Fill a Sketchbook: Peaceful Panels Edition

1. Welcome to Class: Hello, Skillshare. Let's fill a sketchbook together. This time we're doing peaceful paneled pages. In my previous fill sketchbook classes, I went over my basics of sketchbooking in a way that makes sense to me, shared how I create pretty spreads, and we even did a people edition, too. This time I'm going to be sharing a very chill and mindful sketchbook page spread that I've named peaceful paneled pages. These pages are a great way to fill your sketchbook when you just want to use your art materials, but you don't want the challenge of drawing from reference or your own imagination. These pages are quiet and mindful, but they can also really help you to understand layering and color combinations. It's a win win. In this class, I will be taking you through how to create beautiful paneled pages filled with simple graphic elements that you can calmly fill in with the materials of your choice. Hi, everyone. I'm Christina Hotkrenz an illustrator and surface designer from Marie Fried Sweden. Welcome to my CheeryPink Studio. So I'm mainly a digital illustrator, and I've worked with an agent since 2019 Pinkight Studio and I've had the pleasure of working with companies like Hobby Lobby and pink studio fabrics and Orne Circle Studio to name a few. But I have found sketch booking is something that I can do just for me, and that's just such a wonderful thing. I think that it has really helped me develop my digital illustration skills at the same time and just make me feel like a more fulfilled, creative artisty person. This class is great for anyone who loves working in a sketchbook and would like a simple but fun exercise to come back to time and again when you just want to take it easy and color. So let's get started. 2. Supplies and Class Project: All right. In order to do this class, I suggest that you have a sketchbook ready and any and all art supplies that you have, you can use whatever you feel most comfortable with, whether that's markers, colored pencils, paints, all of the above. I will share in the next section the materials that I plan on using, but it's completely up to you. And if you don't even have a sketchbook, just do this on a plain piece of paper. The class project will of course be to share your final paneled page and with all the different colors and layering techniques that you tried and the different graphic elements that you tested out. I can't wait to see them already. 3. Intro to Panels: Before we get into the class project, which is creating a paneled page, I really want to go through some of the examples from my portfolio so that you can get an idea of what they can look like, inspiration that you can do, different variations you can try, all of the above. Alright, so in a previous class, my full sketchbook pretty spreads edition, I shared with you how to create spreads that are a little bit more curated. And I introduced these little sections that have a decorative element, and I just really fell in love with creating those even more than the rest of the spread. So I started creating these paneled pages with just the decorative elements. It was started out being just as a place for me to reference for other pages, but then they became so much fun to create that I just I just couldn't stop doing them. So here are some more inspiration for you. These are the kind of colors that I enjoy working with, and even though it seems like you're just coloring in or just creating something decorative, I do learn a lot about color and layering and you could turn this into an exercise where you are learning about what materials you like to play with and what colors you like to layer on top of other colors. So even though it feels like kind of a peaceful kind of exercise, it doesn't really teach you anything, I would beg to differ. It does teach you a lot. This one's not my favorite. I don't know. Just but, you know, all of them can't be perfect. So, yeah, this is what we're going to be doing in this class. I will show you my full process of doing these kinds of paneled pages. They're just so much fun, and they secretly teach you a lot about layering and color and stuff like that. 4. Materials: In this section, we get to talk quickly about materials. I know I talk about materials way too much, so I'm going to keep it short and sweet this time. Promise. What kind of materials should you use for these? Well, you can, of course, use whatever materials you prefer using, but I like having some kind of base layer, and that could be paint. But I have been enjoying using markers because it's quick and easy and it's a little bit more you can get into fine lines. You can do that with a paintbrush, but I think the paintbrush takes a longer time. And for these, I just kind of want to do them. I don't want to spend hours and hours doing them. But, I mean, that's totally up to you. So watercolor would be a great option. Paint pens, like acrylic pens. These are more of the watercolor type of pens. These are from Ecolina and they yeah, just have a nice wash of color. But, yeah, again, up to you. And then once I've done a base layer of color, either in paint or marker, then I love to add details either with colored pencils. These are a selection from Prisma color that I really enjoy working with. So that's an obvious choice, I would say. And then I love also working with Karen dash NeoclorTs. And here I have lots of colors and little stubs. And then I like that they are quite blunt, but if you do want to sharpen them, that is, of course, possible because they're so expensive and I don't like waste. I like saving the shavings. I use the Derwent pastel sharpener. And if you just sharpen I have different areas. Here's more like a yellow, so if you just sharpen the little shavings onto your old watercolor pan and then just sprits it with water and the settle, and then you can later put a lot more water and mix them around. Then you get a little a free paint pen, and you can use them as paints, which is really fun. So yeah, I could just show you that. Take a little water spritzer so that they kind of settle and sink in and turn into paint, and then it will dry and turn into more of a paint. Really fun. So that's like a little bonus for you. Okay, so those are the materials I'm gonna be using. But like I said, feel free to use whatever materials you like using. 5. Page Planning and Quilt Inspiration: All right, we're starting to get into our class project, and before we jump into creating our page and I know that it's always scary with the blank page, I'm going to show you how to plan your pages so that they look good. That's important. Before we actually start on our page, I love doing some preparation. I like being prepared. Like with most people, I find the blank page a little bit scary, so it's nice to have reference material. So I one day, since I was so inspired by these designs, and they are very, like, quilting based, so I went on to Pinterest, and I looked up quilt designs. And I found all of these beautiful geometric shapes and things. So I highly suggest that you take an hour or so, 30 minutes, maybe just and comb through Pinterest or Google or some other website that you like using and just look up quilts or geometric designs and sketch out some of them for your reference. So here I have some of the standard classic quilt like stars, they're called Aunt Eliza Star or the Sawtooth Star or Rose City or pinwheel or fans. We have other designs that are more modern with circles and flowers and I really like diamonds. I just think that they are so much so much fun to create. And you can start once you start getting reference, you can start making your own, of course, and figure out how you want to decorate your pages. It's just nice to have something to look at. So when you are trying to figure out how you want to do your page, you can, yeah, have something to look at. So I really highly suggest doing some reference pages. I have it in a separate sketchbook so that when I'm using my main sketchbook that I can reference it easily. But you can of course, do it in the same sketchbook. All right. Now that we have some reference material, we know what materials we're going to be using to draw with, how can actually get started. 6. Project Sketch: All right, it's time to get started for real on our class project, which is creating a paneled page. So in these next sections, I'm going to be sharing with you my full process of putting together a peaceful paneled page spread. Okay. Alright, it's time to get started on our paneled page. And I have my notebook over here to the side, but I can bring it in front and we can kind of figure out how we want to do this. Remember, this is supposed to be peaceful and nice and not stressful experience. So it's, just take it easy when you're creating this. So I'm using a colored pencil to mark in my lines. You can use a regular pencil, but I think regular pencil gets quite muddy sometimes. When you paint over it, everything turns kind of gray. So a colored pencil of some kind of color that you like. Something quite light. If I wasn't doing this on camera, I'd probably choose something quite beige that that melts quite into the page, but so that you'll be able to see I'm going to use this beautiful lilac color. All right. We need to figure out what our grid is going to look like and I like to make sure that for the most part, I don't go over the seam because if you have one of your blocks right there in the middle, it's kind of annoying. But other than that, it's kind of fine. I don't mind if it goes over a little bit. So what should we do? I've clamped down my page because I wasn't wanting to sit flat. So just go for it. I'm going to create a panel here at the bottom. I'm going to overlap that a little bit cause a little overlapping is nice. And then maybe like one square worth. And I'm not going to measure. I'm going to use eyeball measurements. So pretty big squares here. And then just gonna whoops, move around my page. Maybe I'll do a thinner section up at the top that goes a little bit longer. Maybe like that. Looks good. You can use a ruler if you want, but again, this is supposed to be fun, not ruler time. L There we go. We have another section. And for the most part, most of my designs were based around a square, so that's why I'm doing squares. Again, it's just nice to have some kind of parameter to hold it together. Here we have another section. Let's do a section that goes along here that goes down to this section. I have some of those nice floral elements. Maybe I'll keep that one open and we can do a nice flower over there. I also Maybe we can do another flower over here as well, 'cause they're so fun to do. So I'm going to do a big fat flower section here. So we can do a really big one. Feel free to do exactly what I'm doing. Usually, I'm always like, do your own thing. But for this class, these are just geometric shapes. Feel free. If you just want to turn your brain off and follow along and do the same thing as I'm doing, please feel free. Okay. And that's another one with Um W W squares. And we'll do another thin one here. And again, I don't want to do anything on that crease, so I will just do here. And how many can we get in here? Three. Okay, and then we have one main section here. We could do one big block, but I feel like we're already doing, like, a big flower here. I don't know, or should we do one big flower here and one long flower, and this could be more gemetc shapes. That's something we could do, and let's do that. Okay, so then I'll turn this one into a block of design. So now we have our grid set up and it feels nice, and I'm excited to fill it in. So then we have to figure out what kind of designs we want. These ones I want to be these geometric flowers. So again, I'm going to bring out my design here. And for this one, I definitely want to do that one with the leaves. So, um, I kind of it's kind of nice to have the grid here so I can figure this out. Oops, like that. And that and a section in the middle for the stem. A nice big graphic leaves. Or was it like that? No, it was like this. You can't really erase colored pencil, but maybe a little bit. It doesn't matter, 'cause we're gonna color over it, but it's annoying to make mistakes, but that's how it goes. Okay. And then we have the top floral bit. And then we have this. And then I think I'll do a nice scallop here. Okay. So there we have one graphic flower. So then we're going to figure out what we're going to do for the other side. We'll do something similar as well, but I'll try to switch it up a little bit. So I'm going to make a nice scalloped edge for the top, and then we can do more layers of color for the flower. I'm doing a scallop kind of edge with the leaves. There it goes. There's another main one. So that is fun. Okay, now we're going to add in our designs. Definitely I need to do one of these aunt Eliza's Eliza Eliza's star. So that one, we can just do a diamond in the middle. Again, I don't mind the wonkiness. I embrace it, and I think it's fun. So once you have your diamonds in there, you take the middle point and you create little squares like that. And then great triangles from to the points of the diamond. There we go. So we have one star pattern. And then I also I really like these kinds of patterns as well, the really circular ones. We can do the big circles here at the bottom. So here I'm going to do circles around the whole thing, and then connecting them with diamonds in the middle. Again, it doesn't matter if your circles a little wonky. Okay, and then continue like that. Okay. And then let's do these little clover kind of designs. Let's do that at the top. So just making a clover on each one. And then the second one that goes to the edge. That one I didn't do in the center at all. Okay, so there's another section completed. Okay, we just have two more. So what do we like? We like the little flower ones. I also quite like the diamonds. This one. Fans, pinwheels are fun. The other type of quilted star that's a little bit more square, we could do that one here. And then flowers down the last edge? Let's do that. Or fans? No. Let's do the sawtooth stars. So that one's more straightforward with a square in the middle. And then edges down like that. You could, I assume, go like this and make it a lot neater. Yes. And then create the little triangles. And, so there we have our saw tooth star. And then the last one we're going to do we're going to do little flowers. So here we have a little circle in each one. This one is almost a little easier if you have a little guide. So I'm going to create a little guide here, a little cross through all of them without going through the center. Okay, sen and then within those, we make little almost heart shaped petals. All right. So now my page is planned, and now we get to do the fun part of filling it all in. 7. Project Base Color: Alright, so now it is time to color in the page, and this is just really relaxing and lovely. But there's some things that I'd like you to think about. So with markers, I got a whole set, and of course, there are going to be certain colors that you don't really like, and I think that's kind of an interesting challenge. So I'm not very drawn to orange, but there's two oranges in this set. And a yellow as well. So those are kind of interesting for me to figure out how can I use those up and make them how I like them. One thing that I have discovered is that I love the orange and then putting a complimentary color on top, like, purple on top, and that just becomes so vibrant and interesting. So that is something I've discovered. Also, this, mahogany, brownish red looks beautiful also with pinks and purples on top. So you can really really discover things when you're doing this. My bag here was really dirty, so that's nice. Get rid of that. So that's just something I thought you say. Don't just pick, like, 'cause these aren't going to be the final colors necessarily. You're gonna add texture, and you can put other colors on top. So just kind of randomly put in colors. Choose some that are darker backgrounds. Think about contrast. You can do all the blocks come different for each one or, like, alternating or the same. Just go for it. And for me, I just like to fill it in and not think about creating any final details. Those are gonna be done with my other materials. So I'm going to put this on time laps and feel free to enjoy. Yeah, enjoy filling in with me. Okay, so everything is filled in. Some are light and or here, no, I forgot this one. I. One last one. Gosh. Okay, now everything is filled in. And as you can see, I don't do super perfectly because I'm going to be filling everything in on top of this. So this is just my underlayer. So now it kind of looks like a messy kids drawing. Not that that's bad, but, I mean, not the look I'm going for, but this is how they start look a bit messy, and we're gonna clean it all up with fun layers of different colors, and it's going to be so much fun. So and also, like, these aren't the color palette that I like. There's so many oranges. Again, orange is, I think, my least favorite color. But it's fun to give yourself a challenge and how you can make it into something that you really like. So we're gonna bring this to life in the next section. 8. Project Details: Alright. Now it's time to move on to the fun bit. So we have the markers dry really quickly, so you can pretty much just continue on. But if you are using paint, make sure that you are waiting until it's completely dry so that it feels like paper again. Otherwise, you're gonna rip up your paper. Just to give you some inspiration again for what I like to do here is like I just mainly go over once with a new color. Think about sometimes with those contrast colors. And other than that, maybe I'll add little line work here and there. But otherwise, I keep it pretty simple. But you can go and do shading and other colors and designs and just go all out. But this is what I like to do. Just like simple shading on some areas. It's a little line work, but mainly just filling it in with another coat of color. So that's where we're going to be doing. And I like, like I said, I like the neocolor. So I have those over here to the side. So the neocolor and I have my colored pencils, and these ones are from Prisma color. So I'll just go for it. I want to show you how it looks with the orange when I put purples and blues on top, and I think it looks so good. And again, I'm being maybe a little bit more careful than I was when I did the markers. I was a little sloppy in areas. But now I at least try a little bit. So when you color in and you leave a little bit of that orange behind, I think it just looks really nice. It makes it more interesting and makes it pop a little bit more. There's with the more bluish color. This one's called sky blue. And then I can try the purple. I don't know which ones this is because it's so small. Doesn't it just look so much more vibrant and interesting. I prefer how colors look when they sit on top of another color rather than the paper. When the paper is underneath, everything looks unfinished, I feel. When you have when you're coloring and you're leaving space behind. I thought that we could do one of the flowers together. So my yellow marker was running out, so it didn't color as nicely, but that's right. But I thought I could go over with a little bit of this artichoke. No, this is lime peel. Lime peel that'll do. So I can just go over. So I can do a pretty light layer, and then both of them combine, and that becomes more interesting. I hope you think so. Here on the leaves, I could potentially do a little bit of shadow, so I could, if I wanted to bring out another color. So what? Artichoke. Is this one it? Yeah, here's artichoke, and that's, like, even darker version of the lime peel. So I can add a little shadow just to play with shadowing. I can also do veining in the leaves. Just to give them more of structure and interest. And here, maybe I'll make the stem a lot. Darker so I'll do the whole thing in this artichoke color. Where's that. And sometimes if you think that the color pencils aren't going over so well, you can jump in with the neocolor and they definitely go over everything and make everything a little bit more intense. So if you want some areas that are a little bit more saturated, darker colors, and these are a great option. They are just very difficult to go over once you have those down. So once you have figured out how you want things to look, then then you can have neocolor as a final layer because they're so deep and rich, but they're very waxy, so Alright, so then we're just gonna keep going. And I want to mention also that light colors on top of dark colors are really good, and you don't always have to use the colored pencils first. You can go in with Let's try this creamy yellow on top of this color and just mute it down. What does that look like? Kind of interesting. Kind of messy. I kind of like it. Looks chalky, interesting. Again, I'm going to use that purple. I like how that looks and maybe draw this time a little bit more thick, that's really intense there. It's nice to keep some little hints of that orange in there. Here we can do some decorative elements in here. And maybe a pop of pink at the top. Okay, so I'm just gonna continue on like that. I'm gonna put on some nice music again. I hope that you'll join me filling in your page, and we'll see what we come up with. Okay, so I've finished my page. I am sure I could continue adding details and smudging things and things like that, but just I think we're good for now. I don't It's not my favorite page that I've ever done. But that's also a part of this to figure out what you do and don't like. I definitely like how my flower over here turned out. I like this area. It's quite fun. Some of this is quite interesting. I don't like this green in the background, but it's alright. Also, like, you know, just I don't know, could try and change it. But what's done is kind of done. So yeah, that's the class. I really hope that you feel kind of calm. It's so nice to just sit here coloring it such a beautiful practice having a sketchbook and then having these kinds of pages that you can go back to time and time again when you just want to maybe you're having a rough day where you're having a great day when you just want to color, you know, put on your favorite TV show or your favorite music and just sit and enjoy like 40. This took me about 42 minutes to complete. So I mean, I could have taken way longer. And I could have done this quicker. So yeah, I just really hope that you've enjoyed watching this. I can't help, like, just try adding more details. At a point, you have to figure out, like, when do you stop. Anyways, here we go. Thanks so much for taking this class with me. 9. Next Steps: All right, so I really hope that you enjoyed creating a paneled page of your own. And in this quick little section, I just want to go over some next steps. Feel free to do this exercise as many times as you want to however often as you want to, if you found it really relaxing, you can set up lots of pages, like sketch out the framework the panels one day when you're feeling quite motivated and creative and keep those for other days when you just want to sit down and color, fill in the lines, you know. So that's one thing that you can do. Just remember to have fun with your sketchbook. Remember that you don't have to do it page by page in order. You can flip to the 50th page in your sketchbook and create a paneled little section that will be a nice surprise for you later. I just really want you to feel like this is a creative outlet for you that's a safe space and essentially, you don't have to share it. I would love for you to share it in this class, but other than that, I mean, you don't have to. 10. Where Else Can You Learn with Me: That's it, everyone. Thanks so much for taking this class with me. I really do hope that you found it peaceful or mindful or fun, actually, and that you want to share your final paneled page with me in the class project area. It's gonna be so much fun to see what materials you chose to use, which graphic elements you enjoyed. Which panel was your favorite? Did you do, like, three of them 'cause you couldn't stop, like me. Like when I got started with these, I was just like, I just have to do more and more. That's going to be really fun to see. If you'd like to hang out with me outside of Skillshare, you can find me on Instagram at Kristina Hultkrantz. My website is Kristina hultkrantz.com. I have a beautiful supportive patron community that you could check out. It's a monthly membership. I have one Section four surface design, if that's more of your thing, if you like commercial illustration and you'd like to develop your portfolio with themed collections every single month and you need that motivation. I also have Fun Friday, which in the name it says it's fun. So it's all about art play and discovery and experimentation. We work with themes there to develop our art, mainly in sketchbooks. So yeah, hopefully I'll see you there one day. Until next time, please make sure that you're following me here on Skillshare so that you'll be notified when I come up with my next class. And if you haven't already, make sure to go to my profile and see that I have 40 plus something classes that you can check out. Yeah. So there's way more to see, and there's way more to come. I can't wait to create more classes for you. Bye.