Digital Sketchbook Fun: Get Inspired by Scribbles in Procreate

1. Hello & Welcome: A sketchbook serves as an artist's intimate companion. A place where ideas take shape, and creativity knows no bounds. It is a playground for experimentation and a record of growth. A sketchbook is your personal treasure trove. It's a reminder that every stroke, no matter how imperfect, is a step forward. Hey, there by the way, I'm Nici, a digital artist with a joyous and colorful art style. I've created this class especially for beginner artists that are struggling with finding inspiration or don't know where to start or what to draw at all. I totally understand the struggles you are going through because I am not a lifelong artist. I started to draw very late at the age of 38, about eight years ago. So far, I've licensed some of my artwork on apparel, book cover, and wall art. My number one goal for this class is to take away your pressure to create only perfect art. It's okay to just scribble around, and not every drawing you create must lead to a perfect masterpiece for your portfolio. We start this class with a warm up by scribbling around, then we use a variation of basic shapes as a starter to not feel intimidated by the blank canvas. In the end, I'll introduce you to a basic random generator that you can fill with all things you'd like to draw or you can feed it with my personal 50 prompts list. I do all my drawings in procreate on my ipad, but you can use every medium you like, including a paper version. Grab your equipment and let's have some fun. Let's get started. 2. Your Project: In this class, we are going to draw a lot of digital sketchbook pages. I encourage you to upload some of that pages to the gallery and inspire your fellows. If you're new to drawing, please don't compare yourself with seasoned artists. Don't forget, every stroke is a step forward. It's good to track your journey so you can see and enjoy your growth. I'd love to see what you create. I give you feedback. 3. Golden Rules: Before we get started, I want to set some golden rules for this class. Set yourself in a relaxed mood. What is your routine to calm down? Maybe drink a cup of tea. Take some deep breath. Smoke a cigarette. No, please don't smoke! Whatever it is, now is the time to do that. Being relaxed while drawing is a profound base for creative exploration and allows ideas to flow freely without any constraints. Number two, don't overthink. Your goal in this class is not to create the perfect masterpiece. Don't have any finished artworks in mind. When you start with the following sketchbook practices, it's just about scribbling around. That doesn't mean that the scribbles can't lead to great art, but try to remove that pressure, which leads me to rule number three: Have fun. I think there is no need to describe what that means. Have fun. And don't be afraid to create ugly art. That's allowed too. 4. Endless Line Doodling: Okay, let's get started by doodling around and warm up our fingers and our drawing muscles. Create a new canvas. For this exercise and for all the next ones I always choose the screen size canvas, but you can choose whatever size you like. Okay, now I want you to create some simple strokes and dots and simple shapes. Just don't overthink it. If you don't want to start with a blank canvas, you can use a little trick. First, you can go to canvas and turn on the drawing guide. You have the little grid, choose a color for your doodles. I think I like to go with a very dark brown or you can use black or whatever color you like. I'd like to use this mercury brush and you can find it under inking, pre-installed in procreate. You can use the grid to get a starting point. Maybe you would like to go over the edges and lines or color some in. This exercise is not about creating something beautiful. This is only to bring your creative drawing muscles in position. You can go further with this grid version. I'd like to turn off the grid and clear the canvas. I'd like to start with an endless line and then fill the shapes, the gaps that are in between this endless line. You can go and make some bows. You can also create some edges or corners if you like, but I'd like to start with some curvy shapes. Okay, now you can go and fill in, always stay with the same color. Don't overthink your color choice. This is just about scribble around. Imagine you're on the phone and chatting with a friend, and nearby you are scribbling on a piece of paper. Don't overthink and create some simple shapes to fill this canvas. This is not at all to create something beautiful. Just to get to know your brush. Avoid using the undo or redo. Just make some strokes without thinking about the result. I speed this up for you and give you some relaxing music. Are your drawing muscles warmed up? Let's meet in the next video and create some funny faces. 5. Funny Faces: I'm not much into character design, but I love this exercise. Or let's say it's exactly the reason why I love it. There's no need to make it perfect. It's just another exercise to do to get your imagination in flow. It makes me happy to draw funny faces. They make me smile. Isn't that enough reason to do this exercise before starting with another project? I want you to create a new canvas. For this exercise, I'd like to use the Nikko Rull brush under painting, but you can use any brush you like to create big shapes. I choose colors from my signature color palette, but you can choose whatever colors you like. Please fill the canvas with ten to 12 different shapes, round shapes and splotches, some chubby shapes in your favorite colors. The shapes shouldn't touch each other, but should be quite near to each other. Let's go back to the Mercury brush or any brush you like to doodle around. I choose my dark brown color again. The challenge is now to concentrate on the shapes and see where faces appear to you. Look at the shapes and maybe you can find some noses or hair or mouth. Look at the shapes like you would look at the clouds in the sky and let your imagination flow. Sometimes you have shapes where no face jumps out at all. In that case, please don't feel constrained to any rules. It's your practice. Draw whatever appears to you. This is such a funny exercise and I'm totally curious about your creations. Do you need more face inspiration? Here are some of my recent faces. I do this quite often. If you are not in the mood to draw faces, you can use these shapes also to doodle around with simple pattern ideas, for example. In the next video, we'll talk about simple shapes again. We'll use the same rectangle shape to create four totally different drawing ideas. I'll show you how I took a simple idea to a whole illustration. 6. Simple Shapes Variations: This exercise is similar to the last one, but this time we used the same shape to create totally different ideas. I want you to draw four rectangles on this new canvas. Imagine what could a rectangle be. What elements are rectangular? I draw a newspaper in this first one. This next one I use as a pot for a plant with big leaves, and I decorated it with some dots. This one is a rug. I let my cat sleep on it. And the last one, I see a robot with a big mouth and earbuds, a little light on top. Oh, I love that idea, I'd like to take that further. Maybe you do this exercise and you don't like your output. That's okay. Well, the point is this is to generate new ideas, to find things, you don't draw constantly. I usually don't draw robots or any tech, but now I have that guy and put it in my personal treasure trove of illustrated elements like these elements I've drawn on top of other basic shapes. In the next video, I'll introduce you to a basic random generator that you can fill with all things you'd like to draw or you can feed it with my personal 50 prompts list. 7. Random Generator: This video is to help you decide what to draw. When you don't know what to draw, you can use a random generator like this one I found in the App store. It's named Random Drawer and you can use it for free with some ads. It's pretty simple. You can create a new list and with the green plus, you can type in all things you'd like to draw. Then save it with a specific name. Now you can go in and just click Draw, and you get a random prompt from your list. Okay, go back or you can choose Import from file And upload my personal 50 prompts list, which you can download from the resources section. That's it. Have fun. 8. Thank You!: Thank you so much for watching and for scribble around with me for a while. I hope I could inspire you and take away a bit of that pressure. Don't forget every stroke counts and is a step forward. Please share your project in the gallery and post your questions in the discussion section. I'm here for you. If you liked this class and would do me a favor, then please leave a review. A review is the teacher's gold. I'd also appreciate if you click the Follo button by my name or check out my other classes. You can also follow me on Instagram @nicigabrieldesigns. That's all for now. Thanks again and see you next time. Bye.