Expressive Marker Landscapes

1. Intro: [MUSIC] In this class, you will learn some of the basics of using alcohol markers to draw expressive landscapes. This class is labeled as intermediate level because it will be helpful to have a basic understanding of light and color, as well as knowing how to draw simplified versions of rocks and trees before you get started. If you need help with any of that, I have a bunch of classes that can help you get started. I'll share my knowledge about marker supplies, including papers and sketchbooks, different types of markers and pens, and insights into why I chose my supplies, which can help you make informed decisions. We'll start with some basic shapes and grayscale markers gradually building up the complexity. I'll share lots of tips for layering and using markers in a creative way. My broken color technique is ideal for expressive landscapes. Then we'll move on to color using a limited palette until finally, we put it all together in the final demo. As always, my goal in teaching is to provide you with repeatable strategies and knowledge that will help you draw any subject and help you reach that next level. Grab your supplies and let's get started. 2. Supplies: My biggest piece of advice would be to get to know your colors. Doing some kind of swatch chart like this, it doesn't have to be this fancy. I just printed out the touch twin color chart and this is just like a quick reference so I know where I'm at with my overall color palette. I also have dozens of these scrap pieces of paper that'll test markers on as I'm sketching. I'm constantly comparing colors and different shades and stuff which is very, very helpful. Speaking of paper, I think one of the biggest lessons I learned straight away is that paper really does make a difference. It's just like watercolor if you use crappy paper or paper that isn't meant for markers, you're going to struggle. I started out with a couple of different types of sketchbooks and papers, just testing them out, lots of them were awful [LAUGHTER] and some of them were okay. This is the Stillman & Birn data series and it's super smooth, bright white paper and the markers actually do pretty well on it. The only thing is I think it absorbs a ton of ink and it's also not bleed proof, so some of these you can see a lot of bleeding in the back which is fine. Like I dedicated this to markers and I knew probably wouldn't be able to paint on or draw on both sides. But I am going back in [LAUGHTER] and back filling some of the pages with something just so I feel like it's not a total waste of space. I was starting to get a bit worried that I was wasting a ton of ink because it just felt like the paper was very thirsty. A lot of people gave me advice about different papers to try. So I ended up getting the Spectrum Noir ultra smooth card stock. It's a very very thick paper. I think, yeah, 100 pound cover weight. So nice thick sturdy paper and the markers don't feel like they're just instantly sucked into the paper. This swatch chart is actually the Spectrum Noir paper and I find that the colors are very vibrant. They don't feel dull at all. It is not bleed proof which is fine, I don't really care about that on loose sheets of paper. But most importantly, it doesn't feel as thirsty. [LAUGHTER] The colors are very vibrant. I just received this paper. This was another suggestion. The paper itself is a bit thinner and it's also semi-transparent, so that's something else to keep in mind. It's not quite as bright white and when I tested it out just a tiny bit the colors weren't quite as vibrant. Then the other suggestion that a lot of people had [LAUGHTER] were the crescent render sketchbooks. I think they might do loose sheets of paper as well but I got the sketchbooks. I started with this little tiny one because I just wanted no pressure being able to do really tiny sketches and it has been awesome. I love this paper. [LAUGHTER] It's bleed proof which for a sketchbook, I find extremely useful because I like being able to use both sides of the page. It doesn't feel as thirsty. The colors are super bright on this paper, they don't like feather a lot and it just feels really nice to draw on. I got the little one and then as soon as I'm done filling this little guy, I have the slightly bigger version, so this will be the next sketchbook I tackle. [LAUGHTER] I'll be moving up in size and detail in my sketches once I get to this one. Now, moving on to markers, if you've seen my other marker videos you know that I'm obsessed with the ShinHan touch twin markers, particularly the chisel tip. I don't really like brush tips actually, it doesn't suit me. [LAUGHTER] I have 60 colors and I'm going to set this aside just because it takes up a lot of space and show you guys my favorite little travel case that I found for my markers. Well, this is actually my sketching kit. I have a lot of different kits or setups that I take outside with me but this one is awesome for markers. It holds quite a few, so I use blue pencils to sketch most of the time but I also have a regular graphite pencil and a white charcoal pencil. Then we have all of the markers, [NOISE] I could probably fit a few more markers in here if it wasn't for all these extra drawing utensils. [LAUGHTER] [NOISE] But it can easily fit this many 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 markers which is a pretty good selection, pretty good amount if you're sketching outside especially for quick sketches. I just took these ones recently to the coast. I did a little trip to a boat yard with just a few markers, six markers, I did the sketch so I don't even need a lot. Plenty of these sketches use way less colors, [LAUGHTER] some of them use a lot but what I do is I make little color notes. So every single sketch, I can look back on and see exactly what colors I used to create that to blend, to layer, because sometimes it's not super obvious afterwards. Definitely recommend whatever sketchbook you have, just make little color notes on the side or somewhere nearby. Because that has been one of the most useful ways that I've found to learn my markers, to learn my colors. If possible I recommend trying a bunch of different shapes of markers, different types of markers, because we all know about the Copics. They're very expensive but very, very nice, high-quality. I have a couple of types of Copics. I have a Copic Ciao and a Copic sketch because I just wanted to try them and feel them. [LAUGHTER] But the more I use markers the more I just love the shape of the ShinHan touch twin, that's the main reason I chose these. Well, first of all, they are refillable and I love that. I don't want to have a lot of waste if I can help it. I don't know what it is about this shape, it's very square but it feels really good in my hand when I'm sketching, especially because I tend to hold my utensils a little bit loose and when I'm making fast quick marks, like I'm going like this [LAUGHTER] which may look weird but my hand is moving across the marker because it's got a bit of an edge to it because of that slightly rectangular shape, I don't ever lose my grip. Whereas on a rounded marker, I don't know what it is, it slides a little bit too easily in my hand. [LAUGHTER] It's probably just my issue. Yeah. In terms of the tips, I said I like that chiseled tips. They all have two tips. They have a brush version and the chisel version. I don't know if you can take those out and replace them with whatever type of tip you want but I always go for the chisel tips. The only reason I have this brush version [LAUGHTER] is because this color wasn't available in the chiseled tip at the time and I was desperate for it. Anyways, so all of that is very personal and you're going to have to try a lot of different markers to see which one suits you because we all have different preferences and our hands are different and the way we use our tools are different, so you just got to try them. One thing I can definitely vouch for is the Copic multiliner. It's a felt tip pen, waterproof, and marker proof. Throughout my sketching life I've moved away from the felt-tip pens because they just wear down too fast, I guess I'm a little tough on my pens. [LAUGHTER] I had to go through quite a lot of trial and error to find one that works for me and it may also depend on what paper you like to use. I'm not totally sure but this is the one that I've found that actually works on pretty much everything. Alternatively you could draw with a pencil like very light lines than user markers and then do the ink on top. Sometimes I do that, I guess it depends on what marker or what pens I have with me at the time. Like this one for instance, I used the pen afterwards and it was this one and sometimes I just really want to use my favorite pens [LAUGHTER] and I am just stubborn. 3. Class Project & Inspiration: For your class project, I want you to find a sketchbook or make your own sketchbook out of any of your favorite marker papers, and take that thing everywhere with you. Put some stickers on it, write your name in it or whatever you want to do to get excited about it, but try to remember to keep it with you. Get a set of markers, a small set to start, which I'll talk about a little bit during the demos, but just even 5-10 markers and start experimenting. You can either pick a theme like trees or doors [LAUGHTER] or birds or whatever you want, but try lots of different techniques. Try with or without pen, because that also changes the look quite a lot. Try lots of different limited palettes. Try layering lots of different colors, and remember to always keep color notes. This is again, just going to be so helpful in your journey. Remember that your sketchbook is just for you. You don't have to show it to anybody. You can see I use quite a variety of techniques and maybe some people would call it style like without pen, with pen. Something like this, which is extremely minimal to something like this, which is quite wild. [LAUGHTER] Once you start your sketchbook and start getting into the habit of taking it around town with you or on trips, or even just in your backyard [LAUGHTER] start sketching anything you see. In today's demos, I'm going to show you how to draw different things like rocks and trees. That's what I want you to start with in your sketchbook. If you want, you can share your progress and post in the class projects. But otherwise, just keep it for your own learning and try to have fun with it. One thing I highly recommend that you start with is grayscale or gray markers and there are lots of different types. There's cool gray, warm gray, green-gray, blue-gray. [LAUGHTER] I have a few of each, but the ones I fell in love with are the warm gray markers, especially for landscapes because it's nice to have just that little bit of warmth underneath some of the colors. It does obviously depend on what you're sketching, but I got a selection of the warm grays. Usually, the gray markers come in a wide range of shades. I didn't buy every single one because that was a bit overkill. I did buy six, which is a lot. [LAUGHTER] But this pretty much gives me the full spectrum between really light and really dark. I think one of the benefits of starting with grayscale is that it takes away a lot of the pressure and the confusion that can come with colors. Whereas just getting to know markers in general, how to layer them, how they work. It's so much easier when you don't have to figure out what colors to use. You just know you can work from light to dark with the gray markers. You still can have very interesting effects. Just because you aren't using color doesn't mean that your sketch is going to be boring. In fact, I really love how grayscale marker sketches look. If you're limited on funds or you just want to dip your toes into markers, I recommend getting a set of grayscales. Before we start, another thing I want to mention is that it's really helpful to have a tiny sketchbook like this. Because you're not feeling pressured to draw big, really detailed drawings that take really long time. These are tiny pages and they can only fit so much data. It encourages you to work small and work quickly. I think that's one of the best things you can do for yourself at the beginning [LAUGHTER] stages is to do a ton of different drawings. Little guys like this, there are only a couple inches by a couple of inches big, and you're going through lots of different subjects, lots of different marker combinations, color combinations. That I think is better for learning your markers, getting the feel for how they layer without the pressure of a big white page staring at you that you have to fill with a lot of stuff. Here's an example of one of the pages that only used two colors. The reason it works is because of light [LAUGHTER] and shadow. I was studying how the light was falling through the forest and I assigned two values to the shadows and the light, white is the color of the paper. That's my brightest color, that's my highlights. Blue is the shadow color. Anything that I thought would be in shadow and yellow was just to indicate the foliage or mostly in the background, plus those colors really play off of each other, and it just gives it a bit of pop, a bit of warmth, and keeping that orangey, yellowy color in the distant plane in the background is helpful because it makes it look like the sun is pouring through those leaves and they're really bright. That just adds to the overall story. Again, you don't need a ton of colors, you can just get a few. I do recommend getting a few really light colors, and then you can slowly add to your collection. [LAUGHTER] Something you may find useful is to use your own drawings as inspiration. For instance, this is just a quick little spread. I was studying some trees, and that led to trying it with markers. But I basically just copied the structure of this drawing. I chose two values the same as I had for the drawing. The paper color was this lime green and this darker blue color became this deep purple. I was able to get a feel for how the markers work, as well as practicing light and shadow in the environment. It's a lot of fun to do that. In fact, one of the studies I'm going to show you today, one of the demos was inspired by this recent gouache painting. This is the demo we're going to do very simplified version just to get started with layering color, and my subject is literally outside my window. I can see it right now. [LAUGHTER] But I painted it already with gouache. I already got a feel for how to stylize it. You can use your own paintings as inspiration. I did this watercolor painting a year or two ago, and that was in the back of my mind when I was drawing this very simple landscape, minimal color palette again, just studying the shadows and the light in the landscape, even using very simplified pen sketches to get a feel for the light and shadow of a object or a scene. Then assigning marker colors to those values. Picking a couple high light colors and a couple of shadow colors even though this isn't a direct copy of this. But I used what I learned by doing this value study in this drawing. In addition, you can use the classic technique of doing master studies or finding paintings that you feel are super beautiful and inspirational. Maybe it's a master painter you look up to and copying what you see. This is purely meant for learning. Don't do this, and then share it online and claim it as your own. This is supposed to be for learning and not infringing on anyone's copyright. Let's take a look at some examples. You can start off by searching for impressionist landscape or similar. You'll probably start seeing a lot of things like this. Very colorful, loose brushstroke style. If you scroll down, there's a wide variety of what it can look like. Let's look at this one because it's a little more simplified. If we take this as an example, when you are drawing this with markers, you would probably choose maybe 5-6 colors to represent this. You'd have one or two sky colors, one or two tree colors, and maybe a yellow, the same colors you used in the sky. Trees can be down here and then a few purples or reds down here. You would practice layering similar to what you see here. Basically applying your own brushstrokes or marker strokes to replicate what you see. But using this as color inspiration, I feel like this is a really great way to start exploring maybe unique color combinations that you would normally not think of. [LAUGHTER] To break free from the restrictions you may feel with only drawing representational things. Especially if you've searched for colorists, and there's a huge variety of art out there that you could use as inspiration, but something that already is simplified into brushstrokes and not just a photorealistic thing or a photograph. Copying those strokes onto the paper with the markers. I feel like that is probably one of the more useful things for getting a good feel for it. 4. Your First Rock: When you sit down to sketch, I feel like it's really good to do a quick little swatch of whichever markers you're using for that particular sketch session or that particular drawing, so I'll just usually do something like this in order of value. [MUSIC] I mentioned I like sketching with blue pencil. That's just my own thing, my own preference. What I thought we would start with is just a rock or some rocks. Keep it very simple. I mean, rocks can be more complicated, but it's one of those subjects. For me, that's like a comfort object and you can start with a very simplified shape and slowly build up the complexity, and it's also got really obvious highlights in the shadow sides and it's just a good marker subject. But first, I would start with very basic shape. Start to round it out, maybe give it a few imperfections. Then the final drawing, we would try to make it as rock-like as possible. [MUSIC] The easiest thing I find is to start with my lightest color, my lightest value not only because that allows me to ease into the drawing, and I think this might depend on the paper or what markers we're using. If you start with your darker colors and try to paint or draw on top of that, you might contaminate your lighter colors. It might pick up a bit of that darker ink into the lighter marker. Because we're not adding white lighter, like we're not adding our lighter values like we would if we were painting, this is more like watercolor where we have the color of the paper as our lightest value and we can use negative space if we want or work from lightest to darkest. If we use our basic shapes to practice, this is just a really easy way to warm up. Once again, it might depend on the paper, but what I like to do is slightly overlap my lines if I'm trying to get a smooth fill because that allows the ink to bleed together a little bit and then it dries all in one solid color. If I work in solid marks that don't overlap a lot, then you tend to get a little more streaking. It's not super obvious in the lighter color, s but you probably will notice it in the darker colors. Let's say the light source is off to the right and it's coming down this way. The top of my rock is going to be pretty light. This right side will also catch a bit of light, but it'll be a bit darker, especially on the underside so I may touch in a bit of that. This is slowly working down from the lightest to the darkest. I've done these two shades, now I'm going to move down one. This side is going to get the most amount of shadow, so I'll be filling in a bit more of that with the darker shades as I go. [MUSIC] And I might also use the fine tip to make little cracks or blemishes in the rock here and there so that it's not perfect. [MUSIC] I can do that with any of the shades. It doesn't have to be just the dark one. Just mess it up as much as you want, but basically getting the point across that it's not a perfect little block sitting on the ground. It's got a bit of dimension to it, it's got some cracks and crevices, and I think rocks are really fun because they can be very organic, they can be very geometric. Yeah, just depends on what look you're going for. 5. Using Negative Space: Let's do an example where the rock uses a bit of the white of the paper as the highlight. In that case, we would have to draw around the rock. I would probably choose like a midtone, maybe four out of this range. That would be this one. [MUSIC] I'm just drawing around the top edge of the rock. I'm not keeping it super tidy or anything. That's what you'll probably notice the most in my marker drawings is that I'm not obsessed with perfection. For me, it's more about capturing shape and color notes, especially because I am painting outside a lot, or drawing outside a lot, I work really quickly. To be honest, you just don't have time to fuss with it. Now we have our environment around the rock. So what I would do is once again, give it a bit of color on the highlight side, but I'm going to leave more of the white showing through, so it'd be like bright reflections. Then I will work my way back down. [MUSIC] I gave the shape of this rock a bit more variety. [LAUGHTER] I think the cool thing about markers is that it really encourages creative mark making, or at least for me, and I find the chunkiness of the chisel tip to be conducive to that expressive style. I guess if you prefer the brush tips, you can get all sorts of other effects but [MUSIC] I like using every part of the chisel tip. So obviously if you have it flat against the paper, you'll get a big chunky mark. If you use the tip, you can get a bit of a skinnier. But if you use one of the corners on the chisel tip, you can get a very fine mark, perfect for little cracks and crevices and stuff. You can get a scratchy look with that. [MUSIC] Once again, in this example, I'm trying to use negative space. I'm not adding as much darkness to the rock itself. [MUSIC] It really does depend on your style. If you are trying to go for hyper-realism, you'll really have to practice how to blend from one shade to the next, and that is going to change based on the markers you're using, and the paper you're using. If you like the very expressive style, then obviously you'll also have to practice that. But I think you'll be practicing rather than trying to practice perfect lines instead, you'll be focused more on trusting yourself and drawing a little bit looser, knowing that you start off with a very messy looking drawing. Then eventually the more you layer, the more you add a bit of color, you'll get to that final result, but it does require a lot of trust. [MUSIC] But drawing skills play a huge role so above all else, keep practicing your drawing skills. 6. Layering Colors: For this example, I'm actually going to tint it slightly with some very light tones and then finish it with the grayscale markers. This is something I like to do if I want to bring just a tiny bit of color into it because rocks are actually quite reflective or a lot of rocks are. You might get a bit of green bouncing off if there's nearby grasses or a bit of blue or purple bouncing off because of the atmosphere. Having really light versions of your favorite colors will come in handy. As much variety as you can within a specific color range is useful in markers because it's not like paint where you're mixing all of your colors, it definitely doesn't work the same. [LAUGHTER] You can't mix all your favorite greens just because you have blue and yellow. You can mix some colors but for the most part, especially these really light versions, you need to start with that color marker. I'm going to use this color called dim green and I'm also going to add a bit of this purple color, that dark blue light. The reason I would start with my colors, first of all they're very light, so I don't want to contaminate them by drawing over dark pigment and then getting these dark. Also because I like to know where my color is and so I don't cover it up completely with the grayscale. First, what I will do is visualize this rock in the environment. If I'm using the same light source from the top right, this will be more in highlight and I'm going to use a bit more color on some of the reflective surfaces like the top maybe part of the side and the green will be underlaid anywhere, I think the grass color is bouncing off, like mostly on the sides. I'll start with the grass just because it's the lightest color I have. I only need a few marks to make it work. I see, I accidentally grabbed a slightly darker green. This is the really light green that I was mentioning. Let's add some of that just to get more of a tint. It's going to be a very colorful rock. But this is the perfect example of like learning, what happens when you don't know your colors or if you're not really paying attention. How can you make it work? Can you make it work? Will you still make it look like a rock? Yes, I believe you will in time. [MUSIC] Just a bit of color. Now, I'm going to visually ignore that. I'm just going to pretend this is a white piece of paper again and I'm going to work exactly the same way as I did before. Starting with my lighter values and working my way down. I also want to point out that some papers don't really allow you to layer a ton. This is the Canson paper again and I think it works rather well. [MUSIC] This is going to be a really good test for how well this paper layers allows me to layer, because I'm using quite a bit of ink. [MUSIC] You can see how the colors are still showing through a bit. If you use more subtle colors underneath, you'll have probably more realistic result, but I personally love playing with the vibrant colors. [MUSIC] Wow, this is interesting. One thing I'm noticing on this paper is that the more layers you add, the more your color bleeds into neighboring brushstrokes or brushstrokes that you already laid down. It's not drawing the same as it was before. I think that's because the paper is ultra saturated right now. There's a lot of pigment, the alcohol still hasn't dried, which is cool because you can push it around a bit. You can use that to your advantage. Let's add a bit of shadow to the side just because I think that it needs that to ground it. [MUSIC] A bit of the green. [NOISE] I think having fun with directional marks is also why I love the chisel tip, because it is harder to get more subtle marks with it. From the very start, I'm forced to be a bit more creative and the more you use it, the easier that becomes to know when to use what types of marks. Obviously, it all depends on what style you like. But there's a few examples of how I like to practice with markers and layer and just using very simplified shapes can be really helpful to get used to your markers and you don't need a ton of colors to get started. 7. Limited Palette: Let's draw a tree so I can show you my technique for that or my process for that. Once again, use a very limited palette. We'll just go with five colors, and that will force us to choose or assign a color to each value. As always, it's very useful to do a little swatch example of each color before you get started. I sometimes do it after, but this is really good just as a reference, especially when you're first getting used to your colors. For the tree trunk, my shadow colors are going to be these two colors. So the deeper orangish brown and the purple, which will be layering and for the foliage my shadow color will be this one. The brighter colors, these two, the green and the orangey color, those are going to be our highlights. We can also use the paper if we want as a bit of highlight. I'm actually looking out my window at a tree. It will be important to already have a good understanding of how light interacts with the environment, how light affects what we see. Studying from life is really helpful for that. I recommend doing it as often as you can. Practice sketching just with pencils even to start getting familiar with how light interacts with objects. Because before you can do this, you obviously need to know how a highlight or a shadow would fall onto an object or be what it would look like on an object such as a tree trunk. I think that's why I love markers so much because it's drawing, but we get the bonus, the fun of having color, and I know you can do that with colored pencil, but colored pencils you need sharpeners and sometimes other things. I just don't want to fuss with that. For this little study, I will once again start with my lighter colors. On the tree trunk, I will lay in my highlight tone and we need to know where are light sources. I'm going to have these trees be frontlit. Maybe it's off slightly to the right just to have something, some direction. My brighter part of the tree trunk will be on the right there. I will drag it over to the shadow side. I'm keeping my marks a little bit broken near the top because the foliage might overlap that area. [MUSIC] That's it for the first layer, and then for the highlight areas of the foliage of the greenery, once again, we can have a bit of white if we want that extra pop of color, but I'm going to try to pretty much use this green. I'm using directional marks because it's evergreen. We have needle-like foliage instead of big leaves, and I think it just helps visually. [MUSIC] Also doing it this way allows a bit of that white to show through, and I can always go back in and fill it in if I want to, but I like having it at first just to get started and then I can decide if I want to fill it in. Just the thing though like with markers, you can't take it back. That mark is permanent. There's no erasing, which is good because I think you make a decision and then you live with it. Sometimes you have to try to fix it or adjust to it, but I think it builds confidence. Right now this looks very rough, very childish, I guess you'd say just like solid colors filling in our objects. We haven't even done the background leaves yet, but we're waiting for a second. Now to give it a little more dimension, some depth, we can start adding our shadow colors, which in this case, I am going to be starting with these two. This is the purple. I'm going to add that to parts of the tree trunk. I'm also going to use a bit of this darker orange on the tree trunks and some of the branches start with the orange. In this case I'm going to use very tiny lines. This is the bark. I'm just indicating the bark texture with these long, skinny, scratchy, vertical marks being as random as I can. If I try to force it, it gets so obvious. Some areas maybe we'll have a bit more, bit of a chunk of color. Now for the fun part is starting to layer in the shadow tones. If the light is coming from the front off to the right, the shadows will appear below the tree branches or the foliage and off to this left side. [MUSIC] You might have some branch, or spotty light, or a broken light falling across the tree trunk in there. I think I should have chosen a slightly darker shadow color but we'll just go with this. [MUSIC] Now for the darkest dark which is going to bring this to life. Basically now be careful to draw around anything that's a lighter tone, so your foreground, your tree trunk, your foliage that sits up here above the tree. [MUSIC] Have a bit of them underneath here like that. Don't be afraid to go back and forth between the lighter tones. You don't have to just stick with that. [MUSIC] I add a bit of the shadow tone up here. It's almost as if we're getting little glimpses through that bright foliage. It doesn't all have to be one big chunk of brightness. This is the most simplified version I can think of. A few colors just to practice light. You could really use any colors you want for this. You don't have to go with the realistic ones because I feel like for me it ends up being more about practicing capturing light and shadow effects in the landscape. That's why I love taking my markers out because I already know I don't have enough colors to really capture ultrarealism when I go out with my markers. I just don't have a big enough case or the desire to bring a massive amount of markers out. I'm like why not just have fun with it? Practice observing light in the landscape and how it looks when it falls across the tree. To me, that's much more fun and then I can play with color however I want within that. I can also add a tiny bit more dimension to this foliage up here by adding some of this purple. [MUSIC] It's also fun I think using the big chisel marker, like I tried to use the chisel part as often as possible because it forces me to get creative with it. I find different ways of using it. I had discovered I can get tiny, skinny scratchy marks. By using the corner, it doesn't always have to be just like one big chunky mark. Well, it's easy to go overboard. What I like to do is have a bunch of sketches that are very minimal like this. It's a good reference like, this is what I can do with five colors working really quickly, and then that can help inform the next sketch and the next, and the next, and the next. It's one of those things you have to exercise restraint because it is very tempting to just keep going and keep going and filling it in, and before you know it, you've lost a bit of that loose magic, and maybe even I'm gone too far and filled things that you should have no filled in. I've done that plenty. I think that's why I really love this tiny sketchbook because I don't feel bad about leaving things unfinished. I can just work out an idea or practice a technique or a color combination, and then move on. All of these are really good to look back on and remind me of certain things, certain techniques. It's just so useful. 8. Putting it all together: Just like with the rocks, we can also draw around our objects with a darker color to make the drawing itself pop out of the page using the white of the paper somehow. Let's do an example of a little bush or a tree. This time I'm just going to grab whatever colors I feel like in the moment. I'm not starting with a very limited palette because this is how I would normally work if I'm at home sketching. I have all of my colors in front of me. So I'll just grab what I want and run with it. But again, we're going to grab a background to our subject, which is the tree. That means we have to be very careful about drawing with a darker color around our lighter areas. I'll start with my lightest foliage so I know where it is and I can work around it. In that case, I'm going to go with the grasses and the bushes down here, and then the tree foliage. I'm starting with a very light green called dim green. Using little scratchy marks just to indicate that this is grass, and then I'll use bigger chunky marks on the tree to differentiate it a little bit. I'm also having a bit of that white paper showing through in this. As I go, I'll make a color note off to the right so that I know which colors I used. [LAUGHTER] I'm going to use a bright green for the brighter parts of my tree. It's almost like a highlighter. It's so freaking bright, but I'm going to cover a lot of it. I like it as an undercolor, though, and mostly keeping this towards the top parts of my fullest parts of the tree. I'm going to slowly work my way down towards the darker parts. Now that I have my brightest part, I'm going to switch to slightly more muted version, or it's not muted, but it's definitely not as bright, and start filing that in. I think one of the best or easiest ways, if you are a watercolor painter, I think you'll have an easier time with markers because you already understand the importance of preserving your highlights. You have to work around your highlights, your brightest parts of your painting. I'm going down to a more grayish-green. It's called Willow green. I love this green and it's not quite my shadow color yet, but it's getting there. I'm focusing on the undersides of some of my branches, trunks of leaves, like clusters of leaves. I might also use this as the shadow color near the tree in the ground. Now we're getting into the deeper green, which is this, it's called seaweed green. Filling in this shadow, I haven't done the tree branch color yet. Sometimes you have holes in the leaf clusters you can see through, so that's what I'm working on now. Can always come back and add more. I feel like sometimes it's good to just start with. I'm going to be a little bold and I'm going to use a turquoise blue as my shadow color on the tree because why not? [LAUGHTER] It'll just brighten up those shadows a bit. Just like I did before on here, I'm laying that shadow color in. This one is more obvious, I would say. I'm giving it a dabbled light effect again, so a lot of broken marks. Then when I come back in with my bark color, it's going to layer with that and give it a grayish effect. I left a tiny bit of white showing on the tree bark down here. For my rocks, I'm going to go with warm gray, 0.5 and number 2. You can see how quickly [LAUGHTER] your color palette can build up. So it's obviously a much more styled look if you go with a very limited palette. But if you want to either be more realistic or just have more and more depth to it, using a wider range of values and colors is what you'll end up doing. So now we have our highlights. Well, the tree is almost done, but we have enough data to know where we should work around when we add our background. For the background, you can choose anything. You don't have to go with realistic colors. I'll go with sky blue just because I'm going for a little bit more realism here. It's still very stylized, but you get the idea. [LAUGHTER] Well, I used a lot of overlapping brushstrokes in order to avoid streaking just to show that you can do it, but it is tricky. You have to work very, very fast as you saw and you have to have the good paper. This is the Canson XL marker paper, so it does allow you to get some really big areas of color without a lot of streaking. Something I'm loving more and more about it, and also what I did was I made sure I didn't have any solid lines going over my grasses or around the actual tree. So I tried to use zigzaggy marks [LAUGHTER] around those areas to give them a more jagged edge. Because once again, the highlight or the lighter parts of the drawing and the paper need to show through. You can even come back in and make it more jagged, fill that in a bit. I'm going to add a bit more depth inside the tree. Instead of filling in this whole dark area again, I'm just going to fill in a smaller section of it just to bring a bit more depth to the shadows. Because at the moment, it's a very pastel painting or drawing, which is fine if you want that. But the wider you go with your value structure, so darker darks and lighter lights, the more life-like it will be. Let's see. Can we use any of these colors to add a bit more dimension to the tree trunk? I think I need to add another tone. How about let's have a bit of fun and go with lavender tree trunk. It is hard to add more detail if you're working small. Let's go back to this darker green and add some more shadow on the grasses. Sometimes I also like to use horizontal strokes for different surfaces. So perhaps I want the grass down here, wow, straight line. Nope. Add a bit one dimension to it. So adding that bright green, this is going to make it a very grassy green. Taken it to the next level. But the underlying horizontal strokes will show through a little bit as the colors blend and just add to that variety, which I think is really fun. But I left my brighter parts of the grass here in the distance where the sky comes down. It's grounded a bit more when we add a bit more color and values to the grass itself because it was very, very light before. Let's add a bit of blue to these stones, maybe even tree trunk. Now you pretty much see my entire method of practicing, how I layer and how I think about color and using the markers. But it's always evolving every time you sit down to draw, every time you go out to draw. 9. Final Thoughts: As I finish this drawing, I just want to share one final thought and that is, please be patient with your progress. For me, it was a bit of a struggle at first because I already know how to draw and paint, and I have a very expressive painting style, so I just assumed my marker drawings would be the same and I would just be able to jump right into it. But there's so much more that goes into using markers as you've seen and it just takes one drawing at a time. That's what I encourage you to do. Sit down with your sketchbooks, start with one drawing and keep going. I really hope you enjoyed this class or found it useful. If you feel compelled, I would appreciate it if you reviewed the class so other people know what to expect. I hope to have more marker classes in the future. If you decide to share any of your marker drawings, you can use my hashtag, #SARAHBURNSTUTOR. I would love to see what you're working on. It's a lot of fun to be able to encourage each other in this journey, but otherwise, take care everyone and I'll see you all again soon. [MUSIC] 10. Bonus Demo: For those of you who don't use YouTube, I thought it would be useful to include this bonus demo that I recently shared. I'll be sharing my top 5 tips for what has been helping me progress in my marker journey. The first tip is probably pretty obvious and I know I've said it before, but start with the lightest values. The beautiful thing about having a background in watercolor is that I'm very used to preserving my highlights; meaning the color of the paper, the white of the paper is my brightest bright. Same thing goes for markers. If you have a background in watercolor, you probably are already one step ahead. In addition, I find it really helpful to go a little slower at first. Even if that means I'm just making teeny tiny little marks all over the drawing just to ease myself into it and slowly build up that confidence, it does eventually get easier. I think in time and practice, you become a little bit more confident in your choices and you can dive in a little bit quicker with the darker colors. But if you're just starting out, I find that it's helpful to go into it with a very gentle mindset, a kind mindset. Just start slowly establishing some of your shapes like I'm doing here and then slowly building up the color and the depth. Something that can help with this is if you go into it with a limited palette. Instead of having every color under the sun as an option, you go in with a highlight or a few highlight options and a few midtones and a few shadows. That automatically takes away some of the guesswork and you have more of a game plan about where to go with your colors. Throughout the drawing, you'll be layering colors and those will also lead to more color options so it already can feel really complicated. [MUSIC] My second tip is to start getting familiar with the process of layering. Not only does this affect the color, but it also changes the whole mood of the drawing rather than just being singular colors next to each other, which can work, but sometimes, it also can feel a bit flat. When you layer, you add a lot more dimension to it. Just at a quick glance, the viewer's eye starts to see a color story. I think it's actually magical when you start to get used to how certain colors layer and you plan ahead for those things. Your limited palette can sometimes result in a huge variety of colors and you can get really beautiful layered drawings. Some ways that I started to get used to this are to use this little sketch book to do lots and lots of experimenting. This little sketch book is only 3 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches. What that means is that I don't feel the pressure to fill big pages with huge detailed layered drawings. I can do lots of quick little studies, although the one I'm showing you now is probably the most detailed and the largest I've done in the whole sketchbook so far. But by devoting this tiny sketchbook to doing lots of quick little studies, I've been able to get a better feel for how the markers work, how they blend, how they layer, and it's actually helping me progress more quickly than if I only ever did big detailed drawings. I do think there's a lot of value in sitting down and doing big studies, especially going more detailed because it really forces you to practice different techniques such as blending, which is a whole other thing. It's something that I'm definitely not an expert in. I prefer a broken color technique, which means there is a lot of layering happening, but colors aren't always blended smoothly together. There's a lot of more stylized brush or mark-making happening. [MUSIC] My next tip is about supplies. Once again, this might be super obvious, but it was something that I overlooked at first. I've talked about my marker journey in another video. If you want to hear more of an in-depth story about that, you can go watch it. But when I bought my first set of markers, I hadn't ever even considered the fact that different brands might have different qualities and the different shapes of the markers might be good or bad. I just bought whatever was closest to me. [LAUGHTER] Over time, I gave up on markers and came back to them over and over again, and it wasn't until last year when I bought my first set of ShinHan Touch Twin Markers where I really fell in love with it. I realized, wow, the actual shape of the marker makes a difference. This might sound strange to some people, but honestly, when I switch between different types or different shapes of markers, I feel such a drastic difference in my ability to control the marker and my comfort over longer sketch sessions. I also found such a huge difference in experience between the different types of nibs. Comparing the brush tips versus the chisel tips, that made a huge difference in my enjoyment factor. By now, I've tried so many different brands, and shapes, and sizes that I really know what I like. Now, I can just slowly build up my marker collection and accumulate colors, although I feel like I'm done for a long time because I have so many colors. Paper, of course, is going to make a huge difference, which is another thing I overlooked. I was using random sketchbooks and different papers I already owned, never even considering things like how much the paper absorbs ink or whether it's going to cause the marker ink to feather or give you crisp edges. There are actual marker papers that make the experience so much more enjoyable. Now that I have some of those papers, I'm drawing way more often. It feels similar to watercolor in that sense where the paper makes such a difference. You don't want to be painting on paper that isn't meant for watercolor. If you do, you are seriously going to struggle. That's exactly how I felt when I switch to good paper in my marker journey. [MUSIC] My next tip is for people who maybe don't have a huge budget for markers or have never used markers before, and that is to start with a set of grayscale markers. I talked about this in the Skillshare class that I mentioned, but it's something that is so valuable that I wish I had started this way. I would've been way less intimidated and I think it would've helped me get over some of those initial struggles that I had because at first, I was figuring out how to use the markers and how to pick colors and layer colors, which was all super overwhelming. I think that's a reason I gave up so many times, but thankfully, I'm back at it and I'm enjoying it more than ever. If you do decide to go with some grayscale markers, there's a few different options, at least in the brand that I like. There's cool gray, warm gray, green gray, blue gray, and they all have a slightly different tint to them. I personally fell in love with warm gray because it just has a bit more of an inviting look to it and it layers really well with all of my other colors. If I'm using a gray scale as like an undertone and then I add colors on top, that warmth in the gray really plays nicely in a landscape. Even though I do a lot of color studies now, I also fall back on my grayscale markers in times where I'm just really stressed out or anxious and I just want to draw something without any pressure or challenge of color. Because one thing I'm noticing with markers is that the most important skill is drawing, is rendering. Having a strong foundation in drawing makes your marker drawings much better, which is pretty obvious. But when I want to take away extra stress, I will just use grayscale because it simplifies everything a little more and it lets me practice rendering light on my subject. [MUSIC] My final tip is a bit more challenging to discuss, and that is style. First of all, if you are watching this, especially all the way to the end, I assume that you like more stylized marker drawings. Something about that more loose approach appeals to you. Maybe you either do it yourself or you want to be able to do it, and that only comes with time. Don't feel like when you first sit down to do your first marker drawing, you need to accomplish this. You probably won't, I didn't. I have a very loose painting style, so I actually assumed straight off the bat that my marker drawings would replicate that, and I was so wrong. [LAUGHTER] But it did happen in time, and that is only because of that brush mileage as I call it, or in this case, marker mileage, putting the marker to the paper and making line after line after line. But once you get more and more familiar with different types of marker techniques, those options open up to you. This goes back to the talk about supplies where if you're using a brush tip, you're probably going to end up with a very different look versus a chisel tip. When I use my chisel tips, I'm forced to get really creative with my marks because I only have so many options. I can't just let things naturally blend together quite as easily, but that's why I love them. They make the process of working a little bit more loosely and expressively, a little bit easier. Because it's such a bold mark, the second it hits the paper, I have to accept it. In that moment, I learned from it and I move on. [MUSIC] The thing that's going to help you progress the most will be continuing to grow your drawing skills. In addition to your marker practice, continue using pencils or pens or your favorite general sketching tools. Observe from life or still-life as often as possible. The more you grow your observational skills, the better your marker drawings will be.