some shadow on the side there. Se is more three dimensional now. Okay, for me, this really helps to make it more interesting. And on the right, I also need focal point. So I'm putting in circle and a faint one in the back there. If your page looks a little bit flat and boring, then you'll probably need a focal point. So just try to put one in there, even if it's very simple like this. Now, let's get rid of that tape. Because my journal is buckling and I had a very wet wash of watercolor, you can see that it bled underneath the tape. Also, this isn't watercolor tape, so that's also not helping. And, you know, I don't really mind. I'm just taking a white new colour crane and I'll go over it. Doesn't need to be perfect or anything, but I like that there is some kind of a frame there. So there it's fixed. And just observe your art for a little while. What do you like? What don't you like? In my case? I'm not sure about this part. I need a bit more contrast and things going on. So I'm experimenting with that. And here, I'm realizing that I want it to be darker right here. So again, I'm taking my stabilo and I'm just going to color in this part, tracing some lines. Yeah, I think that is a little bit better. I hope you enjoyed this inspiration, and I hope you will have fun playing with mostly abstract in your own journal. Okay, a couple more lines here and there. Some tiny marks. Why not? And let's go to the next quickie. 13. Grunge It Up - Ink Staining on Gesso: Once again, I've prepared my pages with gesso. Okay, let's get some ink. Make it playful, and then you get a straw and you start blowing. Just keep blowing and changing directions. And when you think you can't blow anymore, keep going because then you'll get tiny little drips. Are they drips? I don't know. And you can vary with how hard you blow through your straw. You can just do it very relaxed or you can put some more force into it, and that will also have an impact on your marks. Now, I'm going to try this for a little bit because you don't want to dry it entirely because then it won't move, but you want to dry it well enough so that there will be some marks left on the page. And you can just practice with it. There are enough pages to do so, right? You don't need to move on to a different technique for each and every page, like I do. Most of the time because sometimes I will catch a bug and I'll do many, many pages in the same kind of way to get started. And now I want to really dry it well because I'm going to take my new color crayons, and I think I'll start with my, my stabil pencil. Th is very black and I like it. And I'm just going to bring out that little face that I'm seeing. Now I'm getting into the highlights. See, I don't need much detail. And Now, for the other page, I'm just going to take a little bit of gesso, and I'm going to do a couple of brush strokes because I want to take my sabio pencil and scribble right through there while it's wet. And that's going to have a different effect than if I would just scribble on it when it's dry and then wet it. See, makes a nice texture. And I would like to add in a little bit of collage. I'm just trying to see here, and I'm thinking, No, that's way too big. I tend to go too big with my bits of collage with the text on it. I don't like that. And I'm deciding that I want to get rid of the tape because I can't really see what I'm doing with it. In a minute, it will be much easier for me to see where my collage paper will actually look good. Now I'm getting it. I need a much smaller piece, so it can really be part of the composition. And I tore off some weird shapes, and I kind of like it. So I'm taking my met medium, and I'm sticking it on there. There. I think that's a nice spot. It balances out those marks I did before with the s SibilOPencil. So those were top right. And this is top left with that nice, no, not another one. Let it go journey, let it go. No more paper. It's good. I wanted to see if I should cover up that blank spot, but no, no, it's right. Less is more, they keep telling me, and I'm trying to listen. I hope you will give it a go because it's fun. But for now, let's move on to the next art Quiki. And 14. Scribbles & Scratches: Let's get ready to scribble. First, I'm going to put a layer of tinted gesso on my pages because I have worked with water soluble art supplies in the previous page, and I don't want them to, um, to bleed into each other. So that's why I'm protecting my pages with my gray gesso, which I hardly use because I meant to buy black, but that's another matter. I'm going to take some Indian ink and a brush, and I'm just going to scribble pretty randomly. I'm not worried about making the perfect composition. I just want to play around with different types of scribble techniques. I'm going to let it dry for a little bit, like the other day, and then I'm putting some water on there, dabbing it away with my and I didn't like the wiping. I just wanted to experiment, but I like it when I dab it with my paper towel. Okay. So now I'm just going to scribble some more, see how I like that, and it's very busy because I have multiple dark places. And I decide to bra on some gesso. That's always a nice way to up to contrast. Now I'm scribbling into that wet gesso with my Stabil pencil. I really like that. And that's why these art quickies are so amazing because it's so easy to discover mixed media techniques that you really love and you can use them in your other art. Now I'm just taking my new color cram in flash tone and I'm building up a little face that I saw in the paint, and I'm scribbling, scribbling. I'm starting out fairly light with light pressure. And then when I want to do the highlights, I just press harder. I always like some finger painting. I'm taking a clay tool and I'm just scribbling into my wet paint. I also really enjoyed that. Now I've dipped my stab pencil in water and I'm just going to scribble in a second half portrait there. Just to see the difference. And now my flesh tone new color crane is going to mix in with that stabill pencil because they're both water soluble. I just wanted to see the difference in vibe, I prefer the one on the left, honestly, but you never know for sure until you try, right? I just keep scribbling. And I really like scribbling back into that new color portrait with my stabilol pencil for some additional textures. Again, I'm pressing harder where I want the highlights to be, and I realize that I want to see my pages as they are, so I'm removing the tape. And I should have dried it a little bit better. That's why I'm having some difficulty getting the tape off in one pull. Sometimes it pays off to be a little bit patient. But it's no big deal. But it is handy to wash your hands before you remove the tape, see? Pretty dirty. And I'm just scribbling some more. I just keep going back and forth and adding some additional scribble marks to see how I can make my compositions a little bit more interesting when they're lacking some dynamic. And that's really helpful for your larger paintings, as well. It's a nice and safe way to practice your skills. Here, I just keep on layering and scribbling, and, yeah, that's pretty much it. Going back and forth between my tools, and I'm happy with my play session for the day. I wish you lots of fun with your scribbles. And when you're ready, let's move on to the next quickie. 15. So Transparent: In this lesson, I want to invite you to experiment with transparency and how you can build some layers with that. So I took some gelmet medium as my adhesive, and I covered the whole pages in that. And then I just picked some random ephemera. You know, I have lots of these, so I don't get too attached, and I stick it on there as a first layer. I'm taking a bit of acritic paint. And I'm going to just work it in there while my medium is still wet. And that is how you can achieve some transparency with your opaque paints. Right here, I'm varying my opacity because I would like some contrast. So I'm putting on the paint more heavily on top, and on the bottom, I want to leave a bit more room to breathe to show that collage paper. And on the left there, I'm taking one of my high flow flu acrylics by golden that is already transparent by itself. I'm taking a baby wipe to remove some of the paint. It's a nice way to push back the paint when you went a little overboard, like I tend to do sometimes. And when I look at my other page, I can see that I want more contrast, so I'm putting on another layer of the paint's gray on top. I'm going to dry for a bit because I want it to be really dry for the next step. Here, I'm taking some high flow fluid acrylics by Golden in white. And because it's not as transparent as I would like it to be, I'm loading my brush with water and I spread it around. I'm going to let this try for a little while while I'm going to play on the other page. If you don't have these paints, then it's not a problem. You can just take some white acrylic ink or white Indian ink, or you can even dilute your acrylic painting with lots of water, and you can do the same thing. Because I don't like harsh edges, I'm taking my baby wipe again, and I'm just dabbing the page. And I continue to play. Just try out different things and try to work without a plan, you know, see what happens. And if you don't like it, put on another layer. It's all good. Just experiment and get to know your art supplies. I like working from a dark background, and even though I try to mix it up with a lighter color, I always get antsy, I don't like it. But we're just going to try some stuff. And it's a good exercise in your problem solving. And acceptance as well, because not everything we do needs to turn out beautiful or to our liking, even. Because I don't really like that green gold, I just moving around that paint on top of almost the whole background. And now I like it more. I like it when it's more subtle apparently. That's why it's important to just keep playing even when it disgusts you, Take it as a challenge to just improve it. Et's see what happens when we remove some of these hard edges with a baby wipe after we let it dry for a little while. Now you see kind of two lines. I like this so much more. This is how you can make your shapes more complex. A little bit more grungy. Whoops. And that is okay. Even well, it's okay. I'm still going to cover it up a little bit with this new color cray. And this way, I get a little bit of variation in the color and it doesn't bother me as much because it was really distracting right here. Yes, I like the grunginess of this. When you like a page, but it's still a little bit boring. Try to see if you have some bits and pieces of collage paper that can add to it. Just switch them out and see what you like. There are no rights or wrongs. It's just what you enjoy. So just put them on there and move them around. And whenever you like something, then just stick it on there. I am really enjoying these Japanese washy papers. I love vintage stuff, so I'm going with that. It's a bit of repetition from the background underneath. And it's what I enjoy. So I'm going to practice what I preach, and I'm going to glue it on there. Again, with my mad medium. It's nothing against the glue stick, but with these transparent papers, the medium is really superior. This was my interpretation of the transparency. And if all you have is watercolors or inks, then go with those. You know, doesn't matter. Play. Now, let's go to the next lesson. 16. Marks & Layers - Intuitive Acrylic Painting: In this art quickie, we're just going to do a whole bunch of layering. I'm going to alternate between acrylic paint, Indian ink. In the end, I'm going to bring in some neo colors as well for even more texture. We're going to do some mark making, you know, whatever your heart desires. Try to dry the paint in between your layers. That's going to prevent your colors from getting muddy, you know, unless you have a specific technique you would like to do where your layer of paint needs to be wet for. But if that's not the case, just dry it in between. You won't regret it. If you're like me and you tend to see things in the paint, just bring them out. If it doesn't happen, keep it abstract. Later on, I will see a figure as usual. That's what I'm into, but maybe you see landscapes or animals, you know? Whatever you see, bring it out or not. You know, if you're not in a mood to do that, then just keep playing. If playing feels hard to you, for whatever reason, put on some music. It really helps to distract that inner critic. And. And I hope you enjoyed seeing what most of the previous techniques together could accomplish. And let's go to the next lesson. 17. Soft Pastel Portraits - Mixed Media Exploration: Now let me give you some inspiration to create a soft and expressive portrait in Mixed Media. I'm just going to take my SabitOol pencil and I'm going to just intuitively make some marks that could lead to a portrait. So, as usual, I'm going to indicate the eye sockets. Shadow underneath the nose, the mouth. Some cheekbones. So extracted hair. Okay. So now that I know my placement, more or less, I'm going to I'm going to become more confident with my eyes still not putting in much detail. I'm pressing harder here on the lips. There. See how I'm working in blocks of shadow, keeping my pencil on the side there. And I'm working quickly and slowly at the same time. You notice? It's because I'm searching searching for body language. I'm not making the neck too thin. I used to do that a lot when I started out, but it should run from ear or where an ear should be to ear, more or less. Most of us have the tendency to make very narrow necks. M see now going to push the neck back by putting in more shadow, and that way, the chin appears to come to the forward. Pressing a little bit harder again. I'm not worried about these lines. But something like this. I'm trying to work loosely, and it can be hard for us, right? Me included. I also have a tendency to work tight tightly. That's why I always come up with ways to spin things out of control like now. Let's see. I want a brush, flat brush, flat ish. And I'm going to I'm going to wet it. So this brush is very wet, and I'm not putting a lot of pressure. I'm going to wet it again. Otherwise, I'm just going to smudge everything into a black Olivion Okay. So by doing this, I'm activating that Tabilopen, so I'm just going to take some water and going around it because I don't like the paper to be all white around my figure. Let's see. There. Okay. Now let's take some watercolor. I'm going to take a different brush. Maybe I'll take this one and never use these. So why not now? Okay. I am going to What kind of color is this? It's a little bit too brown for me. Think, maybe this one. Okay. So going to put that here and there, mostly in the shadow parts. For now, anyway. And now that there's little on my brush, I'm going to spread it around. See, there's a hint of it, but not too much. Because the paper is still wet, you know, maybe a bit more. You're not getting harsh lines. Just play. There are no wrong moves here. I'm not saying you're going to like the end result, per se, but try not to think about that too much. There. I think I rather like this. H. Maybe a little bit. Nos there as well. And it's going to get a little muddy and don't worry about that. There. Yes. Okay. So now let's get that heat gun. Where's my heat gun? And this is the heated craft tool from Ranger. And if you're easily overwhelmed and overstimulated like me, then this is such a pleasure to have. It wasn't crazy expensive either, so look it up. There. Now, let's you can take some pastel, but I think I'm going to get some contact crayons. Can use this little set. Oh, there used to be a white one in there as well, but I also have this box. I got from my neighbor in my old place. His father was an artist and sadly he passed away a while ago. And then he gave me this. And I like this range of colors much more. So what am I going to do? Maybe I'm going to get this pink, and I'm going to Just put it in some places. You don't need to stay within any lines or whatever. Even better, go over some lines. Okay, let's mix it up. This one. I really don't like to use just Conte crayons or pastel. But in mixed media, I rather enjoy it. See how I'm pushing certain parts of the face forward by putting highlights on it. Okay. Going back to this one. And my goal here is to not work too tight. So I'm only hinting at some eyes here. And I think really this is enough. I can try to get this red or I didn't like it, I'm just going to smudge it. I think I like this portrait. I want to use a lot of contrast and darkness, but sometimes I like to switch it up, you know? Yeah, I really like this dreamy figure right now. So I think I'm just going to stop. So in not even 15 minutes, I got this little portrait. I hope that you'll try it as well. You can see it's not time consuming. It's a good way to start your day in your art room. And just try something else for change, you know? That keeps us motivated and inspired and curious. And that is what we need to, to keep creating. I hope you enjoyed this. Now, let's move on to the next Art Quickies. 18. The Importance of Being Messy : Et's get messy. I'm starting with twisting my Stabilol pencil across the page, and let's put some gesso on there because we want the paper to not be absorbent for what I'm going to do. And I wanted some marks to be there already. Okay, let's try this so that we can play with very watery inks on top of this. I'm starting off with the liquitex transparent ink, raw umber or burnt umber, I think burnt umber. And since I had too much water, I just dropped some ink in there. And I'm going to dry this for a little bit. And then I'm taking a paper towel to remove most of it. And I'm going to do this a couple of times. And on the right there, I'm mixing in some black ink. Just because I want to see the difference. Allowing yourself to get messy on a regular basis is very good for your art, especially when you have a tendency to be very perfectionistic and overwork things. This is really freeing, and on top of that, it can also inspire you for some figures or maybe some abstract work, whatever you're in the mood for. Now that we have a pretty neutral base, let's up the contrast with a credit card or wedge or something and some black acrylic paint. If you see something, you can paint in the negative space around whatever you're seeing. But there on the left, I just did something random, and luckily for me, I also see a figure in there. So we're going to have some fun. If you don't see a figure or anything else, then don't sweat it. Layer and have some fun that way. You don't always need to make something figurative. Now that the paint has dried, you can dab away the droplets pretty easy, and that's how you get these nice and grungy textures. I'm taking my tab pencil and my fingertip, and I'm going to smudge this around and bring some form to this face just so that I can clearly see what I want to do with paint later on. This is a very nice and safe way to shape your portraits without it being too permanent. So you can still make changes. If you don't like what you do, then just take a baby wipe or something or a wet brush and remove that sablol pencil. That way you can practice without having fear of creating something that is really hideous to you. Although you know my point of view, right? I love the wonky weirdos, and they also help us to understand phases. So if wonky weirdos is the best you can do, celebrate them. You know, I will come later on. Whether that's months or years, doesn't matter as long as you have fun with your art. And did you notice how I created the form in the face wherever the features are lying deeper in the face or they're they're casting a shadow. That's where you need it to be darker. And just by doing that, you'll see that the forehead and the cheek there and the nose a little bit, they seem to be sticking out more than the rest of the face. And we can fine tune that later on when I bring in some paint. Just create some marks here and there. Until your inner critic, it's going to be, okay. This is just some fun, nothing to worry about. Now let's take some acrylic paint. This is actually my acrylic gouache in Ivory yellow or something, just as long as it's nice and light and watch me create that face. I'm starting with a cheek there, and I'm making sure that my brush strokes aren't just random, but I put them in the direction of the skin. I know it may sound a little weird, maybe, but just look what I'm doing. It's not random. Let's put in an eyelid and I have a brush that is a little bit too big for me. I always tend to do that, and that can help you to stay loose, but sometimes with the eyes, it's going to get in the way, and that's what I'm experiencing here, but I'm stubborn. So yeah, Major cross eyed. Okay, time to No, not yet. Okay. Okay. So here I'm thinking maybe I do need to put in the effort to find a smaller brush. It there. That's better. So I'm just getting rid of a little of the paint on the cheek, and now I'm going to put in the white of the eye there another eyelid and a little bit of white of the eye. And there, she has an expression. It's that simple. And if you don't like the expression, then just blacken out that eye and let it try again. Try to not cover up everything there in the face and don't be too tidy. Let's give her a little bit of body language. You can do scribbly art with your brush as well. Let's see. Shoulder, a little bit too much paint. Oh, not yet. That's later on, you'll see because I wanted a little bit more light on that shoulder because that is where light is coming from, as you can see in the face. But first, I'm going to do a sloppy hairline. Seriously, be sloppy, you guys. It's so much better than being precise. People often wonder, why are they not succeeding in painting loose? And the thing is, you need to be more sloppy. Forget everything your parents told you. You need to be more sloppy. And maybe you want to cover up a part of your figure, whether it's with the same color that you're working with, random quick brushstrokes or something or maybe with a different color, just to mix things up whenever you get too tight. I'm not doing that right now because I didn't feel the need to do that, but that's an option. Okay, so let's do kind of the same thing with the figure on the left there, bottom lip chin. And do you see since this is a very light background, you have less contrast in the face, and I could put that in anyway, but I figure this is an art quickie. Let's make it a little weird, oh with bony knees and big feet. Little bit more paint for those feet with a hammer toe. Why not? And let's see, I think I want a hand right there, the base of the hand and then some wonky fingers. He doesn't need to be perfect hand, just an illusion of a hand. Right now I have no idea what that hand is going to do, but later on, I will put something in it just because I want to at that moment. But here, I have no idea. I just wanted to put that hand there. Whenever you get impulses like that, but you don't know why, just do it. When we overthink things, then it's hard to create from our gut, from our intuition. Pre planning doesn't really work for me. That's why I'm really big fan of Monkey weirdos. Now, let's add little mph to that sleeve there. I'm just going to lightly put in a couple of stripes. And then I'm going to show you how you can make those simple stripes look like clothing. So in a couple of places, I'm going to here, I'm shading the shoulder a little bit. And here I'm going to emphasize parts of those lines, and I'm going to press harder on my stublol pencil, and that looks way more organic and less drawn on. Yeah, something like that. And I'm putting a shadow underneath that arm. It's little details like that that's going to make your wonky weirdo believable. And I'm not going to put a lot of detail in that face. I rather like it like this. Again, be messy. And it's imperfectionistic a word? I don't think so, right? Not perfectionistic. So we're going to have sloppy fun. Are you with me? Okay, let's remove that tape because that's always so satisfying. I'm thinking I want to put something in that hand there, but I want it to be really subtle. So I don't want to use my paint and a brush. So I'm going to get my Oh, I think, how do you pronounce that? It's the book binding needle to poke holes in your paper. And I'm going to scratch away a little bit of the paint, so something like a stem or something. And here I'm just making some scratches. It could be a flower, maybe a dandelion, or whatever. Doesn't doesn't matter. Just want to put something in there. And it'll add to your story. Just going to shade a couple of his fingers a little bit with my stab pencil, and then that's it. I hope you enjoyed this, and I wish you lots of fun in your journal. Or on a piece of paper. What's easiest for you? Epic creating. 19. Art Quickies for Mindfulness: After all these art quickies, it's time for a little bit of relaxation. Whenever you need to calm down, you can come to this chapter to do a little bit of mindfulness and meditation in a more visual way. I've designed the lessons so that artists from every level can enjoy at least a couple of them. And I have stayed away from mandalas just because I don't like that geometrical perfectionism, you know, I know that they can also help to calm down the mind. And if you enjoy them, then go for it. There are lots of classes on those, but I wanted more liberating approach while more or less doing the same thing. And as usual, you can just use your own favorite art supplies. I'm only here for some guidance, and So, Hey, baby. It's been a while since one of my cats came to say hello, right? So that is Flood, my naked little boy. But okay, back to the subject. I hope that you enjoy this. So every time that you feel some anxiety or overwhelmed, you can just come back to this chapter, pick out one of the exercises, and take a little bit of time to unwind and relax your mind. So let's take a deep breath and relax together. 20. Pipe Down With Pattern Play: Let's give up some control. We're going to divide the page in random patches by slowly moving a small object across the page. We're just going to push it. You can even go slower than I am because I am rather impatient. But the slower you go, the more relaxing it will feel to you. If you are a bit nervous about how to start your art journal pages, then this is a great way to get things going and just take it from there. The possibilities are endless when it comes to how to deal with these patches. I'm showing you one of these, but you can also do something with words or zentangle or something. When you feel like you have enough patches, then just stop and move on to the next step. Now, let's take some colored pencils and just fill up these patches, both with color and with pattern. Put on some calming music and just follow your gut. There are no rules. This is a great exercise when you feel really anxious. The slow repetition will help you to ground yourself and calm down when you really need it. If you are working in a larger sketchbook, don't feel like you have to fill in all the patches. Just do enough of them to calm yourself down, and then they will wait for you whenever you need them again. Now, sit back and just enjoy watching me fill up my patches. I hope this was a nice ice breaker for you to get started with some fun and color. Now, let's go to the next video, and I'll show you another fun way to just relax. Mm 21. Breathing Lines: In this exercise, we will focus on our breath because when we're anxious or stressed out, we tend to breathe very superficially and quickly, and, you know, that's not going to help anything. So I want you to get a crayon or, you know, a pencil. Whatever you have. And I want you to focus on breathing slowly. And we're going to move the crayon on the rhythm of our breath very lightly. So breathing in. Breathing out. Breathing in. Breathing out. And again, in out. And I want you to just fill up the whole page like this in out. Okay. Now, we're going to do the same thing. Only we're going to put a little bit more pressure and color on the page. So in out. I out. And we're moving down in out. In oh Out. In outs. See, we're making gradients while we're breathing out. In outs. Just focus on your breath. Okay. Now, let's take a different crayon, and let's do the same thing with lines. So wetting in and out. In out. In and out. In in out. You can change your crayons, you know, with every breeding session. In out. In and And it's not about Oops, making something beautiful. It's just about you can switch up media if you want. And and And when you notice that you're getting more relaxed, then it's time to go on to an art quickie that is maybe more stimulating for your creativity. And if not, then just continue. And just notice how this white crayon will become more blue, blue green when it reaches the top, where there's more pigment on the paper. It's also good to know, right? And out. You can also mess about if you want to take some water while you're breathing. And you can take another ink tens pencil or watercolor pencil. I really like the ink tens pencil, especially when drawing through some wet paint. In and out. In and out. In Eels. Okay. And if you want to, you can also write down a word, whether it's from your experience doing this or maybe something that is occupying your mind and you want to let go. Whatever comes to mind, just write down. Y. I hope this exercise will help you to slow down and relax whenever you need it. And, you know, after you do this, you can move on to another art quickie or project with a more centered feeling. Now, let's move on to the next one. Okay. 22. Freestyle Unwinding - A Variation: Now, let's do something similar to this, but more freestyle. So we're again going to focus on gentle breathing. Breathing in, breathing out. Breathing in. Breathing out. And you're just going to continue like this for a good while. M. You can also after a while, really focus on breathing in deeper and with more force. And you can put some more pressure on your pencil. So bringing in. And reading out. Reading in and reading out. And back to normal. As you enjoyed the previous exercise, when we add it to water, you can do that in and out. Doing everything in correspondence to our breath. Notice how the water makes these lines way more delicate. Now, let's do the same thing again with the inkton pencil on the web page in and out in and out. And if you're like me and you like to find some figures or flowers or whatever in random marks, then you can do that. I saw a little head here. Very simple. Another one year. And But only if it's enjoyable to you, you know? Let's get a new color crayon. It's just about having some fun with the lines that you're creating. It's not about creating art that you want to sell or hang in your home. You can still move that Ink and pencil around just by drawing. That's useful information for when you are creating other art projects. This is just some quirky fun to help us to relax. And maybe I want another ink ten pencil, my deep indigo is my favorite one. I wonder what they're looking at. If you know you can put that in there, maybe a word, maybe some symbolism. Let's get him some nostrils there. You can do some pattern play again, slowly. If you want to do it on your breathing, that's fine, but you don't need to. Just don't move too quickly for this one. Because mindfulness is all about slowing down and repetitive marks interventions. I could make so many more faces, but I'm not going to do it. I'm thinking about putting in a word, but, you know, I don't want to. I want to exaggerate some lines here and there. I just want to keep my pencil moving without actually thinking about it. Just respond intuitively to whatever's there. You can also dip your ink and pencil in the water and draw like that. You get more fuzzy lines that way. Let's give this one a headphone or something. Maybe I want to get rid of that tape now because I want to let that headphone come out of the frame. There, that's better. Let's skip it again. Yes. I'm always walking around with my headphones. So I guess it's kind of a self portrait. And that's pretty much it. Just do whatever you want with the spage. You can bring in collage or paint or, you know, whatever you have on hand that you enjoy using. Just put it in there. I hope you enjoy this. Now let's move on to the next video. 23. One Shape: When we are stressed or experiencing brain fog, it's hard to make decisions. And that's where this exercise comes in handy because for this one, we're only going to choose one shape, and we're going to repeat that shape until we fill up this whole page. That doesn't mean that it has to be boring. You can make your shapes overlap. You can play with skill, make some bigger than others. You can make them change direction. You can do anything you want with that one shape. Just follow your gut. Do not stress out if after a few of them, you're thinking, Oh, this is stupid or it looks like crap. It's really, really boring. Just continue because the beauty of pattern play is that it will look kind of cool once you're finished just by the repetition of it. And you also don't have to limit yourself to just one art supply, like I am doing right now. No, you can do layers of charcoal, you know, as long as you fix it when you're done with it, you can take a posca pen and do some bigger shapes on top of that base layer. You can bring in paint, whatever you want. I always encourage you to make it your own if you have enough energy, you know, to do that. And if you don't, it's no biggie, follow my lead, pick one art supply that you really love and keep making that shape and just have some fun with it. Exercises like this are really great when you're stuck in overthinking mode. I mean, you have one job, so just relax and if that's hard for you, then again, put on some music, music that you love, and maybe sing along to it or just move your pencil to the rhythm of the music. That's another fun exercise. Just create to the music. You can respond to lyrics or the rhythm, the melody, whatever captures you the most. Or you can do it all, you know, I a sequence, you can start out with some paint and listen to the rhythm. Maybe then you can take a drawing tool and draw the melody. And you can finish by responding to your favorite lyrics of that song. Maybe you want to do an illustration or some collage. Maybe you want to just put in the words. Doesn't really matter as long as you're having fun and it's relaxing to you. There are so many ways to relax while drawing. You know, you can make up your own and share it with us in the discussion in the classroom because maybe there's someone who can really use your idea to, you know, wind down. Maybe I can use it. I mean, I have brain fog all the time, and I'm pretty low in my energy. So if you have any ideas, hook me up. Another fun idea might be to pick your two favorite art quickies in this chapter and find a way to combine them, you know, using the art supplies that you really love. But only on days where you can handle it, you know? If you just want to go back to the basics, you don't want to make any decisions whatsoever, then just follow my lead and keep drawing that shape. Okay, so now that our whole page is filled, we can leave it like that or we can move the charcoal around either with our finger or if you don't like the messiness of charcoal, you can take a paper towel or something, you know, so you don't get it on your hands. If you want to make your drawing a little bit less flat, then you can just layer bigger shapes on top of those little ones and make them a little bit darker. You can go over them multiple times and they will get nice and black, and you'll get a sense of depth in there. And if you notice that you're still a little bit stressed out, then you can create your shapes on the rhythm of your breath like we did a couple of exercises ago. I think that can go really well, especially with this shape. It's pretty easy because of that arch, you know, but honestly, any shape will work for this. If you've used charcoal like me, then don't forget to fix it with a Vigilia spray. Just a couple of quick bursts, so you won't get shiny pulls, couple of layers of them, and you can close your journal. Now let's go to the next quickie. 24. Palm Reading: This is a great exercise for present moment awareness. It's really simple. Just put out your hand like this and observe the lines in there. Do not look at your paper. It's not important that it will look interesting or artsy. This is all about quiet observation and calming down. It's also really nice exercise to practice with letting go of expectations and just accepting to whatever is going to show up on your page. Another thing that's really interesting about this is the longer you are observing the lines in your hand, the more subtle ones you'll see, and that is exactly the same for when you're observing portraits, in the beginning, you'll mostly see the rough shapes and values. But as you are drawing, more little details will start to catch your eye, and you'll put them in bit by bit. So no need to get overwhelmed by the complexity of human faces. Just take it step by step. You'll get it in the end. As you can see, I have started out with very light and frill lines. But after a while, I'm feeling more confident, even though I'm still not seeing what I'm making, and I'm going to press a little bit harder on my pencil just to have a bit of variation in my lines. If you want to, when you're done, you can observe your lines and see if you can see some figures or an animal or maybe a landscape or just a cool composition for something abstract. You can work on this a little bit further. I'm not going to do that for this exercise, but you know I'm always up for that. I just thought, you know, I'm going to do this a couple of times already, and it's nice to have lessons that are short and sweet so that you can just focus on the observing part and not spend too much time on it. You've probably noticed by now that my lines are becoming very different than the first few minutes. That is exactly because of what I said earlier that the longer you are observing something, the more you will notice. And what I noticed is that my lines are made up by many tiny little lines. And that is what I'm doing right now. So take your time with this exercise. Don't rush through it because it takes a while to really get into it, and it's quite enjoyable. Right now, I'm pretty much trying everything at the same speed. But you can experiment with different tempos, you know? What happens when you speed up a little bit or slow down? And I don't mean what happens with the end result, but what happens inside yourself? What happens with your experience of this exercise? Do you prefer one over the other? If so, have you noticed that when you are creating other class projects, or is it a new discovery? Would you like to experiment more with that? Observations like that can be very helpful for your process. But these are questions to consider after you're done with this exercise. While you're drawing, try to just stay present in this moment. And just enjoy your pencil or pen gliding across the paper while you're watching all the tiny lines on your hand. There's no specific time for you to be done with your drawing. Just listen to your feelings. If you feel done, then you're done. I hope you enjoy this exercise. If you want to take it further, you can bring in some mixed media on top of that, whatever you want, or you can just go with me to the next part quickie. Sounds good. Then let's go. 25. Texture Adventure - A Variation: Sometimes we get triggered emotionally so badly that it gets hard for us to keep things together. And something that can help you cope with that is to shift your focus from your feelings towards your environment. So for example, you can look around and count all the red objects in the room. If after that, you're still really anxious, you can just move on to the yellow ones and the green ones. It's just a way for you to take your mind off that high emotion. And this exercise works in the same kind of way without all the math. Let's practice, walk around your home and try to find an object with a texture that interests you. Now, take any art supply that you want to draw with that gives you some comfort that you're familiar with and start to draw all the marks that you see. But first, let's make a deal. We're not going to try and copy whatever you're seeing. Just observe the texture and make some marks without feeling the need for any end result. They will distort overlap, doesn't matter. Don't bring any extra stress into your life, putting expectations on yourself. Just enjoy watching all these interesting little details and let your hands slowly move along with whatever you're seeing. You don't even have to look at your paper at all. The longer you're looking, the more you will notice, and it's perfectly fine to simplify what you're seeing so you won't get stuck in overthinking. Just keep drawing. And remember, it's not about the end result at all. Just enjoy this quiet moment of slowing down. And just know that you can also just watch this whenever you need to. If you're out and about and you aren't able to draw whenever you need to come down, then just open the Skillshare app and watch me draw for a while. And then later on when you're home, then you can do the drawing. So use this lesson however you need to. If you are drawing with a water soluble pencil like I am, you can take a brush with some water and activate it, and then you can draw on it again while the page is still wet. And that way, your marks will become even stronger. This will give you a nice and layer drawing. You can be done, or if you want to, you can observe your drawing and see if you can find a figure or flowers or an animal, whatever it is that you love to draw or that you just see in there and you can slowly bring it out once again, we're not going to worry about making it pretty or correct or something. It can show up however it will. You're just going to enjoy the drawing process. And you know my philosophy, the wonkier the better. I hope you enjoyed this exercise. Now, let's go to the next video. 26. Go Forth and Create!: And that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed it, and I can't wait to see your class projects if you would like to share, because I want to give you some love. And if you want to show me some love, then I would love it if you would write a review. Not only will you help other students to find this class, but I also genuinely would love to know what you think of it. So if you have a couple of minutes, I will appreciate it so much. And I want to take another minute to thank you all so much for leaving all your beautiful reviews. You always make my day when I get that little email. And yeah, I appreciate you guys. So thank you from the bottom of my heart. Now, find yourself a quickie that you would love to do right now and have some fun with it. Happy creating.