Transcripts
1. INTRODUCTION: Hi there, My name is NAMI. I'm a freelance
illustrator and teacher. And today I'm going to
be sharing with you 15 fun different ways to
fill up your sketch book. Not only is filling up
your sketch book really satisfying to just flip through once you've
completely finished it. But it's also a
really good place to just practice drawing and experimenting with
new mediums and ideas. It's really the perfect
place to challenge yourself and grow
within your art style. So anyway, this course
is for beginners, intermediate and
advanced level artists. For every one really, this isn't really a
course showing you how to do something
specifically, but more of a course to inspire and motivate you
to challenge yourself, get outside your comfort zone a little bit and get creative. And I hope through
that it will help you grow and improve upon
your art skills. And the next videos,
I will be doing a speed drawing for each
exercise and I'll be talking you through it and through my thought process of whatever I come up with for
that exercise. Also, I just wanted
to remind you a sketchbook is called a
sketchbook for a reason. It is not meant to
be a portfolio, even though you could
use some of the pieces that you draw in
there in a portfolio. But all that to say
is that I just, I want you to have fun and to relax when you're
doing this course. I don't want you to worry
about messing up or being super perfect
about anything. Nothing's perfect, okay? And sometimes your
mistakes anyway, it can be a really
great opportunity to like figure out how to incorporate it into your drawing and to use it to make
the drawing better. Or because let's be honest, when we're doing
traditional art, sometimes we cannot erase. Also, you can't get better at something if you
don't make mistakes, that's how you learn. Embrace your mistakes,
cherish your mistakes, learn from them, grow from them. And also on a side note, filling up your
sketchbook can be a hard thing to do
for a lot of artists. I can't tell you how many sketchbooks I have that are unfinished.
Don't judge me. If you're one of those
artists like me, this course might be really
good for you just to finish a sketchbook like I did
when I made this course. So anyway, if this sounds
like a class for you, which I really hope it does, Let's go and get our materials
ready in the next video.
2. MATERIALS: Materials, foreign materials. The first thing you will need, of course, is a sketchbook. I'll be using this fine, lovely sketch book today. Yes, it's very nice. I liked this one because the
pages are relatively thick and you can't see the sketch or ink line through the
paper very much, but feel free to use
a smaller sketchbook or even a larger one. Whatever you're more
comfortable drawing in. Next, we'll need some medium. I'm just going to say
grab whatever you have. If all you have is a pencil that is absolutely
fine though one or two of the exercises
do require a color and another requires using
a different medium. But all the others are
doable without it. I'll show you what
I'll be using today. I'll be using, of course, a mechanical pencil,
Faber Castile pens, touch five markers, colored
pencils, highlighters. You can also use paints and other mediums if that's
what you normally use. And lastly, don't forget
to have a good eraser, not one of those ones that's
smudges all your hard work. So if you've got all of those together, Let's get started.
3. Start with something easy: Start with something easy. Let's start with something easy. I find when I doodle or draw something easy before getting into maybe something more
detailed or difficult to draw. It loosens up my
brain and my hand and it just kind of like
eases me into my process. I generally do something
like this as a warm up just to get me prepped
for drawing later on. So just think of what is
easy for you to draw. For me, it is extremely
easy for me to draw shapes or little cute
faces and doodles. And I'll just do this with
a pencil so I can overlap them and just completely fill up a good
portion of the page. Also, I like to repeat a lot
of the shapes or whatever I draw just to make it even
easier to fill up the page. If they have little faces, I might make them looking
at each other just to add a little more
personality in there. Once I feel like
I've added enough, I'm going to go in with my favorite Castile pen and
just outline everything. You don't have to
do this of course. But I just want it to do it to make it look a little more fun. Once I've got it outlined, I might go in and do a little shading or
leave it just like that. It doesn't have to
be anything super crazy or fancy or detailed. It can just be a lot of this. There you go. One-page already done.
4. Surroundings: Surroundings. If you're having an art block and just
want to draw something, but just can't really think
of anything to draw or just want to fill up a page in your sketchbook like
we're doing now. A good place to
start is by drawing things in your space,
your surroundings. What I like to do is
to just make a list of a few things my room
that I'll draw. So what I can see
now, our sunglasses, earrings, backpack,
laptop, and my phone. I'll keep it simple at
just five things for now, unless I feel like
adding more later. This can be fun, especially if you're drawing
things you can see in your room because it makes the picture a little
more personal. Because it can show
a little bit of your personality and what you like depending on
what's in your room. Of course. If you
want to add more, I Feel free to add more
from your surroundings just to beef up your
sketch book page. I'm going to outline
this one just for fun. And so it's a little
more eye-catching. And there you go. Another page done.
5. Mood: Mood. I don't know about you, but when I was younger and even now sometimes to be honest, I would use drawing as a way to vent or release my
feelings and emotions, especially when I was in
school because I hated school. Let's be honest. So I
would draw how I felt. I remember drawing this picture
when I was in university, I was extremely tired. I had a night shift customer
calls, service job, and then I'd have to go to morning classes and had
several products to vintage. I felt like I didn't
have any time, but somehow I made it work. But this is what I drew during that time just to
show my lack of time, the workload I had, and how tired I looked. And I really did
look that tired. It's not an exaggeration. But today I'm feeling rather happy and peaceful
because I just bought some new plants and all my friends say
I'm going to become a crazy plant lady who has tons of plants and
only loves her plants, which I don't know
about all that. But plants do bring me
happiness and relaxation. So that's what I'll
be drawing today. Honestly, after
drawing my feelings, I usually feel better. What have a good laugh
at what I drew because sometimes I could draw some
pretty intense pictures. But of course, when it comes to mood, you can draw any mood. If you're happy, draw
something happy, like smiling faces or whatever is making you
happy at the moment. Could be a person you love, or a best friend or a pet. If you're relaxed, draw what has been making
you feel relaxed? Mood can extend into
things beyond emotion too. So like being hungry or
wanting to go for a run, just focus on how
you're feeling and what your mood is
right now and draw it. And if you're confused
and not really sure, Draw yourself looking
confused and not really sure. Yeah, there you go. Another page, ten.
6. Memory: Memory. We all have had
experiences in life, some good and some not-so-great, but we all have some vivid
memories from those times. Drawing your memories can be a really good way to
artistically portray your feelings about
a certain memory and how it made you feel. You can draw it
just as it seemed. You can enhance it by over
exaggerating the memory, giving it a dreamlike feel. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to draw the first time I watched my neighbor told her, if you don t know
that movie you're missing out, you
should go watch it. I think I was only like
eight years old or something and I watched
it with my dad. He introduced it to me. And I was such a
little nature freak. I loved the whole nature spirit creativity
around the movie. And it felt like total row and the characters are
in the room with me. Like they came to life in
my head as I watched it. Gosh, like even just
drawing this kind of gave me an histologic feeling. I should definitely
do more of this. This is also like in a stylistic thing to do
that you can do also. You can draw any kind of memory, such as cooking a meal you
liked your first love, your first heartbreak, the time someone or something made
you laugh really hard. Traveling, working, the list
goes on, drawing memories. It's also a really great
way to kind of get into storyboarding because you kinda have to draw a
whole, entire scene. Anyway. There we go. Another page done.
7. Dreams: Dreams. I love drawing my dreams. Now, drawing your
dreams might not be for everyone as I do now, some people have a
really hard time remembering their dreams
after they wake up. So there's two ways
you can do this. If you are someone who remembers their dreams when they wake
up or even writes them down, draw a dream from your sleep. But if you're someone who struggles to remember
their dreams, draw a dream you have in life, like your dream job, your dream house,
or a dream partner. I know that last one syllable. Let's just have fun with it. I personally can remember a
lot of dreams when I wake up. So I'll be trying
that kind of dream. My dreams can be so wacky. I had a dream when
I was a kid that I was fighting like
weird dog or rats, soldiers on a
stranded island with my Guinea pig who was
unnecessarily huge. We were on some
kind of adventure. I don't really know
what was going on, but I remember it
being really fun. My Guinea pig was always my little partner in
crime when I was a kid. Dreams are always
quite interesting. Like I am the kind of person
to look up on Google what a certain thing in a dream means or represents in your real life? Sometimes a pretty accurate, I don't know that I know. Anyway, drawing your dreams can be really fun and
interesting just to look back on months
later and think, Wow, I dumped him that or drawing a dream you had in
life and thinking, wow, that's what my dream
man looked like at that age. Interesting. It can just be a good laugh. And there you go. Another page done.
8. Face and expression study : Face and expression study. I love doing art studies, especially face and facial
expression studies. If you are someone who
is trying to improve on certain skills or diversify
what you're able to draw. Doing any kind of study is good. Studies or where you use
reference to help aid you and drawing certain
things more accurately. When I do face studies, I tend to go onto
Pinterest and type in female faces or male faces
and see what comes up. You can find a lot of
different kinds of face shapes and
features on there. When I'm doing facial
expression studies, I'll do the same. But oftentimes
I'll actually take photos of myself pulling
crazy expressions. I find I'm more
comfortable using my face as referenced when
it comes to expressions. Maybe because I'm
used to looking at my own face as I'm drawing, I'll even slightly or fully make the facial expression
while drawing. For some reason, I feel like it helps me draw it
more accurately. Even though I
probably looked like a psycho if anyone
walked in on me, drawing face and expression
studies are great. There's so many different
kinds of faces out there. And seeing all the
different details and angles and shapes
of different faces can definitely bump up your mental reference for when you're drawing
without reference. If you draw without reference. But you can really do
any kind of study for whatever you're
trying to improve on to fill up a page
in your sketchbook. And there we go.
Another page done.
9. Fanart: Fan Art. Fan Art. So I'm pretty sure we all have some favorite character
is from a movie, TV series, or anime. So why not draw them? One of my favorite shows was Teen Titans, not Teen Titans. Go. Just to clarify, my
favorite character was definitely Raven
and Beast Boy. I draw them together
all the time. Capturing their personality
was super easy too, because raven was always brooding and dark
and mysterious, while Beast Boy was super goofy and lighthearted
and happy. So when I draw them together, it would make for a very
good dynamic picture. It's always pretty fun to draw fan art in your own style too. Just to give it a bit of your
own personality as well. Just to give you some ideas
of how you can draw fan art. You can draw one character. You can draw a specific scene of your character or characters. If you have your own
character that you created, you can draw your character interacting with the character from your favorite TV show. You can even draw yourself interacting with your
favorite TV show character. There's so many different
ways to draw fan art. And there you go.
Another page then.
10. Food: Food. If you're a foodie like me, thinking of various
different delicious food is pretty easy. Even though it's not
something, I normally draw. A fun way to fill up a page
in your sketchbook with food is by writing down a few different kinds of
food and drawing them. I'm going to come up with a
few different kinds of food, draw them scattered
across the page. The food I chose
don't really have any connection to one another other than the fact
that their food. But you could totally draw a page full of different
kinds of sweets. Another page of different
kinds of junk food. Another page of Japanese
food, or a seafood, or just fruits or vegetables
or candy. I love candy. There's so many
different kinds of food. If you want to get
playful with it, you can give them
some personality by giving them little faces. Or you can draw them super detailed however
you want really. I think I'll keep
this one pretty simple and leave the
faces out and I'll just give them a
nice black outline in my favorite Castile pen. And there you go. Another page, damage.
11. Movie or Music video scene: Movie or music videos, scenes. I love getting inspiration from scenes in movies
or music videos. When it comes to movies, there's always so
many great angles and perspectives you
can practice drawing. With music videos. They play a lot with color
and lighting and mood. They're also good for
practicing facial expressions. If that's something you're
wanting to work on, getting inspiration
from movies and music videos is a
great place to start. What I do is play a
movie or music video. And then when I see a scene
or color scheme, I like, I'll pause it, take a screenshot if I need to use
it as reference, I may change some things around like what the person
or people look like, but I will stick
pretty closely to where everything is
positioned in the scene. As you can see in the corner, I'm using a scene
from the movie slash music video euphoria because I love the facial expression
and mood of the scene. It's just telling a story. This is something actually I
normally color in digitally. But I think I'll
challenge myself and color it in traditionally. A few of my markers were a
little dry unfortunately, but that's what happens
sometimes when we draw. Like I said earlier
in this lesson, every picture in your sketch
book doesn't need to be perfect because every piece is an opportunity to
learn something new. I alluded to just laugh
at your own mistakes, but it's still a
learning experience. And there we go. Another page then.
12. Color palettes : Color palettes. I used to struggle a lot with
choosing colors for my art. It was always difficult for me to find the right
color palettes. I didn't always know what colors go well with what colors. And to be honest, I still don't. Sometimes. That's something I'd
like to work on more. But one way I did get a little better with choosing
my colors for my pieces is by using pre-made
color palettes online. I'd go onto Pinterest
or just Google, type in color palettes
and then color in my picture based around one of the color palettes
that I found online. Because we're using
traditional medium. I'll just pick out the
colors from what I have that matched the closest to the color palette
I found online. I may or may not
use all the colors, but just having a
certain amount of colors from the palette will still give you a nice cohesive color mix
for your drawing. And honestly, it's so fun to experiment with color palettes. I mean, when you think about it, certain movies or music videos, like I mentioned earlier, they all use a certain kind
of color palette to create a certain look or portray a certain emotion
or mood or feel. The right combination of colors can really add a lot
to your drawing. And there you go. Another page down.
13. Use different mediums: Use different mediums. Using different mediums
is probably one of the best ways to get you
out of your comfort zone. Of course, when we're
really good and comfortable using
a certain medium, we tend to want to stick to
that because it's easier. But why not broaden your horizons and get
creative with something new? If you're more particular
to paint that in, why not try markers? Or if you generally use
markers, why not try paint? Or if you're a
colored pencil user, why not try oil pastels just to see what you come
up with in another medium. And again, we're not
trying to be perfect here. We're just trying to go on a little journey while
filling up our sketchbook. Because I don't have paint
on me at the moment. I'm going to use
colored pencils. I rarely use colored
pencils for anything. So I'll see what I can
come up with for that. And as you notice, I started
with mechanical pencil, but just a very light sketch
so I can go over it with colored pencil and then color it in with colored pencils as well. Wow, that actually it turned out better than I
thought it was going to. There you go. Another page done.
14. Instagram challenges : Instagram challenges. Instagram challenges
are an incredible way to fill up your sketch book. There's just so
many, it's endless. There's a drawing challenge. Every man called mermaid, where you draw mermaids
for the month of May. There's also ink October, where you use only ink
or pen or marker with minimal to no color for the
whole month of October. That's a really good one
to fill up a sketchbook. For these months,
there will be tons of prompts you can use to
come up with ideas. There's probably a few
I don't even know of. There's also the
challenge called DTI. Why S? Which is what I'm
drawing here right now, which just means draw this in your style where an artists on Instagram will
post a picture and challenge you to draw
it in your own style. Sometimes it's just for
fun and sometimes you can actually win something if the artists
likes your drawing. I think I filled up
a whole sketch book on draw this in your style. Challenges alone, as well
as in Toba are actually. So take a look over
on Instagram and type those hashtags in and
see what you can find. Instagram challenges
may not be for everyone because not
everyone uses Instagram. But if you are someone who
doesn't have Instagram, I'd highly recommend considering it if you're wanting
a platform to post your art or just want like a nice art
community to chat with. The artists community
on Instagram is really lovely actually and
supportive of each other. And there you go. Another page done.
15. Animals or people: Animals and people. If you are someone
who doesn't draw animals and generally
draws people, or someone who draws animals
and doesn't draw people, then let's try and draw what
we don't normally draw. And if you're someone who
tends to draw backgrounds, then why not try drawing
both animals and people? Drawing different things in
your sketchbook can make your sketch book even more
interesting to flip through, because you never know
what you'll find in there. And also drawing different
kinds of living things is a great way to practice
different kinds of anatomy. I'm much more of a
drawing people, person. So what I like to do
is get reference of one animal and draw it in different positions
all over the page. That way I can practice more of its anatomy while
filling up the page. So go ahead and find reference of an animal or a reference of people and draw them in different positions
to fill up your page. This is also such a
great way to improve, just in general, even if you're drawing something
you're already good at. Just because you're good at
drawing people doesn't mean you're good at drawing them
in every position and angle. So get creative with it
and challenge yourself. And there we go. Another page done.
16. Ask a friend, family, fans: Ask your friends, family, or followers and what to draw. A fun way to fill
up your sketch book is to ask friends, family, or if you have a following of any kind on social
media, what to draw? My friends and family
are generally pretty supportive and enjoy seeing
what I draw in general. But they love it even
more when I asked them to give me ideas
of what to draw. They love seeing their
suggestions come to life. Over on Instagram,
I tend to post stories asking my
followers what to draw. I might tell them to ask me
to draw something simple. Asked me to draw an emotion, or food or animal
or something weird. It can get really
fun and wacky over there depending on what
they asked you to draw. And it's just super
interactive and also makes for really good content
for your Instagram page. If you have 11 of my followers sometime ago asked me
to draw a Fishman. And so I did. And a friend of mine named
him at Ned flippers. So today I'm drawing
a giant Ned flippers. Like I said, it can get
pretty weird over there. I tend to leave
these as sketches, but I think I'll
outline him today. Feel free to outline them, are color them into
and there we go. Another page done.
17. Class project and conclusion: For your class project, all you have to
do is pick one of the 15 different ways of how to fill up your sketch book and fill up one page
in your sketchbook. Take a picture and upload
it here on Skillshare. Uploading your picture here is actually a really good thing to do because it can kinda give inspiration to other artists, are people taking this course. And also you can get
positive feedback from myself and the
Skillshare community. Also, if you have any
questions or comments in general that you'd
like to ask or share. Feel free to leave a comment
in the discussion section. You can also go and check
out my Instagram page at the not me art where
I post art regularly. I'd like to feature some
artists and also I like to do some fun interactive things in my stories with my followers. So that would be fun to see
you over there as well. And you can also check
out my YouTube page, also called NAMI art, where I will be posting
some art related content, speed drawings, anything art
that is still in the making. So I don't have too many
videos up there yet, but I will be posting a lot more in the next coming weeks. So that would also be nice to
see you over there as well. Anyway. Thank you so much
for taking my course. I really hope you
had fun with it. I had fun with it. I hope you did too. Yeah. And I can't wait to
see what you come up with. Happy drawing.
Nami Bates
