Transcripts
1. Intro: Hey everybody. My name
is Heather Sportzman. I'm a teacher here
on Skill Share, and I'm here to bring
you my latest class, which is called Cultivating Creativity through
Consistent Sketching. And what this class is
here to do is to help you to develop creative
skills and also help you buzz through
those artistic blocks that we all know we're
going to hit at some point, you know as artists
and creative people. And so this class will help
you navigate those areas, Build your confidence by developing your skills
through consistent sketching. Okay, so go ahead and get
into this class right now. And I really want to
see where you guys are and get you started with the right
materials and tools. This is going to be a quick
one, but a form one, okay? Not too much pressure at all. All right, so here I have just a few of my favorite sketchbooks. You'll need a pencil
or pencils and eraser, some light, whether that's
artificial or natural.
2. Object Selection: So normally with sketching, everybody like has an idea
about what they want to do or I'll say something that
they find appealing, right? They choose a subject matter
that they find appealing. So that's step number one. We want to choose a meaningful
object from everyday life, simply just an object that
you find interesting. That's cool too,
we're down for that. That's definitely
an important step. So let's go ahead
and find it for me. As you'll see, it's next scene, this is my paint
Our Dreams Cook. Well, it used to say paint your dreams with one of
the letters fell off. So Yeah, but this is just something I use all
the time when I'm painting, so it's a common everyday
object that I like, and I'm just going to
use that to sketch with. So I have my sketchbook here, grab my pencil, and I'm just going to start kind of
laying everything out. But first I want to go
through my sketchbook and just show you all some of my observational
draws from a floor. A little rubber duckies glasses, my plant that's in the corner, water bottle, my husband
down there at the bottom. But now that you
have your object, hopefully let's get
ready to stare. And I do mean seriously because that's what we're about to do
in this next lesson. Let's.
3. Observation & Analysis: The next most
important things to do is observation and analysis. And the reason I say that is
because you want to spend time closely observing
your object. Like so many times
we'll just draw stuff. But as I tell my
students all time, it's important to pay close
attention to the curves, if it has any, the ankles, if it has any, How
the light hits it, not its shape texture, any distinctive
features that it has. It makes it stand out.
Consider just what makes it special to you. And then one of the things, and this is completely optional, like I'm not a person
that is always like, oh, I got to do some thumbnails. But if you're a beginner, I would definitely say thought I was some quick thumbnails. Like just a little
small series of thumbnails catches that explore different angles
and compositions for your chosen object,
whatever that is. And that's important because it helps you focus
on like capturing its essence in its
most simplified forms first before you get
into any details. Because all of us want
to jump into the details like everybody wants to get
into it like real quick. But if you just stop
for a moment and say, let me just focus on getting the complete object down
quickly as possible, that takes away that
urgency to want to jump into all the
details like immediately.
4. Detailed Sketching: Now if you have one of the thumbnail sketches
that you actually do, like go ahead and let's take that and turn it
into the details sketch. With this, I like it because
you can choose what, first of all, medium
you want to use. Whether it's the color
piel, water colored, pil, graphite, oil
pastel, whatever it is. But you're using that now to pay attention
to the proportions more so the shadows highlights all the stuff that you were kind of like
holding back on. So this will actually make it a little bit
more enjoyable now. Now you can really get
into the nitty gritty, so to speak, of the
drawing or of the object. And so that builds your
confidence more too, because it helps you
to pace yourself, it helps you to kind like sit
benchmarks four years old. So now you've gone from
simplicity to detail. Okay, so I hope you start really enjoying this
part of your lesson.
5. Style Experimentation: One of the coolest things
about having your sketchbook and being consistent with it is you can experiment
with different styles. If you never tried cross
hatching and you want to do it, if you've never tried
hatching, you want to do it. Do you want to try skip's
monochromatic style of or technique, or application of color
that you want to try. By all means do it. There's some triadic
color scheme that you want to use. Do it. This is your time to explore
an experiment and have fun. You can take the
same subject and do it ten different ways and come out with
ten different outcomes. This is a way for you to not
only experiment with style, but eventually find your style and add visual interest to. Don't forget about that.
6. Daily Iterations: So I just want to
briefly talk about daily iterations that looks
different for everybody. And while I'm going
and just showing all in depth like
how I did my sketch and showing you my erasure
marks and all those things. It's important for you all
to see this kind of stuff. I love showing my
happy little accents like Bob Ross would say. And the reason is, because we are all imperfect, we all have that commonality. So whenever you're
drawing a sketch, and please keep that in
mind in these stages, do not look for things
to be exact or just so, but just have fun with it. Perfection, honestly isn't
even in my vocabulary, shouldn't be, As an artist,
we can allude to it. But what is perfection we don't even know as
imperfect human beings. So have fun with this, do your best, and go from there. Because the name of
this class again, really just brings
on that point. Cultivating creativity
through consistent sketching and whatever that looks
like for you, that works. Whether that's daily, weekly,
bi, weekly, bimonthly. But the whole point
is it's being consistent to bust down
those art blocks that we have and any other
issues that can really block the creativity that we already have within us. So here I just wanted
to show a little bit of my process over the
course of several days. I revisited my sketch and went in adding my detail
blocking in my shadows, adding those highlights
in areas where I saw fit. And just to keep in mind, I worked from a reference photo. I took a picture of
my cup and then went back and looked at that over
the course of several days, that also lightens the load. If you don't have the
availability availability to continuously go back to
the same position and lighting as beforehand,
take a picture of it. Make it easier on yourself. And so here I am
just blocking in my shadows and my highlights, really enjoying the process, taking my time with it and
whatever object you all chose. I hope that you got something that you really enjoyed
this process with. Okay, and so here's
the end result for me.
7. Closing: So of course, as always, I would love for you all to share just a snippet
out of your sketchbook. What were you working on? What have you been working on? What is something that you have been consistent
with in your sketchbook? Maybe it's from a daily sketch, maybe it's from a weekly sketch. Se my weekly, monthly,
whatever it is. Feel free to share that with me. I would love to
give you feedback, encouragement, enlightenment,
whatever it is. I want you all to feel
comfortable in doing so. Because this is also
how iron sharpens iron. As an artist and as an educator, I'm always learning and
I'm always growing. And I appreciate everyone that has helped
me in this field, share community, and I also want to continue to contribute
and give back. So please share any
of your projects, give feedback to me, give feedback on my
class, share the class. I would love to hear any reviews that you all have for me. And I just really
appreciate y'all taking time to take this class. So thank you again, and I hope you enjoy
it, and I hope it is.
Heather Sportsman, Full Time Artist & Arts Educator
