Discovering Your Art Style Through Daily Creating

1. Welcome Intro: welcome to discovering your art style through daily creating. This is a class for illustrators, visual artists, any kind of artists, people who want to be an artist, basically anyone who has a desire to start messing around with their art. And in the process of doing that, we begin to discover our style. I'm Terry Runyon, visual artist and creative encourager, and over quite a long career now of doing illustration and a bit of painting. As you see back here, I have found that the best way to discover your style is through consistently showing up and playing with art. Anything that gets your mind more experimental and moving into the unknown is what helps us to move into what it is. It's natural to us. So in this class, we're going to be discovering our unique voice are unique style through daily creating. We're also going to look at showing up to create, even when we don't feel like it, even when we're completely uninspired. What I found is that those days could be some of the most amazing days because as I go ahead, even though I don't feel like it, even though I might feel block. Or maybe I'm just too busy. If I start in, oftentimes what happens is inspiration meets me there and starts to take me on a journey. And that journey is a discovery of our unique voice. So I'll be encouraging you throughout this class to keep going, even when it feels like everything is up against you. What we're doing here is exploring in discovery. We're getting comfortable with the mystery. And through that comfort and exploration, we start to see our unique voice and style show up to help you generate ideas as a kickstart, so to speak. I'm providing a long list of prompts. Now. These prompts are not mandatory, but they are there to help you just get ideas about subject matter. That's where you want to start. You can also do whatever inspires you, and I actually encourage you to do this. If you're moving through your day and you have a sense of spark of inspiration, go with that first. And then if you're stumped, look at these prompts and see if there's something there that kind of jumps out at us, something to play with. It is in the movement in action that your voice. Your style begins to make itself known. Through this daily creating, you start to recognize the characteristics that make up your hand your inherent style. It's what you come to the table with in this class. We're going to be exploring through the use of drawing, painting, collage ing and mixed media, the media. You want to use it to you. I will be sharing what I do with my creative time as an example of a direction you might want to try. The point is to get yourself moving. So with all that said no time like the present, let's go ahead and crack open those sketchbooks and jump in. Take five minutes, maybe pause between these videos and just start scribbling something, anything. It doesn't matter just a moment where you get your hand moving. Maybe you got your iPad in front of you and you're playing with procreate. Any of these things will go, so let's get started 2. Getting Started: So in this section I'm gonna be talking to you about the project and what supplies you might want to get. Or maybe you have on hand. And with the notation that none of these supplies are necessary to complete this class, the videos in this class will help you to see how I use thes supplies. How I experiment. It's all here for inspiration. So this project is really about you. Exploring and exploring for 30 days is a good length of time to start. No. My greatest hope is that these 30 days will expand into continuing on. It's like you're making a date with yourself to go to the paper, go to whatever it is you're using just to see what happens. We're moving into the mystery here. I'm gonna be showing you different styles that I use and different techniques and experimenting with you. It's in the playing with our art that we start to see that unique style that unique voice show up. So with that said, I'd love for you to start your project, go ahead and take five minutes and do something their arse prompts you can use to start this project. You could use whatever media you want and begin to share your project and what you're creating in the project section. I'll be checking in there and would love to see what you're creating, and you could see what other students air creating. And that's inspiring, too. I also have a very quick overview of some of the supplies I use in the upcoming videos. None of these are mandatory, and whatever you want to use is up to. You also want to let you know there's a link below to all the resource is I have on my website. So to get started them and talk about paper, I'm using the paper. I'm the most familiar with Met Abused the most is the Stonehenge eight by eight paper pad. I also, um, when I'm using watercolor or any kind of wet medium, have a trusty hairdryer nearby. So this is the first paper that I would recommend in the 2nd 1 is completely new to me. I just bought this. It just came in the mail and I've used it once. Here's a little something that was my first little try with this paper. It was really very cool to use. It's got a little bit more of a texture. It's called prima watercolor paper pad, and lastly, I wanted to share this larger had with you, and it's called the Super Deluxe. Get Sketchbook 11 by 14 by Aqua Be And this is a very large scale type of, ah, place to play. And it's just let's my arm move a little bit more and it's a thinner paper, so it buckles a bit more, but it's a little less precious, so you might be interested in this paper again. Any paper will do, even if it's typewriter paper. Just know that if you're using a really cheap paper that you will have problems with buckling anyway. Let's get on to the next thing. As faras drawing goes, I've enjoyed playing with ball point pens. I have a favorite black pen that I use. It's called a Statler Permanent Loom. A color pen, any kind of pencils that you confined. They could be color pencils. Things you used to draw is really up to you. And almost lastly, there's the pen and nib and inkwell way of drawing. There's one more drawing implement that I use quite often. It is the ma little white acrylic paint marker. I used the one millimeter size and finally, don't forget, we can always draw with our paintbrush sparks, Watercolor goes. You can use anywhere from a really inexpensive student grade watercolor to the type of watercolor I use, which is Windsor Newton professional watercolor. From what I've seen, the difference is the less expensive watercolors don't have as much pigment as theme or expensive paints do I will link to my Windsor, Newton paints in. The resource is, you can see the talent I use as well. I'll also be doing a section on mixed media collage and, you know, throwing the kitchen sink in there. What you'll need for that is possibly a pair of scissors, although you can tear your paper an assortment of papers, they could be solid papers, or they could be papers that you've made patterns with. I love using old paperback books. There are also a lot of already printed papers out there that you can Graham. Any kind of paper will work for my beloved washing tape and one other supply that I like to use, but it's not mandatory is the trustee glasses, so go ahead right now and do five minutes and post them to the Projects gallery. I'd love to have you comment underneath your post as to what you're discovering about your style Before we jump into the demonstrations. I want to talk a little bit about what stops us, and I'll be doing that in the next video. 3. Dealing with what Stops Us: in this video, I wanted to talk a little bit about what stops us, particularly when you're starting off a new quote unquote daily practice. There could be a lot of things that come up while you're doing this, that stop you in your tracks or keep you from enjoying your process. We're just distracting you in general when we show up in a white piece of paper. It could be kind of scary for some people. Some people. It's just an invitation to splash stuff around. But for some of us, me included, it's Ah, place of fear. It's a place of I. I don't know what's gonna happen here. I'm afraid that whatever is going to come out, it's gonna be a mess, or I don't know what direction to go. And the nature of creativity itself is a movement of a mystery. We don't really know what is going to come as we move forward now. Granted, we could trace something, but in this class I would encourage you not to have all those rules set up in advance. We're playing with what comes in the moment, were following our inspiration, and this doesn't have to be a scary place. We can have scary thoughts about it and not pay attention to those thoughts. And as we move forward with those unknowns, we can start to see that whatever we're creating here says nothing about who we are. We are playing with the tools at hand, and the less we have heaviness around that and expectations around that, the more fun we're gonna have and the sooner will get to noticing are unique. Hand are unique style as we're creating. Okay, there are many ways that fear shows up anywhere from the inner critic, the perfectionist, the I'm too busy. The the old creative block hating everything you do is a biggie, the way I've gotten better with us, hating everything I do thing is I see quote unquote failure as a learning, not failure, this perfectionism stuff. This ties right in there with the inner critic and blocks and painting or working everything. It's this need to have everything be just right, and in my experience, and I've had a lot of experience with perfectionism. This is pointing back to my identifying with my artwork. I think that what I do says something about me. I think that what I do is me. And if I do something crappy that somehow that makes me less of a person less of an artist . So perfectionism is a misunderstanding. Our perfection doesn't come from our artwork. Our perfection is our innate well being are nay, creativity and nothing we do impacts that in any way. There's also the imposter syndrome thing. And this just happened to me and still does occasionally when we think that whatever we just did that we think is amazing was, ah, fluke. But somehow it just happened and we didn't have anything to do with it or Oh, my gosh, I could never make that happen again. These are the voices that go off in our head that try to underplay everything that's coming through us. These are the voices that can't take a compliment. We're gonna be throughout this course playing with that stuff as it comes up. And the last thing I want to talk about was not having enough time. Okay, - okay . - I've intentionally been reiterating that five minutes is enough time. The point of this class and the point of daily creating is to get into action and to start moving, and as we move, we start to get a familiarity with the media that we're using as well a start to see how our unique voice and style show up. So we're gonna move on now to playing with different media, and I'll see in the next video. 4. Just Begin: There's one more thing I want you to pay attention to during this class and beyond. And that is inspiration and curiosity noticing inspiration when it happens, noticing. When you're curious about something, these air both great indicators of what is unique to you. What is part of your vocabulary? What is resonating with you? So I'm gonna talk a little bit about that in this video and let's get started. So part of this exploration will be about looking at inspiration, whether that's in nature, whether it's other artists, whether it's drawing what you see on your table, whether it's drawing from a photo, whatever it is that is speaking to you, it's giving you a sense of quickening. It's a sense of inspiration. Those things are really important to getting clearer about what your style is, what your voices, because that is unique to you as well. What inspires you points at that uniqueness. So when I first got out of school, I was really focused on doing realistic artwork. But there was something amiss. I spent tons of hours trying to render things just like I saw them, and I didn't really feel like it was me I felt like I was copying photographs. I felt like I was not knowing my own voice. I was trying to represent something else that I was seeing. And then as time went on, I started to notice that the most joy ever had waas when I just cut loose when I started playing with things without a lot on it when I started just throwing paint around or drawing haphazardly. And this is something I really want you guys to pay attention to. It could be that you love to draw. Realistically, it could be that you want to represent something that you see. This is all fantastic and that gives you an indication of what speaks to you. For me. I love the looser, more free way of working, and I suggest trying Bolt, just pay attention. What is inspiring to me? What am I curious about? What catches my eye? What gives me that sense of wanting to move forward? So what we're wanting to do is just really play with what is jumping out for us. What is moving us forward. I encourage you to look at a lot of artwork from other artists and illustrators and creative people. And it's not for the purpose of copying what you see. It's all informing you about what your aesthetic is, what your inner may be hidden self is interested in. So go ahead and do a lot of research. But pay attention while you're researching and take the opportunities where you feel inspired to stop and do something. This is really important for me. It was the thing that made all the difference in my life with my creativity. I used to research hours and hours, days, weeks, months and oftentimes, without producing anything in the way I look at this is it's like breathing when you're researching and you're taking this in your having all this inspiration you're breathing in . And if you don't breathe out, create something, you just exhaust yourself. I really recommend that you move with that inspiration when it comes, no matter what it is. And I realized that the other inspiration isn't going anywhere. I used to think I was gonna miss the best inspiration, and so I passed by all this stuff, thinking I'll come back to it, and that never worked for me. The other thing to keep in mind when you're creating daily is to let go of that outcome. We're not trying to get somewhere particular. This is an exploration, a discovery process. And if we have an idea about where we're trying to get to, that kind of takes the whole point of discovery out of it. That doesn't mean you may not be painting a cat or drawing a cat. But as you move towards that, we're letting go of the ultimate outcome. Were exploring the mystery. Noticed that when you're painting, even if you have an idea of what you're painting, like for me a cat, I never know exactly how that brush is gonna flow. I never know exactly where that is gonna go. Sometimes I'll use a little sketch as a placeholder to see where everything's gonna sit, but for the most part, and letting that surface that painting form the next step. So the painting itself starts to inspire me, and that's where you start to really see your unique voice show up. I want to say a little bit about what's copying and what's inspiration. At some point, we're not looking at any research where looking at what's happening, we're looking at what's coming out of us, and we're moving with that. You know, ultimately, if you've been staring at somebody else's work and you're following it really closely, that can get you into a little bit of a pickle. Because if that work is recognizable, then that might be getting a little bit close to be sharing a work as if it's uniquely yours, it's best to let go of the research and put it aside and look at various things, lots of different artists, lots of different things in nature or animals and quickly let go of it all and start focusing in on what it is that's being created on the page in front of you and how that's informing your next move. So I want you guys to keep sharing what you're creating in the next section will start playing, withdrawing 5. Exploring Drawing: okay in this section, we're going to start exploring, drawing. And as I said before, there's all kinds of materials that you could buy, and you can also use what's on hand. I'm going to be using my larger 11 by 14 paper to do this. It doesn't matter what it is we're doing right now. We're playing with pencils, pens, paint brushes and ink. So what you draw within what you draw is up to you. So I went and got my handy dandy apron because I plan to use a little pen in ink. But in this video, I am gonna play with all kinds of different mediums. So what, We're all ready to go? I'm going to start with a regular mechanical type pencil with fairly soft lead in it, And I'm just gonna play with making lines. Now, I have drawn a ton of cats in my day, so don't be thinking you have to draw things that you know what it looks like. Feel free to look at inspiration and see what inspires you. And, like a said before, move with whatever it is that jumps out at you, I thought it would be good for me to start with cats because I draw cats a lot and I warming up here. So there you go. I already have a little inner critic coming up saying that I is bigger than that. I and I'm just gonna ignore that. I don't care. I'm just gonna leave it where it is. Thank you for sharing and continue back with what I'm doing there. We had some pencil. Here's a broader side pencil. And again, I'm not trying to control this so much as I am seeing what happens. You might decide to do this exercise, choosing one subject and exploring several different techniques and media. Or you may decide to do all kinds of different media and subjects. Whatever you decide is perfectly fine. You might want to use your sight of your pencil to do a little shading. This may be getting into something different than than drawing, but shading is part of drawing as well and a little pen inning. This is a great example of how the inner critic just pops up and starts having a heyday thes air. Not going like my thinking thinks they should. And I am noticing that and I'm going to continue creating here. The point is not to have a completely open mind because we can't really control what thoughts come into our head. The point is to notice that they go by. They don't stay around and keep playing with what's in front of us. They'll quiet down as we pay attention to what we're doing, and we don't have to give them any kind of extra thought. I'm gonna use a spray bottle now and wet the paper so that I can work some watercolor pencils. And I like to work on wet paper with watercolor pencils cause the quality of the pencil feels pretty cool. I love the way it kind of glides on with water, So I'm going to give this painting a little spray and play with the watercolor pencils. I used the Prisma color watercolor pencils there, probably one of the more expensive brands you could use any brand of pencil. Once again, it doesn't matter. Here we're just playing and getting used to seeing what are Hand comes up with these watercolor pencils working into wet, that kind of start bleeding, which I think is really cool. It's all these little things that are out of control. That really interests me. It gets me out of it, my training out of it and just lets this thing unfold. And I get to be excited while it's happening. Sometimes it gets a little puddle. Lee and I go back in with a tissue and pick up some of water experimenting. My catches bled all over the place. And how interesting is that? That will be something I can use in a lot of different things I'm making. And it's just an explosion of mystery, of creativity happening and it's totally out of my control. Ah, factor. I find very curious with what I dio. I love that, and I encourage you to give it a try. It doesn't mean it's where you'll stay with this, but it may be something that interests you. So check that out for yourself, okay? And finally, I'm going to come back in with a little line work on such with the paintbrush. Some of this page is wet still, so that'll be interesting. I don't know what's gonna happen, and let's go ahead and give it a try. And this is what you call working with Penn Line over wet surface, and it's just so crazy the way this works. I've noticed about myself and my unique voice. I really enjoy making interactions and stories with what I create. So oftentimes birds will show up or another animal or they'll be eye contact between two animals and I'm doing it might be partly because I have done a lot of greeting cards in my life, so it feels like a natural inclination for me. I also remember enjoying this when I was a kid, to have the characters interacting with each other. So just something to keep in mind. These are the kinds of things we can notice about ourselves and what speaks to us and what inspires us. So I'm working back in on top of the water color here with some line work, and it's very messy again. I love that so noticing. These are the things that speak to me. These are the things that light me up. And what is that for you? What really makes you come alive? What feels like it's an invitation to you, adding watercolor back onto graphite here and it's behaving in really strange ways and That's another discovery, so I'm intentionally not being concerned with how messy this is. I'm wanting to demonstrate that messiness may be part of your style. There's nothing to say that this isn't a perfect example and natural way for you to work. I'll tell you when I'm looking at this, all of these are interesting to me. I'm going to keep exploring this. So there's all kinds of stuff here. I can use the starting points and other things to play with, and I'm pretty excited about trying more things around this. So I'm gonna go ahead and share this in the project section, and I look forward to seeing what you create. It obviously doesn't have to be cats. Whatever moves you on the list or not on the list, you could just draw lines. You can draw circles. You could draw scribbles. There is no rule onto what you create. We're trying to get more clear about what our hand is like. What are unique style. It is like what? Our voices. I look forward to seeing your work in the project section, and next up will be talking about painting 6. Exploring Painting: Okay, next up, I'm gonna be playing with watercolor. It could be that some other things will sneak in here like penning because I tend to do my details with more of a drawing style. So the thing that stuck out for me on the prompts list was orange and I have mixed up a little bit orange on my palette, and I'm gonna play with that along with black and white. Might come in with some white pins and talk a little bit about how to keep the white pin flowing and usable. So I'm gonna play with orange, maybe play with I don't know what I'm gonna do. Let's just see what happens. Started to be a cat. I'm trying to do just blobby shape and I have in mind doing some portrait's, but not anything in particular seeing what happens again like I do. And I'm mushing the pain around. I'm not, You know, it's it's really loose. And and I love that. And once again, how informing that is for me to see that I'm gonna let these run together because that's another mystery. And I never really know what I'm gonna get. Did you see that I had a little extra line there and I just went with it, because why not? It just formed the shape of his face different than I probably would have. And that's the joy of experimenting and not caring where things go. I'm just letting these paints mixed together and make mud. Mud to me is another wonderful color, and I'm happy to play with it when it shows up. Thank you. I use Payne's gray from my black. Mostly Payne's gray gives you a much deeper, almost darker than black because there's a mixture of colors in there. So there's It's not just flat black, and I'm using that with cadmium orange, which I don't recommend for animal owners cause Cagney and can be toxic Good. I keep my cats out of my paint. Also use scarlet, lake and yellowed mixed together to make oranges. At times, anything goes like everything else. I show you here, and what I know to do next is put on the magical glasses. Sometimes I draw my eyes and things with a pen. Today I'm going to do it with a paintbrush, and I want this to be very dark. Today. I'm having a little bit of shakiness with my hand because I had a bunch of coffee this morning and that can create a little shakiness. But I don't mind the shakiness. It's part of the personality of the painting. When I'm doing features on animals or people, I try to vary the shapes and who keep it interesting and not repetitive. Okay, sometimes things get away for me, and I just go with them. - A hair dryer, my best friend. One of things. I do a lot when watercolor painting. When I get too much puddling, I will take my brush, dry it out and display it out like this, and then go back into the painting and dad this into the puddle and it'll suck up the paint . I like to work with patterns and I love to put details back into the work as I go something I noticed over time and is ever changing. Okay, I'm gonna use this white pin. Now this mullah tell white acrylic marker and what I use with this I have marked it with one millimeter so that I can see which one I'm using. And I also have standing by a piece of paper that's dark enough that I can use it to test the line and to clean the pen and all that. So I'm gonna show you that now this pen is about to run out, so we'll see. That might happen while I'm demonstrating this, I store these pens after they've been opened and got the acrylic moving. I use the pen that I store it with the top up, so I don't have ain't settling into that end of the pen and then go directly to my piece of paper and I'm gonna show you this on this painting by, well, press town. It's like you're pumping the pen a little bit and oftentimes what happens? As you can see over here, you'll get a flood of acrylic paint that comes out right now this particular one is almost empty. So I'm not getting that. But I do notice that there's a lobby nous to the bottom of it. So I'm gonna kind of run this along the edge of that to clean it off, see how it's flowing. I can see it's starting to build up now. I don't want it to blob out on my work, so gonna clean it off a little bit, and I think it's ready to use. Okay, I keep going back to this piece of paper and pumping it. They're not anywhere close to my painting and making sure it's running before I go back to the work, varying my line work to keep it more interesting. This is just something I found as a value to me. You could see where this mud waas. As you start adding back in, it just gives you more color variation. So I finished up with a white pen for now and what I do now with this pin to make it ready for next time. And oftentimes, what happens if you don't do this? The cap will stick when you try to pull it off, and you almost need a pair of pliers. So what I do is I take a piece of tissue or cloth or whatever, and I clean this off. I get it is clean. It's possible most of the paint off the little tip there and then to be extra sure that I won't have a sticking cap is I water up the paper and stick it into the cap and clean it out in there. Just a few tips on this white pin. This is my all time favorite white pin. So it's worth all the hassle to keep it running correctly. Heading to my staff were now permanent looming color pen. I'm gonna use that for a few more details. I have more voices going off about how much I hate things that are going on here, and I know they're just gonna pass by and I just keep creating. I really think this is of such value to us as artists, thes voices, that pop of these perfectionistic tendencies. These inner critics are not any of our business. Not only are they not true, they say nothing about us, so don't pay him any attention and keep playing with your heart. I always sign my work. I think this is a really good idea to do this particular. If you're gonna be uploading it to any kind of social media or any platform on the Internet , it helps people to identify who the artist is and show that the work does belong to you. And if people want to get a hold of you, they have a better chance of doing that if there's a name on your work so highly recommended. Okay, this stun and it's my playing with paint for the day. And I am gonna upload this to the projects, and I highly encourage you to upload yours as well. And in our next video, we're going to talk about collage and mixed media. 7. Exploring Mixed Media: Okay, We're going to be moving now to cut paper, washi tape, collage, watercolor, all the stuff to do. Mixed media if you want, you could take some of your daily creating time to play with a bunch of patterns and blobs and textures and stuff like that on random paper and use those papers for your collage ing and mixed media on Die again. Don't know what I'm gonna do yet. I'm gonna look at this little list and see what jumps out at me. Okay, so what just jumped out at me is bunnies and dresses. That's what I've got in my head right now. We'll see where it goes, cause as I have said before, what we're wanting to do is pay attention. We might start with an idea, but as we go along, it might morph and might go in a different direction. And this is all really cool towards helping us to discover our unique voice are unique style. So I'm gonna be using the same paper, and I'm gonna grand. My little collage papers got my handy dandy Jane Eyre worn out old paperback. I think I'm gonna play with a more monochromatic palette. on this one. So I'm grabbing papers. That air sort of in the same color feel I kind of like a more natural palette right now. Stand C if that's where it stays. I'm not gonna pull too many for this demo, but you can add in as much as you want. I have a tendency to enjoy or be attracted to work or inspired by work that it's more monochromatic or simple in its color palettes. That kind of goes along with my other interest, which is to keep things loose and spontaneous for variation. I'm also gonna add in a little washi tape. I did a whole 100 a project on washi tape and you can find that on Instagram 100 Days of Washington and I might add to those or it may not use them all. We'll see. So I'm going to start with the collage pieces. This is not how you have to start. You could start with the bunny and add collaged onto those today. I'm going to start with the closure and work from there. The glue I use right now is Elmer's craft bond extra strength. It's acid free and supposed to have a better bond, more permanent. A link to this in my resource. Isas. Well, the way I use these glue sticks is I get a piece of paper and turn the peace over and glue on top of the paper so that I'm not getting glue anywhere else. And then I stick it down, get him stuck down. Really? Well, sometimes I'll take a piece of clean paper and furnish. Um, there s a good start on that. I still have these washy tapes. I might go ahead and put a little bit of washi tape on here. I stick the washi tape down, and then I come back in with an Exacto knife and the pressure used with this Exacto knife will come with practice. You may not want to practice on the piece you're working on. You don't want to press down so hard that you go all the way through the paper. All you're trying to do is cut the washing tapes. Clear away the part you don't want glass is required. I'm going to start with my watercolor now. Sometimes I will do line work from here today. I'm gonna do watercolor and we'll see where it goes. So I'm extremely sloppy. You don't have to be this soppy if that's not something that you enjoy. You got that inner critic going off saying that I shouldn't be this sloppy After all, I'm videotaping here, and I'm just ignoring that and going ahead with what I'm doing. I don't know about you guys, but I have a lot of cat hair show up in my work. And when you're working in watercolor, there's a point at which you can kind of go back in with the brush and pick the hair up. But most the time I just let it dry and then sweep the hair off. And if it makes a mark, Okay, that's part of the artwork. I would rather be able to work with the kitties in here than to be working alone back with a white man example of thing pin flopping out so I'm running it or along the edge, keeping it clean. Sometimes I'll come back on top of the white when I want to make sure it stands out. I want to make sure this white gets fully dry before you work back in with the black anywhere near the eyes, so I'm not gonna mess with that yet. I'm gonna work on the other features. This looks like a frumpy mom and two daughters to me, so that's kind of fun. - So as I'm going along here, I'm kind of noodling around and seeing where it's going. I kind of love to have boots on characters. So I'm making these shoes a little bit more boot. Like I'm going to come in with water calorie felt tip pin. More mixed media out for you. Uh, these air just Crayola felt tip markers for kids. I'm gonna use this for the cheeks. - Okay ? I'm gonna call this done, and you can see there's a lot of possibilities with mixed media. What I notice about my voice about my style is once again, I'm bringing in kind of a little bit of storytelling here. We've got a bunny that kind of looks like a mom money and then to daughter bunnies that are a little bit more hip and they're going out for a day of shopping or going to pick flowers . I'm not sure what they're doing. I just noticed in my work that I love to evoke a feeling of joy, A feeling of sweetness or beauty or something on a more whimsical, cute flair. And you may find things like this showing up for you in your work to what are you attracted to? What makes you smile? What inspires you? These are the things we're looking at while we're taking this course while we're doing our daily creating. And I have a lot of fun working like this. I didn't want to talk to you a little bit about how to tell when something's done, and I'll do that in the next video. 8. When is it Done?: in this video, I want to talk about how to tell when your work is done to start with. I think this is something that comes over time, something that starts to happen as you keep doing your daily creating. You start to get a feel for it, basically a sense of knowing that it doesn't need more added. For me, it's come after a lot of creating years of going way too far. Some people can get when they're done a lot quicker than others. I was a slow learner in this area, and now I sometimes will stop before I feel like it's done. And that's okay, too. I also overdo it quite often, and that's always a learning experience. So whether your work is done, or whether you pick the right time to stop or not, is not as important with this class as just getting started in acting, not letting fear, thoughts and distractions stop you. There are ways to move with this uncertainty around, and something is done or not. There's a feeling over time over a lot of creating that you start to get when something just seems done, and it's not necessarily something I feel like can be taught. Also, if you're uncertain about that at the stage, you're at with your creativity. You don't want to go further right now because you feel like that might ruin something. You can always walk away from your art for a while and come back with fresh eyes. That can really help you to determine whether or not something else some little thing might help. So that's another little trick. Another thing that's fun to try is to work on multiple images at the same time I've done that in the past. With these paintings, you can do that with your daily creating to You could have several different sketchbooks open and be playing on several different things at the same time. Spending just a little time in each one and jumping around this can help you to experiment more and not take the one you're working on so seriously, whatever you can do to bypass that critical thinking, that idea that something has a look a certain way that is something to really pay attention to and to move forward with. There's also this thing where you find out as you're working, that you've gone too far. This just happens to all of us, And this used to really devastate me when this happened. I used to get really almost like I don't want to create any more when this would happen or I should know better and now I just kind of see it as wow, Okay, I learned something there. Each time that happens, it's honing my ability to determine naturally when something's done and it all informs our work. So no problem with going too far, and we don't have to take it personally because it isn't personal and keep moving along with our work. The last thing I want to talk about here waas if you go too far or if something doesn't go quite right, there's always the computer, and I highly recommend having photo shop or some other kind of program like procreate, where you can scan your work in or take a picture of it and bring it into those programs and play with it. They're often times what I'll do if I really blundered around or there's one part of the illustration that's better than the other, or I like it more. I'll share a portion of it or I'll change things up a bit in photo shop appropriate. This does not count necessarily for us here in this project. Because we're not that concerned with the final look of what we're posting since we're playing daily. If you do want to take the time to clean your work up, by all means do that. But if you're one of those people who doesn't have a lot of time, take that five minutes to create something and come back later when you can and post it to the projects and let us know what you're learning about your own style. What intrigues you, what you love and post that under your images. 9. Bonus Procreate Demo: This is a little bonus video about procreate, and I intend to do more on procreate in upcoming classes. In the meantime, you can find all kinds of amazing classes here on skill share on procreate. I've learned a lot from other teachers here on skill share, about procreate, about creating gifts about all kinds of stuff. So I'm a seasoned user appropriate. But I always am amazed at the wonderful tools that are on there that I've never even used. So look out for me, sharing more on skill share about procreate. In the meantime, I want to share a time lapse video with you where I really was scribbling around. So I did have an idea I was working with when I started this piece and it was the prompt fireflies. So that's what I had in the back of my mind when I started in on this piece on procreate. So I'm gonna share with you the time lapse video on this particular day when I was creating . So the main thing I wanted to get across here was sort of a night scene, and I didn't really haven't layout or anything like that. I knew there was gonna be animals and stuff, but I don't know. I just was scribbling around, scribbling and kind of seeing where the whole thing was taking me. There was a cat there, but it disappeared. And I knew I wanted this village in the front and I just kept building. I changed the colors on things and just kept modifying until it felt right to me adding for and moving things around some more the whole time I'm doing this, I'm I'm really not thinking about her whole lot. I'm letting it kind of evolved, and I've never done fireflies before. So this was a fun experiment, and I wanted to get a little depth in there, too. So I just kept working back and forth and putting more glow on the fireflies until it felt done. Okay, so I hope you enjoyed that little time last video and found it fun inspiring. And maybe you have procreate and you know how to use it. Maybe you wanna create a class for skill share some time. I highly recommend it. They're always looking out for new teachers, even of subjects that have already been done because we each have our unique style are unique voice with how we teach as well. I may talk more about this in a future class about how to share on video, and we'll see if that happens. It's just a thought in the back of my mind. So let's move on to the next video. 10. Final Thoughts: all right, so we've gotten through this class and we kick started our daily creating routine and we're going to continue for 30 days, hopefully longer creating daily and exploring what our style is. Discovering the nuances, discovering what we love and sharing those with the group here. We've talked a lot about just beginning. Go ahead and start. That's a key point of this class that we want to keep moving. We want to keep creating, even in the shortest amount of time or the whole day. If that works for you, what's important is to act and then to pay attention and see what comes forward for you. See what happens in that mystery. Remember to post your work in the project section. I'll be keeping an eye out there for what's coming in, and I will be celebrating your creativity with you. I would also love it if you commented about what you're learning about your style and your creative voice. Remember that after 30 days, this glass really isn't over. This is kind of a lifestyle thing to explore and play with our art, and I hope that you continue on and you can keep posting here. I also have a daily creating group on Facebook that you're welcome to join we post daily there or most days. Like I said, there's no hard and fast rules. Check it out. I got a link below. If you're on instagram and want to share your work there, please tag it with discovering your style. So I'll know where to find it on Instagram, And you could also tag it with daily creating, which is what we use in the daily creating group. As you go along with this process, there is not a destination of the style. What happens with this? What I've found happens with this is there's a continued curiosity and exploration that happens. There is something underneath. This process that is essentially you is essentially your voice, your uniqueness. It's what keeps showing up while you're creating. No matter what media you use, it is your hand. It's part of your signature. No, that how your work looks evolves over time. But your unique voice is always there at the center and play with all kinds of stuff. I'd love for you guys to review this glass. This really helps me to know whether What I'm talking about is hitting for you. Whether or not there's something more, I could add what your interest are in future classes. I love skill share, and I will be doing more classes here. I have a list of things I want to talk about in different classes, so please follow me here on skill share and you'll be notified when my classes are available. I really hope you've enjoyed this class and that this will help you to keep creating in your life. Please don't hesitate to come back to it. If your inspiration seems to be withering, you can always come back here for a little boost of creativity and share what insights and discoveries you are making with your work. So thank you so much for joining me in this class. It's been a wonderful adventure, and I really look forward to seeing what you guys are working on and seeing what you're discovering about your unique style and not only connecting with you here in this class and in the project, but also in upcoming skill share classes have a wonderful day and happy creating