Everyday Magic - Inspired Art Journaling for Everyone

1. Everyday Magic Introduction: welcome to everyday magic inspired journaling for everyone. Have you ever wanted to create in a journal or sketchbook but felt intimidated by the blank sheet staring back at you? I know I have. Maybe you struggled to find inspiration, or you're not sure which are techniques to use to best express yourself through my own experiences as an artist, I can tell you that I've suffered from lack of inspiration and fear of the blank page. Onley, after realizing that my enthusiasm for creating comes from within myself as opposed to outer influences, was finally able to let go worrying about whether I had a style or how a stacked up against other artists. I knew that in order to express myself as authentically as I could, I had to look within my own life. I discovered that the magic resided in the small, everyday things that brought me joy in this class will talk about how magic truly surrounds us in our everyday lives and how to tap into it to create inspired work. We'll do a writing exercise together that will help you shift into a state of gratitude and help you to find the magic in the mundane. I'll teach you how to make your own custom journal and how to fill it with fun exercises that you can apply toe any subject. I'll provide you with the list of several art prompts for future use, and you can follow along as I demonstrate four of these prompts in my own journal. By using the techniques in this class, you'll never have to feel intimidated by a blank page. Again, you'll be able to tune into the magic that surrounds you on a daily basis, which in turn will provide you with an endless supply of inspiration for your own journal. So settle in and let's get started. 2. Demo Supplies: So here are the supplies that I'll be using for the prompts. I'll be using an assortment of ink. I have some Bombay, India ink. I have some metallic ink. I also have these fund ink pens from Jane Davenport. There they're called mermaid markers, and they're really fun. They have a nice brush tip that you can paint with, and they come in some really vibrant colors. There are some that even have, Ah, little sparkles in it, too, which is a lot of fun. I also have some acrylic paint you see here I have really inexpensive white paint off the using that one of the demos, and I have some craft paint. This is a lamp black, and you can pick any black that you would like. It's better if you have a paint. I believe Americana dries fairly. Matt. It's a little bit easier to apply other media on top of a matte surface. I also have some brushes. I have a round brush and a flat brush. You can use whatever you'd like. I have a variety of sizes, depending on what you want to paint that will determine the size of the brush that you use . I also will be using a Joe Penn. This is a unit ball signal White Joe Penn, and I'll probably be using this Sharpie white paint pen. We'll see. I'm not sure yet. Just something in white that will go over a dark surface. I also have a white charcoal pencil thes air great toe have on hand, because if you're making a mixed media piece and you have a dark background, you want to sketch something on top. This will help you see what you're doing, and you can kind of brush it away with your hand or taking a racer and race it out if you don't like it. So this is always a good option. Tohave. I also have some meat pens here. These are all waterproof thes two are Tom Bow. These are great for lettering. They have one has a kind of a bullet tip. It's kind of flexible. The other one's a little bit more flexible. Like I said, they're great for lettering. They're waterproof. Then I have micron pens in a variety of sizes. These air nice because they're also waterproof. And then I have this one that's great for sketching because it has such a fine tip. This is also waterproof. This is a carbon ink platinum on. I believe I ordered this one on Amazon, but even if you don't have pens that are waterproof, you can get some really great effects by laying Down Inc and then going over it with water . And I also have a pencil here just for sketching the rest of the supplies here. The watercolor I will be using in the demo. But I have colored pencils and I have Kranz, and I just want you to know and understand that you don't have to go out and buy expensive art supplies for this class. It's really about having fun and getting your ideas on paper and being able to express yourself without any inhibition. So we'll move on to the next video, where we're going to talk about the supplies that you'll need for making your journal. 3. Journal Supplies: next up, we're going to talk about what supplies you're going to need if you plan on making your own journal. So the first thing that you need will be the paper that goes inside the journal. I'm gonna recommend a watercolor paper £140 at least. And the reason that I recommend that is that if you want to play around with different types of media, then you don't have to worry about whether or not it's going to bleed through. Or if the paper's gonna buckle with £140 watercolor paper, you know that you'll be just fine. No matter what you use. I like to use hot press paper because of the smooth surface. If I plan on using an ink pen, especially one with a finer neb than I know, it will glide across the paper and not skip along across a texture surface like cold press paper. The next thing that you'll need are your front and back covers, which will be cardboard. This is chipboard that I have. I use this as a back or when I send out my prints and it's kind of thin. It's not super thick. It's durable enough to use as a front and back cover. You don't have to go by chipboard at all. You can actually use the cardboard that comes on the back of your pad will be using eight sheets of watercolor paper so you can always pull out the rest of them and store them in a folder and use your cardboard on the back of the pad. Just cut it in half and you have a front and back cover, so that's easy. That's a nice little cheat. The next thing that you'll need is a cutting mat and something to cut with, Ah, utility knife or a craft knife. Just make sure that it's sharp and you also need an all This isn't really in. All this is more of an embossing kind of a tool I can get away with using something like this. It doesn't even have a sharp tip. It has a really blunt end, but I can get away with using this because my chipboard is so thin. If you plan on using the back of your watercolor pad, I would recommend purchasing an actual all with a wooden handle and a nice, sharp tip on the end. That way you get a nice clean hole. You're also going to need some binders, needles and some binding thread. Now I will say the binding thread that I have It's left over from a class, as is the needles you can use regular sewing needles. Just be mindful that a sewing needle has a sharper tip. These air a little bit more blunt. Make sure that you have a nice sized opening for the I, and that there kind of comparable in size. The blunt tip is supposed to prevent snagging, and these are about two and 1/4 inch long. So if you have us like I said, if you have a song needle that's comparable, I don't see why you need to go out and buy a binders. Needle the binders thread. I will say This is waxed. This is waxed thread, and it's fairly thin now. I wanted to try an experiment when I bound my last journal. I used some beating cord that I have, and I knew by looking at it that it was too thick. But I really liked the variegated colors that it came in so What I did is I pulled this apart and I pulled out two strands, and that's what I used. It was a little bit more difficult to work with simply because it's not waxed and it has a tendency to get tangled. But I think that you can pretty much use whatever type of thread that you want. You just have to be patient when you're working with it and try not to get frustrated. Uh, if you want a decorative cover than you'll need to purchase some paper, you can use hand made paper. This is scrapbooking paper that I plan on using. You'll see me use this in the demo as well as some end papers. This goes on the inside to cover up the folds so you can use pretty much anything that you want. In fact, this journal is made from a fat quarter that I had. This is fabric and the inside. I didn't have any paper that really kind of went with this fabric. So he took some watercolor paper and made just kind of an abstract background for the front and for the back end papers. Otherwise, you could buy some inexpensive scrapbooking paper. You'll also need some sort of a brush. I use thes phone brushes because they're inexpensive. I can get a whole bag at the dollar store, and I'll be using this for applying glue. And when I'm done, then I don't have to worry about it ruining any of my brushes. I can just toss it. So here are the different types of glue. This tacky glue is readily available pretty much at any craft store that you find. There's also PV, a glue, which is acid free, and this is also left over from one of my classes and it dries clear and it's flexible and it is recommended for journal making bookmaking. If you plan on making several journals, it might be worth going out and getting some of this. I've also been using Matt Medium and Matt Joe. I used the mat gel to adhere the fabric to the front of my cardboard, and then I laid books on top of it so that it would dry flat and it worked beautifully. So anything that you have on hand that is in the way of a craft glue you could probably use to get your paper on your front cover. If you want to leave your cardboard surface, that's fine, too. It would look pretty cool with some doodling on the front or maybe some decorative painting . So those were the supplies that you'll be needing to make your very own journal. I'll have a list of all of these supplies in the community section, the download section, and if you've got any questions, feel free to ask, and next up will be making our journal. 4. Making Your Journal: the first step of making our journal will be folding our paper in half for the pages. I do want to mention that watercolor paper has two surfaces. Two sides. There's a front and there's a back, and the surface on the back is a little bit different. It's not quite as textured. We're using hot cross paper, so they're both relatively smooth and the backsides not going to prevent me from a painting on it or writing on it or anything like that. But I do kind of like to remember which side I am folding which way. So I plan on folding mine this way so that the water color surfaces on the outside will be folding eight sheets and I have mine all folded here. I do want to mention that I forgot to tell you that you might need a bone folder. Watercolor paper is if it tough as faras making a nice fold. I don't have a bone folder, so I have been using the wooden end of my foam brush, and that seems to work. OK, so what you're going to do is fold each of your pieces of paper in half this way and when you have two sheets, you'll stick one inside the other, and that's called a signature. When you're finished, you should have four signatures. I'm only putting two sheets of paper per signature because four sheets is just it's too difficult to work with with watercolor paper. If you're planning on just making a journal that you sketch in, let's say in the future you can use nothing but drawing paper, and you can fold four sheets per signature and make an even thicker journal. So I already have mine all folded. And the next step would be to cut your cardboard. If you're using the back of your pad, then all you need to do is cut this in half. I'm gonna go ahead and cut my chipboard. We're gonna go ahead. Since we have our cutting stuff out, I'm gonna go ahead and cut my paper. So think about which papers you plan on using for your end papers. Those will be cut the same size as your front and back cover. It's gonna fit right on the inside right here. So usually what I like to do is just kind of I'm probably do this just right in the middle . You can take a pencil and just traits around. So you have some sort of a guide, Do the same thing with your other end paper. I think I'm just gonna do this right over in the corner and make it a little bit easier on myself now for your front and that covers. You don't want to cut it exactly the same size as the cover because what we're going do, we're gonna leave about an inch on either side because those were gonna be folding over. So make sure that when you cut your front and back covers that you're leaving about an inch around the sides. So I'll be cutting my paper and we'll come back and we'll start punching holes. The next thing we're gonna dio is glue the paper to our front and back covers. Now, what I have here is a piece of palate paper. This is for laying out paint. It comes in a pad, it's basically wax paper. And I just plan on doing my gluing on this and saving my cutting board, uh, the misery of of having glue all over it. So a piece of paper will work fine. I'm just using it to protect my cutting board. So the first thing that we're gonna do is apply the glue to the front of the cardboard, and then what I'll do is lay that down onto my paper on the reverse side. So we have my phone brush and I plan on using my Matt gel, and I'm using it because I like it. So feel free to use whatever you want. A thin layer is is better than a big, thick globs. Later, make sure that you get the corners really well. Now we'll move on to making the holes in our signatures. So what you'll need is the signatures that you folded and made, and you'll need your ruler and you'll need a pencil and you'll need your Oh, and what I find works really well is the actual needle that we're gonna be using. That's what I usually punch the holes in the paper with. So what? I like to dio Let's take one of my signatures and all measure and find about the halfway mark, which is 4.5 inches, because I'm using a nine inch long piece of paper and then go ahead and mark at 4.5 inches , right on the spine. And I do an inch out from my center mark so we'll do 5.5. It's an inch and then I'll do an inch on this side and then I'll do another inch from this mark on an inch and I'll do one more on either side. Okay, so I have three on either side of my center Mark. When I will probably do is just do these three on either side. I won't actually make a hole where the center is to take your signature, and you're going to lay it on top of your other pieces of paper and make sure that they're lined up nicely. You can also use some binders, clips if you want toe. Hold this down while you do. This part makes it a little bit easier. You don't have to. You can just kind of squish him together with your hand. That'll work, too. So you're going to take your ruler or some sort of a straight edge and hold it against the mark that you made and you're gonna run your pencil down because you want the holes to line up so that your signatures are straight and you'll do this along all of the marks that you made. So there you have pencil marks on every signature and you'll know where to poke the holes. So now what I'm going to do is open up my signature like this, and I'll be poking the holes. You can use your all, uh and you're cutting your cutting mat. Like I said, my old doesn't have a super sharp point, so I'm gonna use the needle. Just be very careful if you plan on using the needle. And the reason for that is ah, you don't You don't want to jam this under a finger. Now, if you're afraid of that, then use a thimble or definitely using all something else. You don't want to punch from the inside out because thes little puffs of paper that it makes when you're making the actual hole, you want those to be on the inside, so go ahead and do the holes for all of your signatures. Now that our paper is try, the next thing that we're going to dio is cut the use at an angle so that we create tabs that we fold over and glued to the cardboard. Now we're gonna glue on the end papers, and that will help hold some of thes down as well. Now, for my pieces, you'll notice that my, um, you'll notice that the chipboard is kind of buckling, and it's because it's so thin. So what I'll do is I'll put this under another stack of books and let it flatten out while it's drying. I'm also making sure that the corners air pinned down and just putting a little bit more glue so my front that cover are done. Once this is dry, then we can go ahead and we'll line up the signature holes that we punched in. Our paper will punch those holes in our front and back cover, and then we can get sewing will be all finished. So now that our covers are finally dry and our end papers are on, what we can do now is punch holes through each of the front and back covers that match up with our signature. So what I'll do is I'll take the top signature and mark along the edge, actually, what I'm gonna do is flip that around because I'm gonna mark the front and I'm gonna push the all through the front, and the little puff of paper will be back in the back so that you won't be able to see that the holes are going to be maybe about 1/4 inch away from the edge of the book. Andi, if you're using a dark paper like I am, it's probably best to use something like a white pencil that you can see So mark where the holes will be and you notice Now I'm going along and making a little bit of a horizontal line, so that will be the front that will be the top. And for the back, we'll do the same. Okay, so now you probably haven't all that you're working with. I will be using this. It's fairly easy for me to punched through. This chipboard is not very thick, so I'll just line it up and kind of twist until it goes through. And that's what I'm talking about. Us faras the paper on the back side. You'd rather have that on the back side. Then you went on the front, so we'll do this all the way down on both the front and the back cover. Now we can begin the actual stitching of the book. And as I'm showing you how to do this, I'm gonna hold the book up on its end like this to show you so that you can see when you're doing this yourself. You actually probably want to have it just laying flat on the surface. It's a lot easier to deal with, and a lady's off to the side, and the next signature that I pick up toe add on will be This one will work this way and take it back to the top cover. So next do you want to get your needle? Okay? And your thread that and I usually we are going to double thread this. So what I do normally is about three times the length of the actual book. And since we're double threating, it'll actually be six times link. So you can just kind of roughly estimate it's not a big deal if you run out of thread. And if we do, we'll tie off and start a new thread. So now that you have your binders thread double threaded with a Not at the end. We're going to start sewing from the inside of the signature, so you'll start in the first hole and you'll start from the inside. You'll go through both pieces of paper. I'll hold this up so you can see what I'm doing. You'll pull this through. You're not, will be obviously on the inside. Now you're going to go up through the bottom of your cover. I'm going to start from the bottom and work your way up like this. And then what you'll do is you're going to loop around this ditch right here. You're going to go through. Sometimes you'll see me stick my needle underneath and go around, and it's just sometimes it's easier to do it that way, then to try and stick a long needle in. So we looped loop around like that, and then you're going. Take your needle and you're gonna go back through the very same signature hole that you started in, and you're going to repeat this all the way down until you get to the last hole and I'll show you what we'll do in the last hole to attach the next signature, so I'll show you this again in real time before I speed this video up. So start from the inside. Go out, go to the bottom of your book. Bottom of your cover. I should say, Loop around your stitch that you just made and you're gonna go back through the signature hole. And when you get to the last hole, make sure that you stop and I'll show you something a little bit different. It's not different. It's just how to attach the next signature show and repeat for the last signature hole. You'll do exactly the same thing and go from the inside through the bottom of the cover and back up, loop around. But instead of going back into this signature hole, you'll add the next signature and you'll go through this signature hole to attach it, and then you will continue. Go down into the next hole, make sure that this is nice and snugged up, and you don't have a long stitch like the, so you may have to go inside your book and kind of pull it so that it's smug. Pull your threat on this side. And now what Will Dio is instead of we're going to loop around the previous stitch, so we'll go down here again. And this is where it gets a little tricky to loop around because the needle is so long you may have to go into the signature back out that side and then back through the signature. My string is getting a little bit on the short side. So what I'll do now is I'll tie this off and I will start with some fresh thread. So all you need to do is go through one of your stitches like this, tie it off into a knot, get your scissors, stick this back under and then cut it. Now re thread this and I'll just start in my next stitch for the final signature and the cover, you're gonna go through the cover first, Daniel, loop around one time at the top. The stitch that you just made try and keep thes pulled tightly. This could be a little bit tricky and then back through the signature hole more go back down through the next hole. Now, for this stitch, you'll loop around the previous signature stitch through the cover through the top loop around the stitch that you just made at the very top. And then you're gonna go back through the signature hole and you'll continue to do this for the remaining holes. They get to the last hole. What did the same thing that we did when we changed our thread and you'll just slip through and making no it? Go back through the stitch and cut off your threat. And that is your journals all sewn together with a Coptic stitch. And the nice thing about this stitch is that when you are working in your journal, the pages play nice and flat, so you have. If you want to do a two page spread, the book lays nice and flat, and it's nice because it's something that you've made, and everything that goes in this journal walls would be something that you've made. So next up we'll get into the actual art prompts and some of the demos 5. Writing Exercise: So now that you have your beautiful journal created, we're going to talk a little bit about how we're going to utilize our journal and the different types of exercises we're going to do to get you into the Journal. So the first thing I wanted to talk about and this goes with the everyday magic idea we're going to do a writing exercise. You can choose to do it in a separate notebook, or you can choose to do it in your journal. What I plan on doing. I plan on making my own list, which I have here. And then I'll pick out a few of the things that I want to concentrate or express in my journal, and then I'll probably re create the list in my journal on the front page or the inside page. So the way this exercise works, you'll set a timer for about 5 10 minutes, light a candle, place him some nice music and just kind of give yourself a few minutes to breathe and relax . You're going to start thinking about the things that surround you on a day to day basis. It bring you happiness and joy, and it's really that simple. And when we were writing these things down, try not to think too much about it. Just go ahead. And it's a kind of a stream of consciousness thing. Just keep writing. If it makes sense, or if it doesn't make sense, you can think about the longer days or the sunshine. Maybe it's the way the sun comes through the window that puts a smile on your face. Or maybe it's watching your dogs play outside. These are the types of things, these little things. Maybe it's your first sip of coffee in the morning. These were going to be the catalyst for inspiration and possibly some larger projects, if that's what you plan on doing. But it's a nice way to remember and to be grateful for the things that we already have in our life that sometimes we take for granted because we get just really too busy with life in general, and we forget to stop and smell the roses. I mean, it's a cliche for a reason. So take a breath, light a candle, set your timer for five or 10 minutes and create your list. And after we're done creating our list, I'll show you what the next step is. 6. Reverse Painting Exercise: the first prompt that I wanted to show you that you'll be drawing from the list that you created about the things that bring you joy. You'll pick one thing from that list, and then we'll use this prompt, this art exercise that I'm going to show you to apply to your prompt. So, for example, I wrote down on my list. Since it's springtime, all if the birds are coming back. So the robins air outside. There's a lot of Canadian geese, and I thought that I would use this reverse painting technique. Least that's what I call it to, um, map out a bird. We'll get started by applying some color to the page. I'm gonna work on this side of my paper because this is the watercolor, um, side and I have something on this side. I'll say this over here, maybe for a dry medium, and I'm gonna put my ink on this side. You can use watercolor for. This is well, the colors might not be quite as vibrant as ink. You can do one layer of water color, let it dry, and then maybe put another layer of water color on there. But I think I'm going to start with some ink and I'm gonna pick a few different colors. I don't want to go too crazy. So this is a magenta A Thiel and a violent. And, yeah, I think I'll go with ease. So the first thing that I'll do is I have a little Mr and like this, and I'm just going to get some water down on my paper. And then I'm going to start dropping Inc and letting it run and bleed and just let it do its thing. Okay, so now that this is dry, I didn't want to tell you that I wanted to. You can hear the Blue Jays outside right now. I changed my mind, and I felt, well, I'm going to do a blue Jay, and maybe it's because he's out there squawking and wanting to be heard. I went ahead and added in some blue, this was dry, and I I spritz some water on there. I did. A couple of drops just toe have that vibrant blue of a blue jay. Once it's completely dry, you'll take your white pencil, and if your paint is pretty light, you can get away with a, um, regular graphite pencil, just so long as you can see, uh, your object on here. And I've kind of lost his tail a little bit. It would probably go way out here on the other page. But that's really neither here nor there, because, uh, what we'll do is we'll paint everything around the object in this case, the bird. I'm gonna paint everything out in white, and what I'll have left is my bird with with the colors that I've put in so and I have a little bit of a branch here. This can be really sketchy. It doesn't Don't make it super detailed. I mean, a silhouette is really all you need. The next thing that will need is some sort of an acrylic brush. I like this brush because it has a little bit of an angle to it. And I can, um I can kind of get into some tight corners here with this, and then I'm gonna grab my acrylic paint. And I also have some palette paper that I use, and I'll just squeeze some out and I'll start painting now with watercolor. If you used water color, what might happen is as you're applying the acrylic paint, it may start to pick up some of the water color underneath, and that's completely fine. In fact, it gives it uneven, cooler kind of look, I think so. I like to wet my brush, and this acrylic paint that I'm using doesn't really flow. It's a little bit more of a heavier body than, ah, craft paint. If I were using a white craft paint, then I would probably, um, not need to thin it quite as much. But I want this to to move so that I can go in and start carving this bird out. I'm going to go ahead and get the rest of this painted in. - Once you've completed your background, you want to let it completely dry, and if you feel like you want another layer on there, I would wait till it dries and then go back in and put another layer. I like the way that the color kind of comes through the acrylic and after this is completely dry. What I'll do is go back in and start adding details to my bird and the branch that he's sitting on my Krulik background is dry. And while I was waiting for this to dry, gathered up some supplies. I've got my ink pens. I've got micron pens in here. I have this platinum carbon ink. Can the Tom Bo pounds whatever you have on hand, will work. I've got some colored pencils, which is probably mostly what I'll be working with, I think. And I've got a gel pen. I've got a white Sharpie paint pen and I'll just kind of start adding things. Ah, probably the distinguishing marks of a blue jay. So I'll detail out is I? And I'll add in these black feathers for the chest area. I'm probably gonna just go in with my my Sharpie paint pen and an indication of feathers. I'm not gonna completely cover up all of this color because it'll it'll act kind of as a shadow into the feathers. And then I'll add some detail ing to his legs and his feet and and the branch. And then, if I I feel like it, I think I'll go in and and maybe add some little extra details into the actual background. Or maybe I'll leave it white. I don't know. We'll see what happens okay, I think I'm about finished adding detail to this blue jay. And the nice thing is is, since he's in my journal, I can always go back and add something else if I want to later. But he's here, and now it's your turn. So pick something that you've written down from your list. That brings you joy on a daily basis and apply this reverse painting technique and uploaded to the project section if you want to. If not, that's fine, too. So the idea is just to have fun, so I will see you in the next demo. 7. Black & White Exercise: for this next demo. We're gonna paint it black or blue or brown or whichever color you choose, but we're going to do it in acrylic paint. And if you have, I'm using and craft paint. If you have a craft paint that is on the thin side, you may have to apply a couple of coats just to get a nice, solid background. But the idea is to pick a topic from your everyday magic list, something that you find joy in, and we'll paint the page completely black. Or, like I said, whatever color you choose, and then we're going to do some pen work on top. If you're using a dark color, we're gonna use white. And if you want to use a light color, you can use a pastel acrylic color and then go on top with a black pen. So I've chosen gardening. It's something that's always brought me joy. So I'm going to paint some vegetables and some leaves with my pen, and I guess I'll just show you how it's done, and then you can kind of take it from there. You can put your own spin on it, so I've got a pretty good coat on there. And what I like about this Americana craft pain is that it dries flat and it's a little bit easier to go on top with, ah, different medium like ink, pen or gel pen, paint pen. Whatever you're using, you can also use, um, if you don't have these and you have white acrylic paint, you can also, uh, do your painting on top of the black with white paint. That works, too. So I'm gonna let this dry, and when I come back, I'll start with my garden motif. So now I have this lightly penciled in and this technique you can use for any of your everyday magic topics you can, um, let your imagination just kind of go wherever you want. If you want to use metallic Joe pens or you have an idea to do something completely different, feel free. That's what this is about. It's about taking these demos thes art exercises and applying them Thio more than just one thing. So maybe in the future will have a different idea about how we wanna would play this. Uh, there's my completed garden, and at the very end I decided that I would grab this sparkle pen, tell Pop Joe Penn and add some Ah, silver sparkles there into my moan into the lunar cycles. So it's your turn. Now grab your black paint and your white gel pen, or what other? Whatever kind of white medium you have and pick something from your list and paint the background entirely black painted half black like I did and get going in your journal, and I hope to see you upload in the project section. 8. Abstract Shape and Color Exercise: for this next demo, we're gonna talk about mixing two of the exercises that I have on the list, the 1st 1 being color palette and the 2nd 1 being abstract design. So what I want you to do is take a look at the list that you have your everyday magic list . The things that bring you joy. Pick something from that and we're going to interpret that in our journal using abstract shapes and color palette. So what I wanted to do was show you how, and this is from a class that that I took. But I wanted to show you how effective you can convey a message just by thinking about the shapes that you use and the color palette that you use. And we had to pick four different subjects or four different feelings. And then we had to describe those using only shape and color. And that's kind of what we're going to do in this exercise. Except you're gonna pick something from your list. And it can be an emotion, too, if that's what you'd like to dio. So for this you can see Ah, when we talk about tension, I used um two different complementary colors, and the colors have a tendency to vibrate against each other when they're complimentary when they sit opposite each other on the color wheel. And I also used a lot of angular shapes that were sort of touching and almost tipping, and this was supposed to create tension for anger. Read usually represents anger. And I I used a lot of, um, geometric shapes, a lot of pointy sharp ed shapes, and for shy I used blue and more muted colors and this circle kind of peeking out behind a little opening. And for this last one mystical, I chose purple because that's usually associated with mysticism. Ah, you crown cha crow, that kind of thing. And I also used moon shape and a lot of circles to convey that idea as well. So what you're going to do is you're going to pick one of your topics, and I find that the best way to start with something like this is to get a piece of paper and start writing down your color associations. So grab a piece of paper and you can make yourself two lists color and maybe one is shape. And then start thinking about the different colors that you associate with whatever topic you chosen. I finished my list and I went ahead and I put some abstract shapes down on the paper, things that I think kind of represents spring in my mind, and I've got some leave shapes and I have some spirals and I'll probably start with a little bit of a dollar color down here and then kind of work my way up into the spring colors. And I also have a couple of different palates here. This one is called Pastel Dreams, and this is, um, by prima and these air fun little thes air from little water color palettes that you can get and it kind of keeps you. I think it kind of keeps you in check, because then you're not all over the place with your colors. You're working out of one pallet, and it's a great way to create a unified painting. And I also have this Jane Davenport bright palette and the colors a really fun, and I love this Jiminy Green color. It's that set spring color that that I just absolutely love, So we'll probably be taking a couple out of this and a couple out of the other ones. This will be my expression of spring, so let's get going. So now it's your turn. Go ahead and pick something from your list and take about 30 seconds or a minute and write down the shapes and the colors that kind of identify with that topic and then start painting. Or you can use colored pencils pretty much anything you have on hand you can use to represent whatever topic that you picked. So I hope to see your uploads in the project section. If not, you don't feel like sharing. That's perfectly OK to I just hope you have fun with this. 9. Broken Color Exercise: for this next demo. We're going to try something a little bit different and we'll be doing. We'll be doing something like this with broken color. You could also say that this is kind of an impressionistic take, and the I kind of mixes the color you don't makes the color. You just apply the color on your paper by making simple marks. And I wanted to show you that this could be done with practically any medium. And you don't have to make marks like this. This was done using a brush thes air, both watercolor. And this is Cran. This is acrylic and I used the back of a brush. I think I dipped it in the paint and then just made thoughts on the page. This was done with watercolor markers, and then at the end, I went over it with some water. This was done with oil pastels. These were water soluble, and I kind of played around with mixing the colors, blending the colors on the page. But this is a really good exercise. If you're not familiar with this technique, you can in your sketchbook go ahead and just trace a bunch of circles from a lid or whatever you have, and then grab whatever medium you have anything that you want to try, try sticking with. Maybe just two colors. You can try all sorts of different things with this. This is a great way to try out color palettes as well. But for the demo that I'm going to show you, I picked something from my list, which is butterflies, which I love, and I'm going to stick with a simple shape. So I've sketched out on my page just a simple a simple butterfly. And I think, what I'm going to dio I'm gonna do the, um do Kranz because I want to show you that this actually can be done with any medium and that Kranz counts. Oh, uh, I'm gonna go ahead and do this with grants. And then probably after I'm finished, I'm gonna go over either with acrylic paint or maybe, ah, black pen to kind of outline the butterfly and add a little bit of detail. - And here's my butterfly. All finished. You can apply this technique to pretty much anything. It's best to start with a simple shape until you kind of get a feel for it. I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with and uploaded in the project section. If you feel again. If not, no worries, and just have fun.