Illustrated Journaling II: 14 MORE Days of Prompts

1. Illustrated Journaling II: Class Introduction: My name is Dylan Mierzwinski. I'm an illustrator by trade and last year I made a class called illustrated journaling, 14 days of prompts, sort of as an invitation to slow down and get creative without pressure. Well, over 17,000 of you showed up and you brought your favorite recipes and your most coveted art supplies, and your obsessions and grocery lists and messy closets. You got your kids involved and you worked at your dining room tables and you used the materials you have on hand. It was all just a really nice time and so I wanted to ask you, do you want to do it again? Whether you call yourself an artist or not, you have a creative brain and probably some stress in your life. You deserve to carve out a safe and comfortable place to be right here. I still stand by the power of showing up for your creativity to help heal and bring joy to our lives. So here's 14 more prompts to get you sitting down with your markers or colored pencils or whatever you have on hand to take a deep breath and draw without pressure. When you leave this class, you'll have a method for using your creativity for mindfulness and joy all while creating a time capsule of precious details from your life that you may have otherwise overlooked. Because what may seem mundane today is a memory that will grow richer each day it grows older. So shake off the pressure and perfectionism. Grab whatever supplies are closest to you and let's get started with day 1. 2. Sharing Your Project: In this lesson, we'll go over how to share and edit your class project. In this class, we'll be creating 14 illustrated journal entries together based on the provided prompts. Here's how to share your project on Skillshare. I recommend taking photos in natural daylight of your journal pages with a smart phone or digital camera. Alternatively, you can scan in your artwork if you're familiar with that process and prefer it. You'll then transfer those photos to your computer either by emailing them to yourself, or air dropping, or using a cable or memory card. To create a new project for this class, go to the Project and Resources tab and on the right-hand side click the big green "Create project" button. Right below this is where you'll also find any resources provided in the class. The top of the project creator will ask you to upload a cover image. Please note there can only be one single cover image that represents your project, almost like the cover of a book. Next, give your project a title. In the main project body, you can add multiple images by clicking this, "Add more content image" button, browsing for your image file and selecting "Open." You can also reflect on the process by adding text. You can make your project private by checking this box, though we do hope you will be courageous and put your art out into this safe space. When you're ready, click "Publish." To edit your project or add journal entries one day at a time, go back to your class project and select "Edit Project" in the upper right-hand corner. Then you can add that day's entry above or below the previous. Please keep in mind that you can only have one project per class. If you revisit these prompts in the future, you'll edit your current project to either add to or replace the content from the previous time. Don't forget to take a look at the treasure trove, that is the project section. Not only is it inspiring, but leaving a kind word or two on a fellow artist project will really make their day. Honestly, it'll help me out because with more than 1,000 projects in the first-class, and as sad as it makes me to admit, I can't promise I can make it to all of them. Thank you for helping keep the community alive and bustling. In the next lesson, we'll go over materials. 3. Materials: In this lesson, we'll cover the materials you can use to complete this course and project, including how to access the provided class resources. Here are some of the materials you may want to help complete your class project. Firstly, I've created some class resources to help you along. The first is a materials list with what I'm about to go over. There's also the list of prompts and most notably, a brainstorm of alternate ways to approach each prompt in case the way I do it doesn't excite you. To access these resources, head to the Projects and Resources tab and on the right side bar beneath the Create Project button, is the downloadable pdf. The first supply you need, is a drawing surface, some type of smooth paper, whether bound or not, that you like to draw on. I'll be using the big idea notebook from Wit and Delight, which has recently become available at Target. It is not even close to imperative that you use this book. I just like the way it feels. I own it already and it can handle my Tombow markers. If you want to make sure you have something comparable, the paper in this journal is 100-120 GSM. Next, you'll want something to draw with or something to paint with if you prefer paint and are using paper thick enough to handle it. Though, I do discourage it unless paint really is your most comfortable medium. Otherwise, it tends to be above the line of resistance. We'll talk about that. I'll be using Tombow Dual Brush markers. They are water-based. They're not too expensive and they come in a wide range of colors. They have a brush tip on one end and a thinner tip on the other. I cannot say it enough that this class is about the doing and not the doing it right, or perfect or pretty. So if you want to start now, but don't have markers, use whatever you do have. Try using a pencil or highlighters or a box of crayons, or even work digitally if you prefer. If you have a few mediums to choose between, choose whatever is the most comfortable, fun, and/or accessible for you in this project. In addition to my Tombows for drawing details as well as adding lettering, I'll be using this refillable Pentel brush ink pen. It's ink is permanent and I love the texture it makes. You'll also want a pencil and/or a pen for brainstorming, sketching, and adding in written details. Scrap paper will also be helpful for brainstorming through prompts and making lists. Lastly, some prompts could bring the need for our reference photo or object. In this case, follow along with the video lesson for more details. I like to use Unsplash for royalty-free images and Google for general reference when it's personal use, like these journals. If you create your entries on separate sheets of paper, you may want to use a hole punch and twine or some other binding materials to hold the pages together. In the next lesson we'll chat about how to work from prompts. 4. Working From Prompts : In this lesson, we'll break down a helpful process for approaching each prompt. When you're met with a prompt, you may have an idea and approach right away, in which case, just get going, just go, and get really used to me saying this, this class is about the doing. It's about quantity over quality. It's about just showing up, being present, and getting the thing done. For any prompt, regardless of what you see me doing on-screen, your goal is to fill up the page no matter what. If I were to map out my ideas for any given prompt and I put a line that represents my own resistance to actually beginning a project, I'm looking for ideas that sit down here. Painting a beautiful and elaborate scene to tell a story that the prompt reminds me of, while maybe an excellent idea, in theory, is just too high above that line of resistance for me to actually begin the project, up here with thinking about what others are doing. But you know what isn't? Drawing just a few easy items from that scene. I'm going to go with that. For each and every prompt, I want you to go with the path of least resistance and the idea that's going to get your marker cap off the fastest, the one that makes you go. "Oh, I can do that." Draw cliches, draw basic shapes, and right on top of them, use your favorite colors over and over. Pick that low-hanging fruit. You can stretch your skills and comfort zone and vision and portfolio and other creative classes. This one is a happy break for your brain and your heart. As I was saying before, if you hear a prompt and you've got an idea and you're ready to go, then go. If however you're met with a prompt and you're a little bit more lost, let me break down the process that you're about to see 14 days in a row. It goes brainstorm, list, approach, go. When I say brainstorm, I mean to write down the ideas that come to your head when you hear the prompt. At this stage, don't say no to anything. Next, we're going to refine that brainstorm into a list of items we want to actually include in the entry. Weed out any ideas that are boring or seem too difficult or involved. Ask yourself, what would be easy or what would be fun? As or after you list your items, start thinking about how you want to approach the page with your list of items. This includes thinking about the general composition and colors. Here are a few composition types I tend to lean on a lot. The first and my favorite and most used is a flat lay where all the objects are drawn, arranged together, almost like laying flat on a desk. This is a forgiving approach to any prompt as it can handle a variety of objects while still staying balanced as awkward spots and holes can be filled in with writing and lettering. A central focal point would be a single icon or object drawn in the center of the page with lettering and writing surrounding it. An icon layout has a set number of smaller or simpler drawings laid out on a grid with captions or descriptions beneath. A scene would be just as it sounds and would be a drawing depicting a story, a place, and/or people. I have found that this is the hardest of the approaches, FYI. You can also have a lettering-based approach where decorative lettering and words are used as the main imagery of the entry. Lastly, the easiest approach for hard days is to just draw some shapes, geometric or organic, and journal on top of them. Once you've considered your layout, you can take a look at color. You'll notice that I choose color in each demo based on how I'm feeling that day. Some days it's just too overwhelming to pick a palette that feels cohesive, while other days, I really want to pick a palette that I want to stick to. Other times, I just try to use the colors as they are in real life or from the reference. Remember, we're trying to stay beneath that bar of resistance, so whatever approach helps you begin is the one to go with. Now that you've got your list and your approach, there's nothing left to do but mess up that blank page. I like to start by writing the prompt at the top and then choose the list item that's the biggest or most demanding in its placement on the page. But you'll see exactly what I mean when you watch each demo starting with day 1, greetings from. If you ever want to quickly reference my process in the future but without all the explanations, I've also provided an overview time lapse of every prompt following each demo lesson. In the next lesson, I'll demonstrate completing the day 1 prompt. 5. Day 1 Plan: Greetings From: Our prompt for day 1 is greetings from, and so obviously I can start off with my location. I'm in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm in my studio in our new house, so few angles already. Very specifically, I'm sitting in a chair that my fiance's work was getting rid of, wood work chair. Today, I'm filming on a Saturday. Greetings from Saturday. If I'm being honest, I've also been dealing with some depression lately. Actually that gives me a good idea because looking at this list like the thing that I tried to incorporate in my journal entries is really tying it to the time that I'm in. I have been in Phoenix now for 45 years. If I were facing a lot of resistance in this one felt easiest or the most interesting, I could definitely do that, but it doesn't right now, and so I'm probably not going to go that way. I do love my studio, but I'm not feeling necessarily very excited about just representing that. It's just very small feeling, no distinct to my studio. New house, I actually might include that in another prompt that's coming up, and so I might save that. The chair, I'm intrigued by the chair. I'm a journal entry just with this old crappy chair and then just words around it might be cool. I'm going to start that. Saturday, I like that too. Saturdays are my favorite day. They're so special. Then the depression actually intrigues me too. I don't mean to start off like day 1 with like bringing down the house, but this really is like marking this time in my life right now. I will remember this period and I also, I don't want this to have to be such a negative thing that I avoid. I think I actually, this is what I want to explore. What are some things that could represent my depression? I've been playing a lot of phone games. They just suck my attention in, which is really comfortable right now, I've been listening to a lot of the morbid podcasts are like true crime. Have been relying a lot on dry shampoo. I mean, I always do, but it seems like lately I'm really relying on it. I'm relying on I guess just like honesty. I've been really speaking up about it this time that this is what I'm going through and I've been wearing I have this black card again I'm wearing it right now that I have been wearing like every day and it's been my go to, but I also a big important part of my day during this depressive episode has been making my bed. It's like I haven't been doing much during the day, but if I can make the bed and that feels really good. Who you know, at my sense of humor, I've been relying on a lot of memes. Especially it seems like Capricorn and astrology memes. They've been making me laugh lately and I really appreciate laughing. Think I have a good list here of things that I can draw. Obviously, honesty is one of those things that's a bit more nebulous. Instead of having to draw or represent that, I could just color a shape and then write about that, use my lettering and my writing to fill in that part of it. But these other things are really great icons that I can draw. My phone games, making the bad, even the morbid podcasts, I can draw their little icon. Maybe I'll keep the memes out of this one just because I have a good list of things here. Now that I have my list, I can think about my approach. Since I really like just a flat lay, just drawing the things next to each other. That's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to try and draw a scene of me playing phone games, listening to a podcast, maybe a can of dry shampoo nearby which I'm on top of my made bed like you totally could do that. That's just that type of drawing stresses me out. It doesn't make me feel calm, whereas this, I can just take it one item at a time. I've got my list, I've got my approach, and I'm going to think about color. The idea of, like I said, I want my depression. I want to embrace it. I want to accept it. I think it'd be fun to dress it up in these lighter whimsical colors, the light pinks and purples. I think I'm going to go for that. Let's see, I like 63, and sometimes I'll try to like count out the items and pick that many colors. But this time I'm just going to grab what colors I'm drawn to and just get them all out. So I've got my colors picked out. I just picked out pinks and purples and soft peaches. I think that they're going to look pretty together. Got my list. I'm a blank page. 6. Day 1 Demo: Greetings From: Usually, when I start on my page, and you're more than welcome to make a sketch, I find that for some people, making a sketch makes them feel calm and prepared moving forward with the piece. For me sometimes making a sketch makes me feel like, oh, this is a big deal and it requires sketching, and so, sometimes it trips me out and it feels less resistance for me to just get started. I fully understand if that's not how you work and feel free to sketch if you want, but the way that I take this on, as I just am looking for the biggest item or the item that's the most cumbersome, the one that's going to need premium placement on the page. Let's see. I've got a phone game. I'm thinking if I do the phone shape that would fit best down here at the bottom. Morbid podcast, that icon can fit in anywhere. The dry shampoo is tall and thin and upright, and so I'll probably want to hold one of the edges for that along the phone. The cardigan can fit in anywhere. Making the bed, I'll probably be able to fit a little bed in somewhere or even just a little circle that says, making the bed. Then if I have space, I can write about the honesty portion of what I'm experiencing right now, and then I want to have greetings from my depression written at the top. Probably I'll start with the lettering because I know that I want that at the top and center. Let's see which of these pink colors, 912. My favorite. I love 912. I'm going to write depression first because it's going to be bigger and then I can fit my in whatever weird space I leave because I'm sure I will. I'm not worried about it being perfect. I want it to look almost like a postcard. I'll start with the phone and the phone games I've been playing are these, it's like a seek and find game where it gives you a bunch of objects you have to find. It's pretty dumb. I think I want to draw my thumbs on the phone, and so I'll need to draw the thumbs first. Again, I'm just really not worried about it being perfect, but I do just want to be thoughtful where I can. I'm just going to draw the rough thumb shape and if it's not perfect, it's not perfect. I'm trying to instead focus on enjoying getting to just draw and be really bold with the side of this marker. That's really enjoyable. I'll just have the thumbs floating there. Since I have the place figured out, I'm going to leave it for now because I'm not quite sure how I want to draw this stuff in yet, so I at least have it on the page. Now I'll do the dry shampoo because I know that that is going to be standing up. For that, right now I'm just going to draw a rectangle. I think I'm going to draw the cardigan next in this bigger space. See, I always draw my sweaters the same way. I have their arm bend. The two things left are making the bed and the Morbid podcast. I wonder if I could fit a sideways shot of the bed right here to take up that space, or if I should just do two small things right here and leave this open for writing. First, I'll do the Morbid logo, which I think is a triangle. I could've looked it up first and try to recreate it, but I don't feel it's necessary. Again, it's about what is going to feel good and just make you want to continue. If you really want to sink into this and look things up and find reference photos and all that, then please do. For me right now, I'm facing resistance. It's my first day of filming for this class and so I'm just feeling nervous. I want to get out 873. Do I have that out? Yes, I do. Again, it's not about being perfect, so I'm not going to overthink this for too long. I'm just going to draw a bed right here, and I think I want to do it this way because I think this perspective is going to make more sense to me. The headboard. I'll color that in and add the details on a little bit, and then, maybe right here I'll just do a little light purple circle that I can fill in with writing. A little oval. Yeah. That creates a nice balance on the page and I'll be able to fill in this area with the date and maybe just some extra writing. Cool. We've got the initial composition figured out and now I can just enjoy taking it one item at a time, drawing in the details, and coloring. I'm going to start back down here, and I think that this is going to have multi-colored items in it, and I'm basically just going to color in a really basic room. Again, this isn't the main focus of the post. I just want something that's going to read as a little room and maybe I'll put the name of the game up here. It's Man or something. Because this is for me and I'll be able to remember when I come back to this in the future and see this little room and the name of the game, I'm going to know exactly. I'm going to remember that time. Maybe for fun, I'll add a little color to my would-be fingernails right here, something subtle. I'll be able to make this look more like a phone and add more details in the name. I'm going to do that with my black marker on top. Right now I just want to get those colors figured out. For this, I can't remember what their logo is, but I'm just going to do a little celestial, like a moon, and then I want the word Morbid to be in white, so I'm going to outline it with pink and then color around it. Little moments like these are really enjoyable to just really sink into coloring these in. Just filling these areas with pink is all I'm doing right now. Try to overrule any internal dialogue or inner judgment that's happening by focusing on the joy that's here which is just getting the color right now. It's pretty cool. My cardigan is all black but it's black and gray and so I'm going to use this pink color for the more gray parts just, so that this can have some color too. What's this? Oh, my dry shampoo. Yes. I want to do some lettering on this. But I want it to be in cursive and I'm not going to use my pencil for this so I can outline it. I'm going to go off the side of the can. Now I'm just going to try and draw around where those thicker letters would be, it's a fun mind bender for my brain to figure out where the negative space should go. Again, if I "Mess it up," well, all I messed up was a fake dry shampoo can in my journal. It's just the stakes are not very high here. Don't make yourself miserable with pressure, expectations and try things. I honestly didn't know if this lettering technique would work but now that I've stuck with it, I can see that it is working a bit. That's nice. Already it's so nice to see, this topic of depression, you can feel really heavy obviously and dark and so to see the word depression and like bright in that peachy color and with all these pinks and purples is nice, it makes me smile. I'm going to erase what's hanging off the edge and then I'm going to just lightly erase here because I want to go over those lines. I just want to make sure that I can see roughly where I need to go. But if I leave them fully in there, I'm going to be able to see them all the way through the marker which sometimes is a cool look. But for this, I don't want it to be as strong. Just hoping this purple would be much darker than the other and have nice contrast. But I might need to go over with another color. I've got our little bed here and I think I'm just going to use a few different shades of colors just to fill that out. If some of the lines that I drew here show, I think that's okay. It does not need to be perfect to be valuable. In fact, it really is just way better when it's not. But if you took my first class then you probably already know the magic here. Then this just needs to get colored in. I love being able to push down all the way and use the full width of that and I'm just going to go back through again and just add some darker details and start adding in some lettering. I think, the name of the game is manor matters. I don't want to darken into any of the details within the phone because that's really just background. I really just want the name to stand out. Maybe I'll just do a few lines in there. Well, stars. I'm just going to add stripes to the dry shampoo. I'm going to color some of these parts and with this marker but I might get a dark Tombow out, so that I can color more solidly on parts of it. But I do like this texture or some parts of the card again, I really like the sketchiness of these markers and so I'm going to let myself create that in this. I'm not going to color this in perfectly. I like seeing the direction of those lines. All the illustrationy parts are done and now I can just fill in what's happening here, fill in little notes and you can do that with a regular pen. You can do that with your marker. You can do that with your lettering marker. I'm going to use the pen side of the marker or the finer tip. See how like I'm just not trying to be so precious with my lettering. It's really at every turn trying to just lessen expectations and just enjoy. Up here, I'm going to say, grateful for my friends or I'll say for my loved ones. Awesome. Our Day 1 entry, is done. Actually no, sorry, little soon. I need to make a note about these phone games. Dhamma phone games for the win, truly for the win, really helped me out. Then up here I would just draw a little circle for the date and fill that in. I'm not going to date this on this video because I don't want to date the video. But you can just draw a cute little circle and write the date in there. It's also fun sometimes to make a note about what the weather was like. Today, it is hot and sunny. I think right now it's about 93 degrees. I'll see you tomorrow for Day 2. 7. Day 1 Timelapse: Greetings From: Now please enjoy this overview time-lapse of the day one prompt greetings from, in case you want to quickly reference the process and the future. 8. Day 2 Plan: Past: Welcome back for day 2. Our prompt for today is PAST, P-A-S-T. Spoiler alert, our prompt for tomorrow is present and the prompt for the following day is future. I'm saying that in case it may ease or help you approach these prompts to have them as a triptych, or to have a theme that fits the three of them. For instance, your dog, maybe you have a pet and you want to reflect on when he was a puppy and now where he is in his age and then later on when he's older and he's kind of an older dog. That's just an example. That's how I'm going to approach mine. I already know what I'm going to be doing for this one because it came to my brain as I was planning the class. I want to have as much brainstorming happen on camera as possible, but I'm not going to lie and pretend to come up with the idea that I already had. But if the idea of having a theme for all three of them overwhelms you then just ignore this and just tackle this prompt just as you would any other one. Brainstorm, list, approach, pick out your colors and go and then do the same tomorrow in the next day. It's just about what's going to make you more excited or maybe give you an idea that you want to follow, and it's totally up to you. For my theme, so to speak, for these next three days, I'm going to be reflecting on milestone moments in my relationship with my fiance. For the past, I'm going to focus on places that we have lived together. But some other examples of ideas that you could have in case this isn't doing it for you, you could just think of a memory that makes you happy or makes you laugh, or is meaningful to you in some way, and you could reflect on that memory. You could find some things in your house that remind you of the past or bring up memories and you could draw those items on the page. Again, you'll want to consider your approach to how you want to draw so that it's fun for you so that you're not trying to draw a really intricate scene when you don't like drawing scenes or you're not boring yourself by drawing objects if you really want to use your imagination more. Places we've lived together. The first place we lived together was an apartment called The Saulet Apartments, and that was in New Orleans. Then we moved back to Michigan to the Roundtree Apartments. One of the things that helped me get excited about this prompt is I tend to get freaked out with drawing scenes or drawing people or if there's too many layered items. With this especially, I knew that I'd get to draw a little buildings, which I think is going to be cute and fun. I could see how I could lay them out on the page like a grid and right underneath them. Since I'm linear like that, that feels really good to me. Just another reason or another little hint at my thought process. That was then Ypsilanti Michigan. This apartment, one thing that just came to mind was there was a Taco Bell like pretty much right next door. I was really excited about that when we lived there. One thing that came to my mind when I was thinking about our New Orleans apartment was the balcony. I just really loved it and the colorful buildings. Sometimes I like to capture things like that as they come to my head because I have ADHD and I might forget it. After Roundtree, we moved into a centennial farm house that was made into a duplex, and that was also in Ypsilanti. Then we move to Phoenix. We used to live at the side apartments. We lived in an apartment in Phoenix, Arizona in the middle of the desert, that's called base side. There's no bay, there's no water. Then we lived where we live currently, which is in our house that we bought at the end of last year. These are the four places that I'm going to draw in my entry. I'm going to need to look up pictures of them because I generally remember, but like two of these are apartment buildings, three of them are apartment buildings. I'll have to get references for those. I already figured out my approach. That's going to be to kind of draw them as icons and then have room to write about them or label them underneath. Let me see if there's any other notes that I want to get out and think about right now. The first is that base side, one of the big indicators as this was the first time we had palm trees around us. The farmhouse, there were Barnes on the property, and lots of nature. Roundtree really, there was like we had a fine time living there, but there is just nothing that's special about it except the Taco Bell. Maybe that one will be the most generic of the apartment buildings. The Saulet Apartments, the balcony, the colorful buildings. I think that's going to be enough to differentiate. Yeah, I think that's all of them. I've got my brainstorm, I've got my list, I've got my approach. It's time to pick out some colors. I think I might pick them out as I go. Oh, you know what? I'm going to look at reference photos first. I think that might help me. First step on the list are the Saulet apartments in New Orleans. Oh my gosh, yes, there they are. The colorful little buildings. That's a good picture to have. I may just make a quick sketch just to remember the balcony with the French doors because that was something that I noted down. When you're drawing in a journal or something, you don't have to worry as much about copyright issues because this isn't something that we're going to make money off. It's not something we're selling, it's just something that we're making for ourselves. I feel okay using the images that I'm going to find on Google. This is the same view. But I like that you can see the peak of the building. Even though I don't think we technically lived at the peak of the building. I think that's going to look nicest. Next step we have Roundtree Apartments, Ypsilanti, and I just remember being pretty generic. Yeah. This is what I remember. It's an apartment building. I think I'll try to show a door on each one. Maybe I'll show that there's little steps leading up to it, bushes, the door, even the siding with the window are all little details I can key in on who the farmhouse. Farmhouse, I'm going to have to find a picture of on my phone because it was just a property. I'll go back on that one. Our most recent apartment, base side already, we just lived there and I already forgot about the arches. I'm going to save that. Now for the trickier one, and that's going to be okay. Finding a picture of the farmhouse. Oh, that's my grandma, Wanda's and she's so cute. Hey grandma. Here's the property. These were the barns that were on the property. Do I have a picture of the door though? I don't know that I have a picture of the house, but I at least have the door here because I remember mostly what the farmhouse looked like it had a peak to it as well. If I have this picture of the door, let me take a screenshot of this so I can easily get to it later that it has acute door, usually had a wreath on the door. I feel good about my references. Now I'm going to go ahead and pick out, go back to colors. For the most part, the only one that had real color assigned to it was the Saulet. I think I might just pick out, I might just break away from the colors that the buildings actually were and just pick out some colors that I liked together. One should definitely be yellow. I feel that. I'm going to need four, right, 1,2,3, one for each building, so yellow. It looks really light on the page there. We have yellow, we have a light peach, we'll bring 620 back. We have pink, yellow, purple. When looking at this, I wonder if 873 would be better than 9, 10. Two of these now are two that I used yesterday. It's okay. Whatever it is, I wanted to work with green because there's quite a bit of greenery around each place. A lot of you have asked, how do I pick colors? literally a lot of you are just sitting here staring at them until I make a decision. I wish I could. That's why I haven't taught more about it because that's just what I'm doing, I'm just sitting here and looking at the colors. I'm going to do 2,4,3 for the fourth building color. Those are all light enough that they'll look good with dark details on them. Then I can pick out greens as I'm drawing to add in all the foliage, so 243. Well apparently I have lost that marker, so I'm going to use 2,9,1 instead, which is a little lighter, but that's okay. I can always layer on top if I need to. Then while I was looking through all those markers, I also pulled out some greens for me to use for the foliage. Here we go. 9. Day 2 Demo: Past: Here we go. First up is the Saulet apartments, I'm going to pull up my reference photo out of frame just so that I can keep everything clean here, but you saw the images that I saved. For the Saulet, oh yeah, I was going to use this pink for Phoenix, but I'm going to use the yellow instead because executive decision I changed my mind. I think since there's white trim around the building and around the windows and stuff that I'm actually going to draw with the tip of the marker first. I'm first going to get this general shape of the building. I think I was able to leave most of the places white that I want and now I can just go ahead and color around it to fill in the rest of this building. You may remember this from the first class, but anytime I'm filling in an area, I like to color methodically with kind of stripes because for one thing it feels like, I like the sensation of it and that's really important is to enjoy the process of what we're doing, so if you enjoy kind of scribbling all around and do that instead. But also the uniform stripes help make push the color into the background so it's not so streaky and so I see it more as like a uniform block of color even though it's not perfectly uniform. This one, I am just going to start drawing the details now because I'm enjoying focusing on this one, it's where my brain is at and I'm going to go ahead and draw in the balconies. I'm going to do it differently than they're showing in real life. I was going to put because ours had just a balcony around the French doors and it didn't go all the way across, but I guess I am going to draw the ones that go all the way across because that's what makes the most sense for this picture. That's something I have to check in with myself a lot, I sometimes get stuck by realism and I'm like, well, that's not how it was in real life and it's like it doesn't have to be totally accurate, it's more about getting the feeling of what it was like in real life and these balconies were definitely a prominent part of living in New Orleans and not only at our apartment building, but walking around and looking at the other places people lived. When you're using a limited color palette, you can see how powerful it is to utilize the negative space as another color by having that white in there, it really helps kind of add to the interests of this, so it's not just flat. In this picture that I'm looking at, the foliage is more of the classic New Orleans fully edge, so I'm just going to put some droopy branches. I think I'll wait, I'll add the lettering and at the end and I'll move on now to round tree, that picture. Round tree, I will make blue and again, I'm going to sketch with this other tip and I know this is going to be really light on camera, but I'm just similar to here setting up how I want the building to look and I think we're going to do steps over here that lead up to the door and similar to how I let this one just disappear down here, I'm going to let this one disappear going that way. I'm sorry if that's really light, all I've done is drawn rectangles and this one doesn't have as much going on as far as negative space and since this color is so light, I'm going to go ahead and color in most of it and do most of my detail work in dark in contrast. You can see it's just a series of rectangles just so that I can see where I'm going. I add in these stairs, but actually before I do, I want to show like a bush or something in front here and I'm trying to just capture the energy of the foliage. Whereas New Orleans, it was the droopines at round tree, we just had basic nice landscaping around and I like looking for opportunities for little textures or patterns and so in this one I'm going to let the roof do that because there's not many other places in the architecture. Remember that Taco Bell was a jokey thing for Brooks and I just draw the little logo back here. Again, this is for me, so like this may be illegible to other people, but when I go back and look at this, I'm going to know exactly what that little logo is, and that's fun. Next up is our farm house, I'll use purple for that and you do leave room for some writing, so maybe I'll start it like right here. The farmhouse had bricks and so I'm going to use my purple fill and instead of just coloring in it and all the way, I'm going to do that brick pattern. Last we have base side. You can see these really like drawing ability in your ability to draw is secondary, I'm breaking things down into really simple shapes, really crude representations and that's fine, we don't have to make anything amazing or groundbreaking. Now, I'm going to see if there's any places where I can use these colors on other ones to add some interests, so the purple and the yellow is making a neutrally green, make a pretty blue here and also helped us unite everything a little bit. I'm just touching down where I feel like it, I'm not even really following physics or where the lighting would be, I'm just adding a little bit of interests all around. Yeah, I think that's a nice touch and now I can just add in my labels and my lettering. Great, that's my entry for past, I see some space up here and so after I turn the cameras off, it might maybe journal or I could add a little line about that here or I could make a colored bar and I could fill in the longitude and latitude of each place if I wanted. There's a few things I could do with this space, I could do an interesting date, all of that and so I might do something with that negative space, but for the most part, that is how I would tackle the past prompt at this point in my life. 10. Day 2 Timelapse: Past : Now, please enjoy this overview timelapse of the day 2 prompt "Past," in case you want to quickly reference the process in the future. 11. Day 3 Plan: Present: Here, we are for Day 3. Our prompt for today is present. Like we talked about yesterday, if you are using a theme to unite yesterday, today, and tomorrow's prompts, then you may already have an idea of how you want to use this. But if not, that's okay. You can do a fresh brainstorm, and just think about this word. You could take it literally as a gift, and a journal about a gift that you recently gave or received. You could also talk about something that's just generally happening right now in your life. I know that's vague, but I've noticed from my own journaling practice that sometimes I have this thought in my head of like, "I'll never forget this." That's just false, I forget things all the time. When you're doing your brainstorming, if you come across things that you're like, "Why would I journal about that? I'm never going to forget that." Maybe journal about that thing exactly because you probably will forget, and it obviously means something to you. For me, I do have a theme, I'm doing milestones in mine and Brook's relationship. For the present one, we just bought a house at the end of last year, so it's really still very exciting. My family, we rented growing up, so it feels like a big accomplishment for us to have bought our own house, we did it totally by ourselves, and so it's really been big. I want to capture that by journaling about it. I think I want to do our upcoming projects because that's what our house is right now. That's the joy of being home, it's working on it, and figuring out what we're doing with it. Let me think about what some of our current projects are. The first one that comes to my mind is our pipes humming. We have to get our water pressure redone in our house. Right now, the pressure has to be turned up really high just for normal pressure to come out. Because of that, in the morning between 8.00 AM and 9.00 AM, when our irrigation system is on, and it's watering all of our plants and trees, our pipes hum really loudly, and it makes just this really loud humming noise. That's been nice. We also have a bunch of lights that are going to get swiped out like light fixtures. One of the biggest ones is I'm focusing now on our bedroom. I have a pink headboard, and I want to paint a green wall behind it. But before we can do the green wall, we need to get some sconces installed and move an outlet over because our headboard covers it. I'm trying to find a hutch for this big cutout that we have in the living room that we can store board games, movies, and stuff in. I am keeping an eye out for a floor mirror for our sitting room. Recently, our electrician told us that we should get our breaker box redone, have a facelift, or something. Probably, won't draw that one since I don't even know how to write it down. I'm still trying to figure out seating in my studio. Right now, I'm sitting on the oldest, creakiest work chair, like office chair ever. I just keep pushing it around the room based on what station I'm sitting at. Plants, just adding plants. I think this is a good list to start from. This gives me some good things to draw. It's probably going to be, instead of neat icons, like I did for yesterday's prompt about the places I had lived. I'm going to go back to my Day 1 flat lay approach, where I'm just going to fit the things in flatly where I can. I definitely want the pipes humming because that's such like Brooks and I just know the noise, and we have little tricks. Sometimes, if you flush the toilet once or twice, it'll [inaudible] I think this is just a funny, very real thing that I want to capture. Definitely, something, a mix between these, either drawing a light fixture, or maybe even the little scene of our headboard with the green wall, and the sconce, and the outlet that needs to be moved over. Let's see, plants, those will be fun to draw. Floor mirror could fit in really easily, and so could the hutch. I don't even know what I would draw for the breaker box. It would just be like a rectangle with little switches on it. I'm just not excited about that. Maybe I can fit in a chair. If I have a spot left over, then I can fit in a chair or something for that. That's good. For colors, I think that I'm just going to take it item by item, instead of picking a color palette ahead of time. Because each of these items is so different, that it might just be fine to just color them as they are, and have it be a collage of colors. I'll keep my color chart nearby, as I pick colors out. But at this point, I think I'll just get started. The first thing that I should draw between all these is, I'll do the bedroom scene first, since that's the fullest, biggest item that has the most needs for placement on the page. I'll probably start there. I'll need a green for the wall, I'll do 346. I want to do brass lighting fixtures, I'll probably grab 026 for that. Our pink headboard is like a light peachy pink, I'll probably grab 912 for that. I'll start there. Day 3. 12. Day 3 Demo: Present: A3 and as usual, I'm just going to start at the top of the page with the prompt. So I think the bedroom scene, since I'm just going to have like a corner of the like I just need to show part of it that's going to have the light fixture in the outlet and so I think with the part of the scene I'm going to use with the upper right part of the bed, I'm going to use this corner so that I can just have it the rest of the scene fall off this way. I'll start with our headboard. I grabbed this buff color for sheets and pillows and any negative space and then I'm going to go ahead and color green around here for the green wall but I am going to leave a little bit of negative space here for me to write some notes about what the scene is. I think that scene is nice it commands this lower area and I can go ahead and fill in information around here and of course, use my black marker to come in and add some detail to carve out these pillows and just to make this explode a little bit more. But I'll wait to fill that in and I'm going to add in some of my other stuff. The humming pipes I think I'll wait on those because I think that's going to be a nice thing to like the pipes can fill any space almost. If I get a weird S-shape that ends up then I could fit the pipe right in there or if I need to fit it around the corner, I can do that or if I even just need to go straight up and down, I can do that. I'm going to leave the pipes because they're a little bit more flexible. Now the hutch in the living room and the floor mirror are less so because they're big boxy things like this. I think what I'll do is do a little bit of a hutch here and the floor mirror coming off this way and then I can fit a pipe right there. Let's see, for the hutch, I don't know what color the hutch is going to be yet, I'll just use since I already have this nice, pretty neutral gray color, I'll use that and I can go pretty high here because I don't think there's, you know what, I could put a plant on that because one of the things is plants and so a plant could go on the hutch and so that tells me, I'm sorry, I'm planning this out and trying to speak through it at the same time. I'm probably going to put my hutch and leave some room for a little planter to go on top of it and then whatever space is left over, I can fill in with lettering and that will create a nice rectangle that take up space here. The hutch there. Maybe since I put this down lower, I'm actually going to do a little hanging plant basket and instead of doing the planter on this side and locking my lettering into this small space, I'll put the planter on this side and then I can use this for lettering, I'll just put a little hanging bowl shape and then before I color that in, I can use this green to add leaves coming over this side of the planter. We have the hutch, now the floor mirror will fit nicely here and then I can fit in some pipes, I think I'll have one coming here and one coming up next to it because I need two of them to show that they're humming next to each other. I was able to just stick with the color palette I picked for that first scene, which was nice. I think just for a little touch of this being glass, I am going to bring in a blue, but it's light so it won't throw off the balance too much. Now I can just start adding my details and my lettering in. Actually we have a really cute pillow that sits in front of these pillows. I'll just go ahead and color that in. I need a little bit more ink, so I'll just squeeze the body of my pen, my marker and if you haven't used these before, you'll get a feel for how much you need to squeeze. I usually squeeze a little bit and then wait a little bit and see what the results of that is and then squeeze more if I need it. I mostly like a really dry brush but at some point it just gets too dry and it's not even doing anything. We don't have a tufted headboard but I'm going to draw one because I think it will help visually drive home but it's a headboard. Now I've locked in this area down here where I can come in with pen and write about what I drew here. But since I've got this guy out, I'm going to keep going with more details. Now with these pipes, they're humming and so I really want to add these lines between them. I should've made them squiggly lines to help show that there's like friction and noise happening but. This one, I'm going to go in with my pen and add my last few notes. Arrows are a really great way to fill weird spots you can make little loopy lose, cute. Now that really felt like it didn't take that long. Honestly, I was a little bit nervous when I was making the list, I couldn't picture how all these things were going to fit together. But that's why I wanted to really do this class as live and unplanned as possible. Because I really want you to see that you can really have no idea what the page is going to look like and just take it one step at a time and fill it up to make something that looks really cute. Because look how cute this is. It's very cute. I will see you tomorrow for day 4. 13. Day 3 Timelapse: Present: Now please enjoy this overview time-lapse of the Day 3 prompt, Present, in case you want to quickly reference the process in the future. 14. Day 4 Plan: Future: Here we are for day 4 and our prompt for day 4 is future. As I have said, I am completing the third themed entry for this based on milestones and mine and Brooks' relationship. If you also found a theme, so maybe you were tracking a dream of yours, something that started as a dream and now you're working on it and now you're going to look at where you hope it will go in the future. That's an example of a theme. Or maybe you're just doing this one off prompt and it's totally separate from what you did yesterday. That's great too. You're just going to brainstorm about what this word means to you. I just want to gently remind you that words like future can be really big and scary and intimidating. To make it fun for you, to make it joyful, to make it something that you want to sit down and do. Future doesn't have to be distant future. It can be tomorrow, it can be later today. It can be what you're having for lunch today. Just a reminder to keep it simple, keep it easy on yourself. This is just about showing up and doing the thing. It's not really about blowing anybody away. For me what I want to focus on for this one, for the past I did places Brooks and I have lived. For the present, I talked about what we're doing in our new house. Now for the future, I want to talk about our wedding because we're planning our wedding. I think you can see now why I wanted to have a theme for these. I don't know that I'll ever be in a time in my life where I have so many exciting milestones existing at once with the new house and planning the wedding and everything happening. I just really want to capture that because this is a special time. I thought that it might be nice to just brainstorm and look at my Pinterest board and pick out a few of the things that I know are happening for the wedding because there's plenty we have not planned yet. The first is that we're doing a ceremony in Phoenix with 10 people. We're doing a really, really small intimate ceremony here in Phoenix in the spring. That will be May. Then we're going to do a Michigan reception party in the fall. I know that's happening. We also recently made our guest list for the big party. I might not wear a white dress. I'm playing with the idea of wearing a floral, oops, a question mark there. Maybe a floral embroidered dress or just a different colored dress instead of white. That's what I'm thinking about right now. Brooks and I are going to write our own vows. I also know that I want for my hair or some part of the decoration or my dress to have stars and moons. We know we want food trucks at the party, at the reception party. I know I want mismatching vases with wildflowers in them. Let me pull my Pinterest board up and see if there's anything that I'm forgetting. But this is a pretty good list of stuff. Especially because even if there's some space missing, I am really nervous. I've never planned anything like this, and so there's plenty that I can write about if there's leftover space. Oh, balloons. I know that I just want to do something with balloons. I think they're really pretty vases. Got the non-traditional dresses here, we got stars and moons, balloons, flower cakes. Oh, disco balls. Yeah, I really asked Brooks if we could do disco balls. Luckily, he doesn't really have many preferences for it. He'll say if he really feel strongly, if he doesn't like something or like something, but so far he's been pretty cool with everything. Oh, I should write down. He said, the one thing he did totally say no way was pigs or live animals. No pigs, llamas, goats. He said none of that. Maybe it'd be funny to draw one of those with a little red circle around them. Okay, I feel good. I think I've got enough visuals. I'm going to do my normal flat lay because again, it's just like my favorite. I don't want to try and draw a scene of all of these things because I can't even picture them in my head, let alone figuring out how they're going to look on the page. I might just pick out some colors that fit with some of the colors we've been looking to do. As long as it works at the end, then it works at the end. Let's see if I can pull out any of these things that I know. I definitely want to capture the fact that we already know we have two locations. Maybe since we already did the guest list, maybe I'll draw that in. Stars and moons, that's easy to get in there, little food truck would be cute. Mismatching vases with wildflowers that'd be cute to do along the bottom of the page. Can definitely fit some balloons in there. Disco ball, I would take some effort drawing with different colors, but I think I can do that, and then no pigs, llamas and goats. Basically just like leave, the only thing I didn't really think or grab is the dress because I don't know what it's going to look like yet, and I'm not really interested in drawing it and our own vows, writing our own vows. I'm going to do the guest list, so maybe I can have two pieces of paper and have one say vows and one say guest list or something like that. But for colors, I feel like I've been drawn to the same colors each day. I know that I really like the idea of doing some different greens and stuff for the wild flowers at the bottom of the page. We want amber bottles for those. Maybe I could use one of the brown colors to draw part of the bottle, maybe even this gold color. I'll use this brighter color because I can probably use that in more places. I went through and grabbed just a bunch of colors that stood out to me. If any of them, I just grabbed them, I went on gut and I can see that they all work together. They're pretty fall colors. That's going to work for me. Yeah. 15. Day 4 Demo: Future: Okey-dokey. The biggest thing looking through here that stands out is just this idea that we have two locations. I think it'd be really cute to draw one, an icon for Phoenix and an icon for Michigan and do a dashed line between them. I'm going to do that near the center just because that's such a central idea to our wedding and I can just fit everything else around there. I do want to save room at the bottom because I do think I want to do the little mismatching vases with flowers coming up from the bottom here. I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to use a pink circle for Phoenix and a little icon for Michigan. Maybe I'll do the reverse. No. See, sometimes I say things and then immediately in my brain I'm like, "No, I don't want to do that." Let's see. I'll do Michigan over here. For Michigan I'll draw a little mitten. I guess I should explain that. The state of Michigan looks like a little mitten. Those of us that are from Michigan, if you ask us what part of Michigan we're from, we use our hand as a map. The dorky little thing we do. Since pink was used in both of those, I will use pink to connect them. I want there to be a little heart in the center. Cute. Now it's little chain connecting those with the heart in the center. I'm going to leave that for now. I'm sure I'll want to fill in some writing about that, but I don't know where everything else is going to go on the page yet, so at least I have it there and I'm going to move on. I wanted to do my bottles at the bottom, so I'm going to go ahead and do that now. I'm just going to draw, I don't want to do little ones. I want them to fall off the page, so I'm going to do bigger ones. I want the bottle shapes to be a little loose down here. As I use my brush tip, I'm going to really let myself be more abstract because I don't want the brown to bring too much attention down here or weigh it down too much. But I do want those bottles to show. I'm not going to pull up pictures of flowers right now because for me, in this moment, the joy is I just want to get in here and draw flowers as I imagine them. The thought of looking up references doesn't make me feel more calm or excited about the project. It makes me feel like, oh man, now I have to do that? Those are the types of sensations I'm looking out for when figuring out what to do next. Because following your joy and what feels good is the best. I'm not even worried about drawing full perfect flower shapes. I just want the feeling of the wild flowers there. These are looking really cute. I like that they look a lot more abstract than I was originally picturing in my head. But I was just trying to go with the feeling of just enjoying. I could tell in my energy that I was just really enjoying doing those quick bursts of flowers, and so I'm not going to stop myself. You're like, well, we need to draw better looking flowers. It's like, no, I'm doing this for the feelings and it felt good to draw a really quick abstract flowers. Now that I filled up so much of this space near this guy, I'm going to go ahead and fill in my writing about this because I can see I've got some space here, and down here I could just write wild flowers in bottles. Instead of writing in it, I'm just going to make sure I save this space here and on this side too, to just write about what's happening here. I have this space up here for our guest list, stars and moon, food trucks, balloons, disco balls and no pigs. I'm not going to be able to put all of this stuff in here. Right now the food truck seems like a non sequitur with everything else. I think all the other things will go together and so I'm going to get the food truck out of here. I can fit in some "pages" at the top to represent our little guest list that we just made. Since this is about future, since I know we'll be writing our own vows, I'll do a second sheet behind that that will show our vows written on top of it. Stars and moons, I'll be able to just twinkle in even if I just wanted to put a little right there and just for myself and then a few stars. We need to fit in some balloons. I want to draw a little goat or something and then put a circle around him. It'll probably fit best. I want to save that for writing. It'll probably fit best to write there. This will make me laugh in the future when I come back and see that that pig got canceled by my fiance, and say babe says no pigs or goats. When I see little spaces like this, I'm just going to fill it in. I can write a little arrow that say, "We're writing our own." That's why this type of journaling is so low pressure because you get to decide what you fill the spaces with. If you draw and you make a weird composition, you can make it not weird. One thing that I didn't take note of, but that's really special is, Brooks and I the reason we have decided to wait until next year is that we will have been together for 10 years. I think that would be nice maybe in this area, I can just make a little box to call that out. I've got weird space here. I think what I'm going to do because maybe if I hadn't had these to lie in the bottom, maybe balloons at the bottom would be good. I'm not sure the balloons are going to look great. I think what I'm going to do is hang a little disco ball somewhere, maybe in the center and then just fill the rest of the space with some writing about what's going on. For my disco ball, I'm trying to think, I'm going to draw a circle and a pencil because the disco ball is going to be made up of so many different values and everything for it to have the feeling of a disco ball. I'm just going to put lots of little marks and I just need a form to follow, which is why I used the pencil that time so I can erase my pencil lines after. I had that go all the way to the top to help emphasize that it's hanging from the top because I'm hoping that will help it look more like a disco ball. Because right now it just looks like a weird collection of shapes. If it ends up not working, that's okay. I just wanted to see if I could try. I'll still know. I mean, I'm going to label it that it's a disco ball. I'll know what's going on when I look at those, even if other people don't. It worked out all right. I'm just going to erase my pencil lines. Now I just have this little area in. Then I'm going to go ahead and fill in with just a little journal entry about where we are right now. Yay, this is cute. This makes me even more excited about our wedding, just looking at even just these little details and pulling them all in this place. Now with the last ones altogether, I have a really sweet memory of just checking in in this place with Brooks. All of our shared history, we have together, all the fun things we have on our plate right now, and the exciting celebration we're looking forward to having with our loved ones coming up in the next year. With that, I will see you tomorrow for day five. 16. Day 4 Timelapse: Future: Now, please enjoy this overview time-lapse of the day 4 prompt "Future, " in case you want to quickly reference the process in the future. 17. Day 5 Plan: Mindful Of: Hello. Day 5's prompt is Mindful Of. I'm excited about this prompt because it's not just a prompt in our journal. This is a technique to help with anxiety and overwhelm that I use almost daily. If you are in therapy or if you are well-versed in the mental health world, then you probably already know this exercise, and it'll be a great reminder for you to sit with it. If you've never heard of it before, then I hope that I can encourage you to practice this and continue to practice it moving forward because it's incredibly helpful. With this technique, we are going to use our senses to pull ourselves back to this current moment right here. We're going to use those to pick out things to be mindful of. The first is picking out, what can I see? Usually when I do this exercise, I'll pick a number. Sometimes I'll count down and I'll start with five things I can see, four things I can hear. Other times, I'll just pick out one of each. Sometimes I'll try to pick out three. For this exercise, since we are not only practicing being mindful, but then we'll need to journal, I would recommend writing down a few things so that you have a variety of things to draw from, but whatever feels right. First is what I can see. Right now, I can see a quilt top that I have started that's hanging off my ironing board. I can see a timer on my desk. I can see my pens and pencils here. I can see my cup of paintbrushes. Next, I like to focus on what I can hear. Right now since I'm filming, I have turned off the air conditioning unit. I've tamped down on the noise on purpose, but there's still some there. If I stop and listen, I can hear birds outside. I can hear the pen scratching on the paper. I can hear beeping from a truck because today is trash and recycling day. Those trucks are going around. I can hear my own breathing. Earlier, I could hear my stomach growling, but I can't hear it now. Next, I like to go with what I'm feeling. For this exercise, I mean, you're more than welcome to recognize an emotion that you're feeling. But for me, this is more my feeling sense, my sense of touch. What can I feel in this moment? I can feel my feet on the carpet. I can feel my cardigan on my arms and shoulders. I can feel my butt in the chair. I can feel that my hair is pulled back. Next, smell. I can smell my lotion moisturizer. It's not lit, but I can smell my studio candle. I can also smell a little bit of my laundry detergent. Then there's like a little bit of house smell that I just recognized as like our home. Then finally is taste. Unless you're actively eating, this one can be a little trickier, but sometimes you'll notice that you can taste afternoon breath or coffee breath. Right now, it's still the morning so I can taste my tooth paste. That's probably the main one that I'm going to write because there's not a whole lot going on other than that. Now, that I have my list, I'm just going to go through and I'm going to pick out one thing from each category to draw. Obviously, the toothpaste is an easy pick there. When I'm looking at what to draw, I'm looking at what's going to be easiest for me to draw or what I think will be most fun to draw. It doesn't need to be the most interesting or anything. It can just be, what do I want to draw out of these? I think the candle would be easiest, so with the lotion. I'll circle candle for now. Then based on the space that's left, maybe the lotion bottle would fit better. Let's see, I already drew my cardigan for another post. Not saying I couldn't draw it again, especially if it felt easiest, but I don't think that it's what I want to draw. Hair pulled back, I could do that one. You could just do little ponytail from the side. Here, well, the birds are cute. I think the birds went on that one. Then everything I can see. I think my quilt top is what I'm most excited about and would like to try and draw. Also, the timer because it's got these big numbers on it. I'm going to circle both of those and then I can figure it out as I go. As far as approach, I think since I have five items, five even items, doing an icon layout with all five with space to write underneath, I think that is going to do me good. Up until this point, I've just been feeling really free with colors and just picking them as I go, but I can feel today that I don't feel that way. Today, I'm feeling a little bit more antsy about color, or I'm not sure. I'm going to go ahead and just choose a limited color palette to draw with today, because I don't want to be overwhelmed. I don't want my overwhelm about color to be the thing that stops me. I'm just going to pick two or three colors to color the entire page. I like these greens and then maybe I could add in a neutral. I also like this light rosy pink with this dark purple. Once again, this is how I choose color. I just sit and I stare until I feel good about making a choice. I'm just going to do some greens. I'm going to do the darker 158, the lighter 192, and then whichever one of these I can find first, one of these neutrals, I'm going to use that. I've got my two greens and I found two neutrals and I'm just going to roll with that. 18. Day 5 Demo: Mindful Of: Just as usual, I'm going to go ahead and start with my prompt name at the top. Since my layouts going to be one, two, three, four, five, I'm just looking at my list to see if I want any of them in particular to be in the center, I think. Maybe my hair pulled back would be a good center one. I don't really have a reason why I think that, it just feels right, right now. I'm going to go for it. One is done. I think now, just to make it easy for myself so I don't have to think through it, now that I have just the center one, I'll just go in order of what's left and I'll do see, hear, smell, taste. Up here I'm going to draw my quilt top or my timer and my quilt top is going to win for this one. I'm just going to use my colors and I'm going to look at my quilt top and I'm just going to draw just a really basic rundown of it. To make sure that I stay in my space, I'm going to draw a little square for me to contain. Actually, since the quilt is made on a grid, I'm just going to go ahead and draw myself a little grid too. It feels too tedious to draw the fabric exactly as it is, but I do like the different fabric designs and so I am going to simplify them by doing stripes and dots and using different colors and such. As I'm coloring I'm letting myself have the gift of just enjoying what I'm doing. I'm allowing myself to enjoy coloring and to have fun planning this fake little quilt that's going to live on this page. While you're working on your mindful journal entry, you can be mindful of what you're doing. So as I'm putting these little dashes, I'm just being mindful of how enjoyable it feels just to move my hand and bounce down and see this really nice solid line appear. I see my quilt top. Next, I hear the birds. Right now I'm seeing a lot of negative space, I can fill it in with lettering but I think what I want to do just to help fill some of that space is add a neutral circle behind some of these icons to help frame them a little better. I don't think the quilt top really needs it because it's its own solid block but I think it'll help these stand out more as icons and have them hold their place better if I frame them with a circle. That's a good example of making stylistic decisions as you go based on the problems you create. I created a problem of what felt like too much negative space to me, and so to solve that problem, my brain was like, "Hey, let's just add some circle shapes around these things." Next, I smell my candle. I guess just so they do look a little bit more uniform, I will add a circle around this. My candle down here, it's a pretty glass candle, so I'm going to let these different colors and shapes add to that. Last but not least, is my toothpaste. In this case, I wanted the lettering on the tube to stay white so I used the pen side of my marker to draw those block letters and then now I can color around them. You can see my lettering is imperfect. This S just got squeezed in right at the end and it's fine. It's not a big deal. To complete it, I'll draw a little toothbrush next to it. Cute. Because there is bigger spaces here, if you're feeling inclined to journal more about your day, then feel free to. But honestly, it's okay to leave it right here because this is all this practice was, was to take a minute to literally check in with our senses, be here in this actual reality, in this actual moment, and then use it as inspiration for our journal page. Don't forget to add your dates so that you can remember when you made this. I'll see you back here tomorrow for Day 6, I think. Maybe Day 5. I don't know. 19. Day 5 Timelapse: Mindful Of: Now, please enjoy this overview timelapse of the day 5 prompt, "Mindful Of" in case you want to quickly reference the process in the future. 20. Day 6 Plan: Favorite Color: Oh, man, I meant to check what day, let's see. I can count, one, two, three, four, five, six. Day 6, of course. Hello, welcome to Day 6, where our prompt is Favorite Color. Now, if you are like me and you've had a certain amount of stress around people asking you this question your whole life because you never felt like you really had a favorite color or like your favorite color depends on the situation or the end-use that it's being used in or the palette, I'm with you. If you don't have a designated favorite color or something that comes to mind when I say that, let me relieve you now and say that you can just pick what your favorite color or colors are today, this moment. I'm probably going to pick a general hue like green or blue and then use multiple colors within there. I'm just trying to pick out my main hue. Slow down. What I'm going to do, is I'm going to pick a color, and then I'm going to make a list of things I want to draw in that color. Now, my linear logical brain is like, well, you should pick a color and then draw things that are that color. If I'm going to pick green, I should draw leaves, and frogs, and limes, and all of those things. That sounds really boring to me. You're welcome to do that, and you are not boring if you choose that. It just feels that sounds boring to me right now. But if that sounds right for you and you're like, yeah, I'm going to pick a color and that will help me limit the things I'm going to draw, go for it. Instead, I'm going to pick a color, and then I'm just going to make a list of things that I would like to draw. If that fails, then I'm going to walk around my house and pick out things that I just love, and I'm going to draw those in whatever color I choose. Keep in mind, and I've tried to remind you each day that in the class resources there is a PDF that has lots of other brainstorming ideas for each prompt if you don't like the direction I'm going in, so be sure to check that out. But you could just pick your favorite color and draw almost if you Google like a Pantone swatch. You could draw your own Pantone swatch and then maybe you could just journal about what the color means to you or what you like about it. You don't have to do it in the way that I'm doing it, but I am really enjoying the days that I have. These are just more flat lays, and I'm just filling in the page up with objects. That's what I'm going to do. Normally, for the past few years, when people have asked me my favorite color, I've said yellow because, generally, the family of yellows, I'm the most happiest in. But to be honest, I just don't feel that bold and that bright right now, so I'm not going to choose yellow. The greens, I've been really digging greens lately probably because they're so serene and soothing. Peaches, I've been using a lot of peach though, which if you want to use the same color everyday, do it, but I think I've been relying on those colors a lot and I'd like to switch it up, so I'm going to choose green. I'm going to grab my a variety of greens. I found my family of greens. I've got everything from cool greens to warm greens and everything in-between greens. Now, when it comes to my brainstorming, this one's a little bit looser. It's just items, which is why I built in the backup of getting to walk around my house because then it takes the pressure off my brain to come up with great things to draw. Favorite color. I've got green. Let's see what my brain can come up with. I think of leaves. I think earlier, I mentioned limes, frogs. Let's see, green; grass that's pretty uninteresting to draw, that's not true, sorry, grass. Trees, lots of nature. What else's green? Lizards, alligators, so reptiles. Wow, brain. Green things. Green pesto, I also don't want to draw that but good work brain, green. Hey, everybody can look at my green hat. Hey, I have this green machine. I'm green with envy, green thumb. I guess of all of these, the leaves and that's it. I'm going to do a little walk around my house, and I'm just going to try and find I don't know, just I'll know it when I see it. I'll know it because I want to draw it, or I'll know it because I love it, so I'm just going to collect some things and I'll be right back. I walked around my house and found probably the most random assortment of things to draw ever but I'm feeling really excited about it because I didn't judge myself, I just let myself pick what I'm excited about. First up is this little speckled jar, or a mug, or a cup that I bought from Alexia Marcelle Abegg. I don't think I'm saying her name correctly all these years. I finally heard her say it the other day in a video, and I was like "Oh." But she made this. Then I just keep dried and fake little yellow flowers in here. I love it. It makes me happy all the time. I think it would look really pretty in flat laid like that. Next, I have this. It's a pin cushion by Liberty of London, and it's in the shape of a pear. It's out of Liberty fabrics. I love it so much. I get joy out of it every time I look at it, and I think it look cute in green. I bought this moisturizer the other day. I actually did need moisturizer, but I fully chose this one because of the packaging. Next, I have this little thing of matches. Similarly to the moisturizer, I feel happy when I see this pair like. I have this sitting out in my studio next to a candle on a little tin tray, and I feel good when I look at this, so that's why I chose those two things. Next, I chose this picture. I recently bought these Fujifilm in stacks printers that you can send pictures from your phone right to the printer, and it gives you this, what looks like a Polaroid. It makes me endlessly happy, so I grabbed one of those pictures. The last item I found was I've had this tiny little rocket clock forever. It's actually my adopted mom's and she gave it to me when I moved out. It's this little heavy metal rocket clock, the battery is broken. These things fall off all the time. I've tried to glue them back on. See, there goes one. Something about it makes me so happy. These are the items that I'm going to draw instead of finding green items. I'm just going to spend some time arranging them. Since I have the physical items, I can try and find a way to make a layout before I even have to start drawing. Just like I do when I'm drawing, I'm going to start with the most finicky item, which is this one. I'm just going to try and gently lay it on its side here. I know I'm going off camera a little bit, but I think you can see based on the layout of my page, I do have a little blink spot here, but I can fill that with lettering. But these items, at least, create a nice rectangle. I'm just going to take a quick picture with that on my phone, so we've got the reference. Let's get to drawing. 21. Day 6 Demo: Favorite Color: I've got my colors picked out, I've already picked up my items, let me bring the brightness down for you, I even have my layout already figured out to bring over to the page, and so I'm ready to just get rocking. First, I'll start with my title. Since nothing is really being drawn in the colors that it actually comes in, I can just pick and choose as I go. I think if I think too long about it, I'm going to psych myself out, so I'm just going to get started. My little cup here, and what I love about the cup is it has some dimension to it. It has these little divots, so I'm going to use my marker to help create those, also just helps add some interest to the overall shape. I'm going to layer in some other greens. It's really loved that printy look. I'm using my brush tip to help me create some more organic shapes. It doesn't need to be a perfect representation, but I think I'll use this lighter color for the little Craspedia bulbs that I have coming out. Craspedia, I think I've always said Crespedia and it's Craspedia, except maybe I have it backwards again. This is so enjoyable, I just have to share that, I believe in what I'm teaching, otherwise, I wouldn't be teaching it. But that doesn't make it any easier for me. I've done this class, I've done this practice, and still, every day that I have to sit down to film, I am really scared that I won't be able to do it or I won't enjoy it, or I have the pressure that it needs to look good, so that you want to take the class, and so that you're not like, "Why would I want to learn to draw these ugly things?" There's just a lot of pressure, and every time I sit down, it just feels enjoyable, the joy and the peace is there. Just a little encouragement for you that if you're feeling that resistance, even as you're watching me drawing, you might be thinking like, "That's easy, I can do it" but then you don't actually sit down to do it, that's really normal, that creative resistance. You just got to talk yourself through it and remind yourself that you're capable of doing this, there's nothing we're doing here that you can't handle. If you do it wrong or ugly, then I believe you can just throw it away, or later on down the road, it might actually make you laugh when you come back to it, which is a joy. I'm going to draw my pair next because I didn't utilize, I should have brought this down further, so I'm already throwing off the layout that I made. That's okay, but I do want everything to fit nicely. This will probably get used now, maybe the matches will go down here, and I'm going to have the pear come over here more. Since the pair has this print on it and it's got the white in the background, I think I'm going to try and mimic that by, I'm not going to color in the actual pear shape, I'm just going to use a pencil line to draw my border, and then I'm just going to draw the floral design within the pair. I'm sorry if that's too late for you to see, but I just did a really rough shape of the pear. I'll go ahead and color its leaf first. Now for the rest, I'm just going to take my time and just draw a sweet little floral pattern as it is on my pear. This is one of those times where I might end up with multiple markers in my hand. I sometimes do that, especially if I'm going to switch colors a lot. I like to call this wolverine pose. Cute. That works, and then when I add the pins, and actually, since some of this would be falling in shadow, maybe I will use this color to just come down here and help create some form for the pear, just at the base of it. Just to help it weigh it down a little bit. Maybe the two of the little pinheads that are coming out can be green, that will be cute. Now that I've thrown off my layout, I'm just going to move forward with fitting things where they fit like I normally would. I think I can a little bit smaller, put that picture right in there and then the rocket, I'll fit in one of these spots, or if it doesn't fit in the end, that's okay too. Since the bottle is white right here, I'm going to play with the negative space again and just go down here and draw the cap. I'm not ready to add the details yet, which is why I'm jumping around, but I needed to add that in for me to know how much space it was going to take up. Now if I put a square here, I'm trying to picture, then I think my little rocket will fit here, and then the matches can go down here. Similar to down here with the negative space, outside of the picture, I'm going to outline it with my darker marker, and then I'm going to color in in this area, just how it is to create that Polaroid effect. My sweet little rocket clock, all its pieces that fall off. Now for my little matches down at the bottom, since they have a cool clear glass here, there's an effect, and you may remember this from my first class, where I like to use multiple colors to get that effect across. I'm going to draw a rectangle where the label is, just to help guide the size of the shape that I'm going to draw, and then I'll put the cap in, it's got a little gold cap. Then I'm going to use lighter colors to just go in and lightly draw the shape of the bottle. All those colors just help better communicate that it's glass, or at least it adds more interest than just a solid coloring like on this bottle. Matches is in gold, so I think I'm going to do it in white by doing my block letters. I already made that M too big to fit the whole word matches in there, so I just might do match. Great. I think I'm ready to go around now and fill in my weird spaces and add my details. In this design, I tried to do in negative, ended up looking like Christmas tree, so I'm just going to try and make it look a little more decorative. Cute. This might be my favorite one so far. I try not to do that, I try to just accept all of them, but I love this page, and that's the joy of this prompt, is no matter what you draw. This is such a random assortment of things, but I love them, and they're in a range of colors that I love, so it's going to be satisfying, and I know it will be for you too. Go ahead, pick out what colors you're going to draw in, and figure out what items you're going to draw, and then face that blank page. I'll see you back here tomorrow for Day 7. 22. Day 6 Timelapse: Favorite Color: Now, please enjoy this overview time-lapse of the Day 6 prompt, Favorite Color, in case you want to quickly reference the process in the future. 23. Day 7 Plan: Belly Laugh: Hello and welcome to Day 7. This is the last day of the first week of this second installment of my two-week illustrated journaling course. Pretty fun. This is a nice milestone. The prompt for today is Belly Laugh. Humor is such an important thing. The ability to laugh and find humor in things. Especially when things are heavy and really dark, I find that my humor is even more sacred. It's this thing that even despite all what may be happening, they're still funny things. Especially now I wanted to take a minute just to remember some of the things that really made me laugh at this time. That's where the prompt is headed. But don't forget in the class resources I have each prompt and I've broken down some other ideas for what you can do. But for me I think I'm just going to start by making a list of some of the things that generally had been making me laugh lately. For one, I guess memes in general have really been doing it for me. But really specifically, astrology memes have really been getting me. Actually, I might just want to check, IG, check Instagram because I've saved a collection of things that's either called feel-good, or LOL, or something like that. Sometimes if something really gets me, I'll save it there. So it might be smart of me to check there to see what I've saved. Let's see what else has been making me laugh. Oh, okay. A lot here. Bravo TV is the kingdom of escapism trashy TV here in the US. They have a franchise of shows called The Real Housewives, which I'm pretty obsessed with. There's a podcast called Watch What Crappens with these two hosts, Ben Mandelker and Ronnie Karam, and they recap these Bravo shows on their podcast and they're so funny. They recreate the voices, they poke fun at all the things we poke fun of as viewers. Recently, I was listening to an episode and they were doing an impersonation of Ramona from New York City, and I was dying. Maybe I'll find a way to bring that up. Yeah, I've got a lot of Capricorn stuff in here. There's definitely good material in here. I could just straight up draw one of these memes if I want to. Lots of material there. On Real Housewives of Potomac, which is near Washington DC. There are one of the castmates from last season, Monique, she has a bird named T'Challa who attacked or flew at another cast member, Wendy. It was so funny watching poor sweet Wendy get attacked by this bird. However, I don't want to do Wendy like that. That's what I'm going to put down in my journal, is Wendy getting attacked by a bird, that feels I don't want to do her like that, but it was so funny. I'll cross that out, but wow that really made me laugh. Also, Brooks and I, we took a quick overnight trip to see a comedy show with one of our favorite comedians, Tim Heidecker. His show was really fun and so I could maybe do something from office hours live. I've got a good feel here. Whatever one I choose, because I'm not going to draw all of these things, that's just well, come on. This is supposed to be a quick low-pressure thing. I know I'm just going to choose one of these and since it's one isolated thing, I'll either draw a meme just in the center of the page, or whatever it is, it's going to be a centered placed design, so to speak. Instead of, I've been doing a lot of flat layers or sometimes you can draw a scene. I think this is going to have one focal point. This really did make me laugh so hard. I think because the scene in question is a bathroom humor scene, I don't personally want to write the word diarrhea in my journal, just as a general rule for me. I don't think I'm going to actually draw the scene that happened in Real Housewives. I think instead, because what makes me laugh it's actually running, doing the impersonation of Ramona, that makes me laugh. I can't believe I'm talking so much about Real Housewives in this class, but here's where the prompt led me. It's actually Ronnie doing the impersonation of Ramona that makes me laugh so hard. Maybe I'll draw Ronnie's face yelling. Then I can put some of Ramona's most said phrases around, she says, "Okay." Or at least Ronnie's impersonation she also says, "That's it." She says, "I'm sorry", a lot, and so I'll probably spell it with a U because she says that way she says, "I'm so sorry." Yeah, that's going to be fun. You're looking at colors. Since this is so fun, I think I want something bright. Ronnie is such a bright person. I think I'm going to use this yellow. I think that's really going to be my main colors. I'm going to do most things in yellow. Then I'll draw the details on his face and the lettering with black. Then if I need another color, I can bring one in. But I think I'm just going to start with O25. Before I get drawing, I need one reference image for this. I do need to look up a picture of Ronnie Karam so that I can look at that while I'm drawing his caricature. Even if it's a very simplified version of his face and doesn't look like him, I still want to be looking at a picture of him so that I can pick up on some little things that I might not remember from memory. I just paused recording and went through Ronnie Karam's Instagram and I found this awesome picture from when he and Ben were actually recording the podcasts and he's doing an impersonation in this shot. I just thought the shape of his mouth is really funny. This facial expression gives me a lot to work with. Now sweet Ronnie, if for some reason you ever see this, I'm so sorry that I chose this picture to show your face in my class. You're so sweet and cute. Ronnie is so much cuter than this, but this is the funny one that's going to work for my layout. Apologies to Ronnie. I will move him off-screen though. 24. Day 7 Demo: Belly Laugh: Apologies to Ronnie. I will move him off-screen though. If that were me, I wouldn't want my face like that. Belly Laugh. It's funny because a sense of humor is so important. It's really central to my life and my happiness. I find a lot of things funny, but for something to actually make me laugh, it's actually hard, I hate it. I wish I were an easier laugher, a more generous laugher because I love laughing. Ronnie makes me laugh so much. I'm going to do his face pretty big and then just have some speech bubbles going around it. His face, we've got a nice round shape to work with here. Sometimes, here's a tip for you, since I'm going to be filling the entire face with yellow and then drawing the details on top, I can do a test face with the yellow because I'm going to color over it. Yes, you may be able to see where I did that because it'll be a little bit darker in those spots, but I'll still be able to cover it up and correct things with the black if I do make a mistake. I sometimes like to do that. Let's see. His eyes would be right here. I'm just going to simplify them to be these half moons because he's yelling and then his facial hair. That's okay, I think when I go ahead and do it in the black, I might be careful to not make him look so angry because it's a really fun thing even though he's often impersonating Ramona as if she's angry. I want it to look more fun than him being upset. Then he has headphones on, but I don't want to take up too much room because I want to fill this with my speech bubble. I'll just go ahead and add in some ears for him. Then it looks like he's mostly bald, so maybe I'll just add some stubble with the black, but for now that looks good. I'm just going to go ahead and color it in. You can see what I mean by that first face I drew definitely shows through even when I color it all in yellow because the marker layers are on top of each other. But you'll see when I go to add the black details that the black has so much more commanding contrast that our eye is going to pay more attention to those details than the test ones I drew under. I am drawing in stripes so that there's some uniformity to the coloring. I think I'm going to do the speech bubbles in yellow too, but I'll wait. I want to do these details of his face first. You can see I'm already doing things differently from the first test sketch of the face because I want there to be emotion, but I don't want him to look angry. I was able to capture a much better expression with those eyebrows in my test. I am going to use one other color. I want to give Ronnie some cheeks that will help him look as friendly as he is too, probably bright cheeks like 803. I'll probably sign his name right there. But I'm going to go ahead and add in. I think these are the three main things she says. I want to fill the space really nicely with these bubbles. The main one she says is, "I'M SURRY." I'll do that one up here in a longer bubble. In this speech bubble, in none of them actually, I didn't do straight lines, but I'm still being uniform, the lines curve a little bit around the shape of the speech bubble, but there's still uniform. This is so funny. This is such a simple page. I don't want to toot my own horn, but this is exactly why I'm in this class. I wouldn't have thought to draw Ronnie's face if it hadn't been for this prompt. Now it's just a simple page but this already brings me so much joy just to have this immortalized and to have this drawing of Ronnie impersonating Ramona in my journal is really funny. I hope you'll spend some time reflecting on what has made you laugh recently. Obviously, mine is very much based on media. That's where I've been getting my joy from, where it's been catching me off guard. But maybe something happened, an event happened that really made you laugh or something embarrassing happened or whatever. I challenge you to try to depict it so that you can remember it for later. With that, I will see you tomorrow for Day 8. 25. Day 7 Timelapse: Belly Laugh: Now please enjoy this overview time-lapse of the Day 7 prompt, "Belly Laugh" in case you want to quickly reference the process in the future. 26. Day 8 Plan: Body/Self Love: Here we are for Day 8, the start of the second week of this class. Or if you're doing Parts 1 and Part 2 together, this will be the fourth week of the class. Today's prompt is body/self-love. The reason it's a slash is because when I was making this prompt, I really needed a focus on some body love. That's really what I guess motivated or made me want to do the prompt. But as I was thinking about it for the class, I realized that not everybody has a difficult relationship with their body. Or some people just have a more natural acceptance of themselves and they may really need to focus more on appreciating the not physical things about themselves. I wanted to keep it open and challenge you to find love for whatever you need more. If it's easier for you to love your body, I want you to focus on self-love. If it's easier for you to love yourself but not your body, I'd like you to focus on your body. The way that I'm going to do this prompt for the brainstorming is I'm just going to do a body scan from the top of my body down and I'm just going to jot down the things that stand out. Starting with my head, the first thing that I think of is my brain and how I'm so grateful for my brain and I also, I'm actually grateful for my ADHD brain. It has its weaknesses, but it has its strengths. I am proud to be a person with ADHD. As I keep scanning down, I do enjoy my eyebrows and I'm so grateful for my eye sight. I'd also challenge you to pick out things that maybe need some love. For example, when I was just thinking of my nose, I immediately skipped past it because I was like, my nose, it's bumblebee, it's gross. That's rude. Maybe that would be a good opportunity for me to give my nose some love. In this case, I know that I don't actually have that much, oh, well, towards my nose, it's just not my favorite feature, but that's something to look out for. I have crooked teeth and I've always been self-conscious about them, but my adopted mom always says that she really likes my crooked tooth smile. Maybe I could give some love to them because I feel a little self-conscious about them. My heart. I mean anatomically as well as the thing that gives love and cares for others. I appreciate the type of heart I have both physically and emotionally. I'm feeling as I'm scanning down, I'm feeling pressure on myself to call out everything like I'm like, oh, I've got to mention my belly. I've got to mention this, but I don't got to mention anything. Again, we're trying to just create today. Anything that's going to stop me or seem too complicated, I'm just not here for it today. Well, I'm tall. I like being tall. Sometimes. Actually, I don't care about that. Well, my lungs, especially through this COVID pandemic. I'm so grateful to have lungs that can breathe air. My hands, I use them so much. I've got a pretty good list here, like I already have more than I can draw and, so I'm going to wrap it up here. But one thing that I know that I am actively mean to myself about are my arms and legs. Maybe I could just give a little shout out to them. But this is good. I think I'm just going to start with this list and I'm going to do just a flat lay layout. I'm going to do the classic approach of just starting with the biggest or most cumbersome item and then go from there. For colors. Since it's love, part of me wants to do the cliche and like just pick out really soft, sweet colors. But then part of me is interested in blue. I think I just want to take them do it one color at a time. I don't think I want to pick a palette right now. The reason I'm communicating that is to help you understand what's causing my decision-making so that you can start to key in on that for yourself with your own feelings. While looking over these colors, whereas yesterday I was drawn right to that yellow, I knew I wanted to use it. Today I'm like, I don't know I could use any of these colors. I'm not going to let that stop me. I'm just going to get started. 27. Day 8 Demo: Body/Self Love: I'm just going to write body love at the top, because mine is focused on my body. I'm going to need some references for this. I think I'm just going to pull them up as I come across them. Looking at the bigger items that I think are going to carry more weight are the brain, heart, and lungs and so that's probably what I'm going to draw first and I think I'm going to start with the brain. I'm going to look for a reference photo for my brain. There it is. This is what I was looking for, is just like this classic diagram. What color would I like my brain to be? I think I'll go a little cliche and do pink, this peachy color. Since all of these items I have, I can really alter the size so that they fit, I can alter the view, so I'm really not locked into a difficult composition here. I'm just going to start with the top left for my brain and I'm not going to try and be perfect about it. I think the more important thing is that all these squigglies show. I don't know why that diagram is confusing me and I don't know why. It's like, I don't know what this thing is back here, but for my own drawing, I just need it to be recognizable as a brain and so far this is not. I love my brain, but I'm not great at drawing them apparently. This is maybe the worst brain ever drawn. If this right here is you're like, what you're afraid of like, oh my gosh, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to ruin this blank page, well, allow this very ugly brain to calm you down because it just doesn't matter. I can't draw a brain very well on this first try. I'll know what it is because I drew it and I'm going to label it. Take the pressure off. No need to be a perfectionist, it's no fun. Let me cross off the brain. Now I think to balance out this bigger shape here, I'll do the anatomical heart rate here. Again, this is just to help you see where yours can differ from mine. I'm just interested in this moment in drawing an anatomical heart. But if you wanted to draw the classic heart shape to represent the heart, you can interpret this however you want. Who knows, maybe every organ I'm about to draw on here is going to look crazy, but I'm okay with that. I'm going to go a 35 for the heart. You can see there's just not really all that much to be afraid of, even when you're drawing complex things you've never drawn before. Because this is just our journal. It's just a private place. Now that I've drawn an ugly brain, the next time I sit down to draw one, if I do, I'll have this experience to help remind me like, ooh, drawing a brain is a little bit harder than I suspected. I want to pay closer attention to the details and so it's not a failure. It was helpful for me to see that and now I know for the future. I'm leaving a little bit of negative space here because I don't want this to be, I like how the brain has a lot of white space showing. I think if I just colored this one solid red shape, it would be a little too heavy, so just that little bit of negative space in there helps. I don't want to bombard this too much with veins. I think I was able to get the feeling across there. Those little end cap circles really helped that form to show that those are like ventricles. Is that what those are called? Ventricle, I don't know. Now that I have these two weighing down the page right here, I'm just trying to see where are those lungs going to fit best and I think just right here is going to do it. See, I've used a peach and a red so maybe I will stick with these sweet colors and do a nice pink for the lungs, 803. I was just like, just go 4 with the lungs but now that I've seen that I don't know anatomy as well as I thought I better pull up the lungs. I already was going to draw them upside down so this is good that I did it. I like this graphic here that shows the, I'm going to use the word ventricles again, but I don't know that that's the correct word. Do I want to draw both? I might just draw one. Will that look weird to have one long? No, I'll draw both. They got a little wonky, I don't care. Remember, the point of this prompt is to just take a minute to feel grateful for our bodies or ourselves. If I'm so busy worrying about if I drew it correctly, I'm going to miss out on the whole point. When I first started my brain, I really felt self-conscious about how it didn't look like a brain. But now you can see that my visual language, and by that, I mean using these pink marker shapes for the fill and then the black lines for the details on top, it helps unite everything and make it look more on purpose. Maybe this isolated, you would think like maybe that's a seashell or maybe that's a snail and you wouldn't think it's a brain. But when you see it all together with these other items, it gives it natural contexts. That's why completing your page and not quitting too early or saying it's failed too soon is really important because it might not be failed, it just might be incomplete. I guess my arms and legs, I'm just not interested in drawing those as isolated limbs. I think that it just sounds weird to me, so I'm just not going to draw it. I'm not interested in it. Maybe I'll go ahead and draw a smile with some crooked teeth here. In this case, I just want to see generally, obviously, I'm drawing my crooked teeth so my teeth aren't going to look that nice, but just helpful for me to see. Just remember what it takes to make a smiling mouth. I'm not sure I'll be able to depict my actual crookedness because really it's my front teeth overlap a little bit. I'm just going to exaggerate it and make the lines a little crazy just to help show that's what I'm depicting there. I'm getting a big space up here so maybe this is where I'll do the hand. What color do I want for my hand? I think I want to bring in a brown color. I think that would look really nice with the pink. I'm going to do this 977. Now I know that it will take four seconds from this for this hand to look wonky. But I'm just going to go for it. I got my crooked teeth. Next is just my eyesight and my eyebrows and so I can fit those in right here. For my eyesight, I think I'm going to use my black marker just to draw a big classic eye shape. Then just for fun and to distribute the color, I'm going to pull some color as if it's eyeshadow right there. Hey, those are all the main items I wanted to get in, and now I can just balance out the page and fill in the space by adding in my captions. I'm starting first by going in and adding the big labels to each item and then I can fill in more information. Like if I want to write more about why I chose that item, then I can fill it in. Remember, going bigger to smaller. Like I said, now I'm just going to fill in. There's a little space right here, a little bit right here and here. I'm just going to add in a few extra nuggets of information to fill that space. Never underestimate an arrow's ability to take up really helpful space. Awesome. I hope that you are able to take some time and really find some appreciation for the vessel that you are given to live this life and if you focus more on yourself and less on your physical appearance, I hope that you took some time to appreciate the more intangible things that you bring to the world and I'll see you tomorrow for Day 9. 28. Day 8 Timelapse: Body/Self Love: Now please enjoy this overview time-lapse of the Day 8 prompt body/self-love in case you want to quickly reference the process and the future. 29. Day 9 Plan: I Wonder: Day 9. Here we are. Today's prompt is I Wonder. In my first class, I had a prompt called I Recently Learned or Recently I Learned. This is in that same vein, but instead of reflecting on something we recently learned, we're using this prompt to be curious just for fun. I know that for me curiosity and fun are things that I used to devalue, so for me I've been really working to bring those things forward because they bring more joy to my life. That's how this prompt came to be, is to remind us all to be curious just for the fun of it, and not just when we have a weird symptom and we Google it, and then think we're dying. I'm just going to try and think of what I've been curious about lately, if I have any questions rattling around. One that I've had for a while is, what's the deal with castles? How did castles start? I was recently curious about how truck weigh stations work. On the highway here in the US, big semi-trucks that have big loads have to pull off every so often to be weighed. Do they just pull on to a big old scale? How does this work? On that same because this was on a road trip, I also wondered about how wind turbines work, but then I will be honest, I did Google that while on the trip and it didn't help. I learned a lot. I can say a lot of words about how the energy is converted, but I don't actually understand any of it, so I'm just actually going to just cross that one right off the list. Thank you. Another one. I tried my hand at gardening for the first time this year, and I killed almost everything except our canna lilies and one of the cacti, and the cacti still can't even tell if it's alive or not. I'm wondering, are there any flowers that can make it through an Arizona summer? I know at least, I mean, like I said, my canna lilies stayed alive, but I feel like that was just pure luck and pity on the plants part because all my other ones died and it didn't want to leave me alone. That's my delusion. While I'm looking at these, I'm trying to think. This one I really am curious about. Right now I want to Google that to know how they started. I'm also would be interested in drawing a castle, and so that makes this one very attractive. How truck weigh stations work, now that I'm not driving by them, I'm not as curious, and I don't really care to draw a truck today, so maybe not that one. This one, are there any flowers that can make it through an AZ summer? I'm also curious about this one, and I love drawing flowers, so that's a good contender, but I'm just going to try and sit and think about a few more things. If sitting and just thinking isn't doing it for you, you can look on your phone to see things that you've saved or taken pictures of recently. You can look at your Google search history. You can just walk around your house or walk around your neighborhood or where you live and just try to pay attention to questions that you have. Try to get curious about things. I wonder if peacock feathers all have the same design because it seems like they're all very similar and yet it doesn't seem too uniform. They still seem like they vary. I am curious about that, and I would like to draw that. I think I have three pretty solid ideas here. Again, I'm not looking for the most stellar idea, I'm looking for the one that's going to make me start, the one that I'm going to just be able to start right now. I think the castles win. I want to know what their deal is because they're so big, and pretty, and weird, and scary, and spooky. Let's do it. I'm going to do a little bit of research. Let's do it. How did castles start? Now there is a website, exploring-castles.com: Castle designs through history. I guess I should have known this. I'm terribly naive, perhaps ignorant. Of course, castles started mainly for defense, and they started as little dirt mounds. That is not a dirt mound. I think they're being a little bit harsh on that. Now, we're getting into things. Now they're getting built of stone because these first two were wood and that burns, but the stone ones took years to build. Very expensive. Murder holes. Sure. Essentially imagine walking down a hallway in a house and the walls extend further than the floor doors and you just fall out at the end. Welcome to a medieval castle. Then we have mid-medieval, Gothic castles. That's where it's at. This website is very helpful. It's exactly what I was looking for. It's Gothic fiction that has made them synonymous with spookiness. Then they have these concentric ones, well, prestige and power. What were those, early modern times? Not quite the fun, I'm really wondering what I thought I was going to find, like that a happy person just decided to start building this up just for fun and was like, let's build a big stone house. No. Of course, it was for defending, and prestige, and power, and murder holes, and all those things, but I've done the research, I've gotten curious, and now I just want to draw a castle. While I was reading through that, I noticed that that article had a picture for each of the types. How many were there? One, two, three, four, five, six, and they have pictures in there. I could actually do an icon layout where it's one, two, three, four, five, six, and write about each of the types of the castles. However, for me, what is most interesting about this little experiment is just my own naivety, my own ignorance of just I don't know what I thought I was going to find, but I think I thought it was going to be very froo froo, and cute, and fun, and sweet, and it's not. That's really funny to me. I think instead of getting into the types of castles, I want to just draw a central castle in the middle, and then just write down the things that I want to pull from my research to put onto it. I'm going to need a picture of a castle because I'm not going to draw one from memory. My favorite place to go when I need some images is Unsplash. Look at that one. I was picturing more of a floating castle as if it were surrounded by trees, but then it fades out, and so this isn't really like that. I'm going to turn the brightness up a little. I don't want to throw off the camera, but I also need to be able to see a little better, but the perspective is really striking. When I saw it I was taken, and that's what started my curiosity about castles, is that initial grandness. I could save it on Unsplash, but sometimes I'm lazy and I'll just do screenshots and go through really quick. I just make sure to screenshot with the person's name in it so that if I want to go back and find it again, I can. You might think like, "Just save it then and then you can find it," but no. I'm going to do things the hard way. Thank you. That's so pretty. Apparently, I have liked that before. This is nice. This is close enough that I can see the forms and there's a lot of different parts to it, lots of different turrets. That's a contender. I'll take a screenshot of that one too. Wow, look at that. I think I'm going to go with one of these. All that perspective is so fun, but this one is more what I was picturing. The sensation I get, well, I guess I get it for both as I can already feel the marker in my hand, and I can feel trying to draw these shapes and everything. You know what, I'm going to go with this one. This one has taken me. I'm going to pull it off screen, and colors for my castle. I think I want to play with my neutrals and my earth tones, and just play with the values a little bit. I don't think I want to go full gray. I think I want to do warmer, and then maybe even pull in the 679, this dark purple. That's really pretty. I'll do 990. I'm just going to make a list of the colors; 990, 942, 992. Those are three shades of beige. I'll bring in my nice cooler brown that I just got, 879, and maybe the 679 too because I just really like that purple, and maybe 977 for a middle. That's a lot, so I'll start there. I've got at least some light, medium, and dark colors, and that's enough to get started. 30. Day 9 Demo: I Wonder: I've got at least some light, medium and dark colors and that's enough to get started. I think I'm going to start by going over with a lighter color because I can always darken just so that I can get the main shapes down. Again, I'm not trying to draw a perfect castle. I'm trying to enjoy myself while I draw this castle, this image that I saw that really felt striking to me. That's all that's happening here. I'm enjoying where my curiosity led me and I hope that you will be enjoying where your curiosity has led you, even if it led you to murder holes. I'm really happy I went with this image. I'm already excited about the perspective. Some of the rock right here is a little lighter, so I'm going to come in with my lighter color and just preserve some of that highlight. Since it's stones and rock, I'm letting my marker be really chunky to have that structure in the forms that I'm drawing. It's just really satisfying to draw this way to get to push down and really use the full brush tip. It's very enjoyable. Just goes to show there is no real valid fear for being afraid for trying drawing something that you think is intimidating like this. I felt scared even though I really loved this image I was like, Oh, I don't know if I can draw that, it's a lot of perspective, but you saw that I just took it one shape and section at a time, and now I've got the whole composition blocked in. I'm going to go in with a medium brown and just start adding in some darker values. I feel good about that. There's a chance I come back later after the camera is off, but I'm anxious to start filling in the space here. I didn't end up using my purple color, but that's okay. I really like just the simple three values. I'm just going to fill in the space with some of the stuff I learned. I wonder what's up with castles from dirt mounds to prestige. It turns out I am naive and I had never gave serious thought to castles because of course, they aren't romantic fairy-tale things, they're for battles and defense and murder holes. I think I'm just going to make a short list of the types and then just highlight the Gothic one since that's my favorite. I wrote dirt mound for the first one, but I don't know if that is the accurate name for it. Then motte bailey, those are wood and then we have the first stone one, Norman Stone, Gothic and then there was that concentric one that I didn't write down, and then we get to the early modern. Cool. Well, curiosity took me to castles today and I can't wait to see where yours takes you. I will see you back here tomorrow for Day 10. 31. Day 9 Timelapse: I Wonder: Now please enjoy this overview time-lapse of the Day 9 prompt, I Wonder, in case you want to quickly reference the process in the future. 32. Day 10 Plan: Home: Hello and welcome to day 10 of illustrated journaling or more illustrated journaling, where our prompt is home. Like all the prompts, do with it what you will. But my goal with this prompt today is to try to capture some of the things that remind me or make me feel at home even when I'm not. Like the very first thing that comes to mind is access to blankets. Anytime I'm sitting on the couch, I have a blanket. It's just a comfort thing, like my comfort zone thing, and whenever I'm at someone's house and they have a lot of blankets, I know where they're at, I know have access to them, that makes me feel at home. Anywhere I can wear my pigs slippers. I'll also say access to snacks. If I'm allowed to go into your pantry or into your fridge, I'm going to feel pretty good. If I'm not, I don't. Also my toothbrush. Wherever my toothbrush is, that's going to feel like home. I don't know this one comes to my brain. It surprises me as shoes by the door. That's such an interesting one because at my house like right now, we keep our shoes in the mudroom like they're not by the door. But there is something like when people are staying at my house or when I'm at somebody else's house, something about taking your shoes off and leaving them by the door feels very homey to me. This is a pretty good list, actually, I thought that I might have to walk around and see some things and I'm sure there are other physical things that remind me of home, but since these are the first ones that came to my mind and this is all about ease and getting going. I think I'm just going to go with this and I think the way that I, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, I have five, so if I wanted to do a set layout, I could do it like this or I could take it one item at a time and my mishmash flat layout like I've done. Let's see what am I more in the mood today? I think I'll do a flat lay. I know it doesn't feel right, so I'm going to do a flat lay and I think for colors, let's see, do I want to pick out colors now? I think I'm going to take colors as I come. I'm not in a palate mood today, so I think I'm just going to pick them out one by one and do it one by one. 33. Day 10 Demo: Home: I just thought of one. I know it's a bit cliche, but again, we don't care about cliches in this class. We care about getting the thing done and showing up for it, and candles burning absolutely feels like home or the smell of food cooking. Even if those are things I don't draw, I can work them in somehow either in notes or whatever the case may be. The first thing I want to draw is access to blankets because I think I'd actually like to draw one of those blanket ladders or quote ladders that people show blankets hanging off of. I think that'd be a cute way to depict the blankets and also it might be fun to then get to draw some quilts. I guess for the ladder, I will pick out a brown, so I'll look for 977 and then for the blankets hanging off, I think I'm just going to pick the colors as I go, but I'll start with a neutral. The first one will be a neutral, a blanket hanging, and then I can use color on top to draw the design. I'm just going to get going. I love red and white quilts. I'm just going to enjoy myself and color in some half-square triangles. I've been into drawing quilts lately and I know that even if I like them to be wonky, they turn out just a little bit more looking like quilts and less like a messy thing if I draw a grid to stay in. Again, not because I need to be the neatest, but it helps relax my brain. Again, this is about feeling good while we're doing this. If it's going to make me feel at ease to draw that little grid in there instead of overwhelmed, then it's probably a good thing to do. I've got my little blanket ladder in there. My pig slippers, I think it'd be cute just to show the heads of them poking out from the bottom here. I will grab a pink for that. Since I've got a color palette started here, I'm going to find a pink that goes with that. I think this peachy 912 will be great. I could grab my pig slippers to see what they look like but I've already started and I just want to keep going. I know that there so fluffy on the outside that I don't want to draw too clean of an overall shape because I want to be able to show that fur. It'll look a little chaotic at first. Again, I'm going to do that trick where I'm going to draw in marker first, even though I'm going to color over this, just as a way to test the design. There will eyes and then a big pig nose and then the opening of the slippers here. That's going to work great. Just so that they're uniform, I'll draw the test face on this one too. Normally when I color, I color in a very uniform stripes but in this case, the texture here is fur which goes in all different directions. I'm going to try and mimic that with the way that I color. Looks a little crazy as is, but I know that as soon as I put at least one layer on top of there to help that I figure out what's going on. Once I label it as slippers, I'm not going to be too worried about it. But the main thing will be creating a space. Actually, I'm going to use just a dark marker instead of my Pentel pen because I want a more solid line to stand out on top of these chaotic marks. But then I will use the Pentel brush to show some of the fur and especially, where the foot goes in because a lot of fur hangs off right there. Cute. Then just to pull this color through, I'll use this light neutral, the color on the inside of the slipper, so it's not just white. Access to blankets wearing my pig slippers, access to snacks, my toothbrush, shoes by the door, candles burning. I think since I already have something long and skinny here, I'll add my toothbrush right there. I think it's going to fit nicely. I'll use one of the colors I've already used. I think I'll write home is where the toothbrush is, along here. I don't want too many details to make the toothbrush stand out or confusing. I guess the shoes by the door since I already have pigs slippers in here, I just don't want to redraw shoes. Then do I draw the whole door and then I have another tall thing? Do I draw a small scene here? I'm just not totally sure and I'm not that interested in it as I was before. I think I want access to snacks because that one is for real and I could just draw a little cookie or something. In fact, since I already have this color, I think that will be perfect. Well, what else am I drawing? If I put a snack here, then I could do a candle burning here or I could do a little pair of shoes on a doormat. That would be really cute. Actually, I'll do that. The reason I'm choosing that one is because the shoes by the door feels like a more personal detail to me than the candles burning. Candles burning absolutely feels like home to me, but I've drawn candles burning and passed prompts and stuff. I'm more intrigued by the shoes by the door. I like that idea of doing just a little welcome mat with shoes on it. I can do a little chocolate chip cookie here for the snack. With the cookie, I'm going to be a little bit more uniform in my coloring so that it looks like one uniform shape. But I am making the lines not straight because the form of a cookie is imperfect and I want to show that. I know I use the red up but you know blue. I was going to say I'll make the doormat red, but I think this blue will be better because I haven't used it as much and it will help pull the color over here. Let's see. First I'll just draw, where's the rough outline of where I want this welcome mat to be, here. Then I'm not going to draw the whole thing because the shoes are going to be on it. I just wanted to at least place where they're going to be. I don't know if you noticed, but my brain solved this problem for me of how to depict shoes by the door. At first I was like, do I have to draw the door? Do I have to draw the whole scene? Then I moved on to work on something else and while I was doing that, my brain worked on the problem. It was like, "Hey, what if you just draw a doormat?" The cool thing is your creativity is working even when you aren't actively thinking or chewing on the problem. I'm just going to add some texture and some interest to the doormat by drawing these little lines. Now I'm just going to go around and add in any little notes and fill in the space to finish off the page. Oops, that looks like an A, looks like I wrote hame. That's okay. I'm spelling slippers wrong. Do I want to put in a tiny p there? I'm going to turn this E into a P. We're all going to be real cool about it. Down here I think I'm going to do the honorable mention of food, the smells of food cooking because I've got the space and it is such an important detail to me. Great. Luckily I was able to fill out the page just with these big captions. If I wanted to, I could get in and fill these tiny spaces with little notes or expand on this. But I'm really happy with this page and I'm glad that I took it one thing and one color at a time because I'm really interested in this color palette I ended up with and I don't think I would have picked it just by picking out the colors. Don't be afraid to take things as they come and to figure it out as you go. I will see you back here tomorrow for day 11. 34. Day 10 Timelapse: Home: Now please enjoy this overview time-lapse of the day 10 prompt, Home in case you want to quickly reference the process in the future. 35. Day 11 Plan: A Map: Hello and welcome to day 11. Our prompt for today is a map. As I showed in the class resources, this can be a very basic map. It can be an intricate map. It can be anything that you want, but it should just be something fun, something that you will enjoy working on for the next about half hour. For me, I want to make a map of where I leave my AirPods. I feel like my biggest source of exercise is walking around my house looking for my AirPods every single day. I have a few main culprit places. I thought it would just be funny to do a floor plan of our house and call out where some of those places are. Mine is going to be more of a floor plan than a map map. It's not going to have a compass on it, or North, South, East, West. It's just going to be a bird's eye view floor plan. Because there's a few spots upstairs and downstairs, so I think I'll do one floor plan that shows both upstairs and downstairs. I'll just call out some of those areas. Some of those areas are in the closet . When I go to change my clothes because I have to take my AirPods out. I'll often set them on top of my rack of shirts. Also not uncommon for me to leave them in pockets, either sweat pant pockets or cardigan pockets. Next to my studio sofa. Sometimes I'll leave them on my desk. Also the coffee table. I think these are my five main ones. But before I actually move on to color and everything, I need to look at what a floor plan looks like and actually make a few rough sketches of what our actual floor plan in this house might look like before I go on the page because I've just never done this before. It'll make me more comfortable to move forward with the project. Again, that's what we're doing. I encourage sketching if it's going to be something that helps you get the project done, like that's what I care about. If it's going to be just another step that you resist, then don't even worry about sketching and just get right into it. First I'm just going to Google what remind myself what a floor plan looks like. There's like these dark thick lines that show where the actual walls are. Then there's opening for the doors and little drawings of what the doors look like. They do like simplified drawings of what's in there. Stairs are these lines. This is helpful. Our house, I'm trying to picture it as a bird's eye view. I'll start with the studio. The studio is up here above the garage. There's a hallway and there's the guest room. Then this balcony looks on to the first floor down here. Most of these are upstairs, this one's downstairs, everything else is upstairs. I really am going to focus more on the upstairs layout, and then I can just show the part of the living room that peaks out down here, I think. Coach coffee table. Right here, we have a little bathroom, and then right here is the open area and then the stairway. This will also help me see what the general shape that I'm working with is. Because if it ends up being a rectangle, that'll be easier. But if it's a weird shape, then doing this first will help me know where I need to put it on the page. Brooks' office is right here. We have a little closet right here in our main bedroom. Then there's a doorway that goes to the bathroom. I will need to draw this because our closet is through the bathroom and back here, which is one of the spots where I leave them. I'm able to see that the main areas and this is not a perfect representation of our house, but it does really help me see. I feel confident with this little sketch, if you can believe it or not, to just get going on my page. Because again, for me it's the fun of remembering that I lose my AirPods a lot and that there are these places that I tend to leave them. It's all in good fun. I don't need it to be perfectly accurate. For this one. I'm going to work this way. I'm going to turn this, this way. As far as colors go, when I was looking at the floor plan, since it was all in black and white, I think I'm going to stick with like a monochrome color palette. If I were to do blue, I would want the background to be light blue and then I would do the walls with my darkest blue. I think blue actually, I'll just use my example. I think that will be nice. I think I'll use 2,9,1 to fill it in and then I will use 5,3,5 for the walls. 36. Day 11 Demo: A Map: I've got my rough sketch here. I've got my colors and I'm just going to hop right into it because again, it's okay. The wankiness I want to avoid is that I draw it and it only ends up taking up this much of the page. I want it to fill the page, but if the ratios of the rooms are off, or if the layout ends up being a little silly, I'm okay with that. That feels fine to me. I'm going to start with the studio because the studio does jut out from the front part of the house. This is looking a little rough right now, but I've got a good start. I think what I'm going to do is put in my main walls. Depending on what you have decided to do, your map of, maybe you'll start by drawing a general area of your town, or drawing a shape that represents what your map is, and then maybe you'll start laying, whereas I'm laying down these main walls, maybe you'll start laying down main roads or paths. I'm going to leave little gaps for windows too, where I remember to. On these little diagonals are my doors. I'm just kind of picturing myself in each room. This is our bathroom, and we have this little room here where the toilet is in there, and then the door opens. I'm literally just trying to picture my bathroom and just taking it one little piece at a time. That's how I'm going to be able to figure out this overall layout. I am honestly kind of impressed. This turned out much better than I thought it would. I've got room here to write the title and fill in, you know what, to write about the great AirPod hunt that happens all the time. I'm just going to color the rest of this in with this light blue color before I start adding my landmarks and details. I've got the main structure down in, see this little spot I have here, actually, I'm going to make a little compass because I know that my front door faces south. Since I've got the spot, I'm going to draw a cute little circle to add a compass to. I'll go ahead and add my title while I've got this space up here. Now we're going to start filling in our map. There's lots of room for detail, but of course our most pertinent details are the things that we called out, the thing that we're actually making the map of. Those are what I'm going to focus on first with adding them in. When I was looking at the floor plans, what I liked about them, the official look of them is the kind of black and white monochrome look to them, so I think I will just keep with using the dark blue and then if I want to bring in a third color as I'm drawing things I can. The first place is my closet. I often leave them on top of my clothes and so that my clothes rack is over here, and so let's see how do I want to call out the places? Do I want to put a little star. Maybe that's actually where I'll use the third color for as a third color to kind of call out the spots so that they stand out. Since I've already colored in blue, I want something that's going to work on top of the blue. I think red would stand out really nicely. Maybe even this bright pink color, I'll go with red, and I think I'll put a little dot. For each spot, I'm just going to add a dot and then I'll draw it in. First place, is closet and then pockets. Pockets could be anywhere because I could just show, I'll let that one float around if there were like seems to be that dots are all in one area. I can put that one in last next to the studio sofa. My studio sofa is here. Go ahead and put a dot there. My desk is here, so we already have two in the studio. Coffee table is down here. We have a dot right here. I usually leave my clothes like a barbarian, like on the floor next to the bed. Since we don't have any dots over there, I'll add one here. Now we'll just go ahead and draw some fun little details that show off what this room is. This is the closet. Oh, I can label it too. I'm not sure if you can see it, but it's good to bring up because you may experience it. These letters, they're bleeding a little bit. They're not as crisp as when I draw with the marker, say here. That's because I colored in with this lighter blue and it's still a little, it must still have some moisture in it and that's why it's the dark blue on top is bleeding. Our bedroom. Here we have a little closet. This is Brooks' office. Down here is the living room or guest room. This is the guest bath and trends studio, favorite room in the house. Everything is labeled. Now I can draw my little icons. I was trying to think of if I want to draw like a bird's eye view of a closer ark, but I think I instead just want to draw a little icon that represents each item and so I'm just going to draw a little shirt on a hanger near this dot. Then I'm going to write the tiny notes with my pen because this marker tip isn't fine enough for me to do that. In our bedroom, this was the closet, so I'm going to draw a pair of pants because it's usually a pair of sweatpants pockets that I leave them in. Over here on the living room, it's our coffee table. In the studio, it's the sofa that's against the wall, and then up here it's my desk. Now what I'm going to do is add my little notes for each spot, and I think inside of each dot, I'm going to write a number, and then I will write each number here and write what the spot is. I thought that I would add in more notes with my pen, but since I did the dots that way, I was actually just able to fill in this space and explain what this map is filling out or what it's showing. If I wanted, I could go in and add honorable mentions. For instance, sometimes I mix them up with boxes so I could put a little star here. Sometimes I will leave them in my purse, which will be down in the front hall closet and so I could draw that in. Since it's too small, the radar, then I'll just go ahead and put the star there. Down here, I can now fill this space. Just like that, I've got a little map of our house and all of those pesky places that I tend to leave my AirPods.1 I'll see you back here tomorrow for Day 12. 37. Day 11 Timelapse: A Map: Now, please enjoy this overview time-lapse of the Day 11 prompt, A Map, in case you want to quickly reference the process in the future. 38. Day 12 Plan: My Sky: Hello, and welcome to Day 12. Our prompt for today is My Sky. Now, I am going to take a minute to describe this one a little bit because I have a very clear intention when I made this prompt. Now, just like the whole rest of the class, if me just saying the words, my sky, gave you enough gas to go and you're ready to just get started, then just get started. That is the number one goal. But here is where this prompt came from. How far back do I go? Basically, a big lesson that I learned this year in my own emotional intelligence and processing is that I was doing this thing where I felt feelings cancel each other out. If on one hand, I was feeling grateful for something, but on the other hand, I was feeling slighted or ingrateful for, or let's say I was angry about something, that's a good example. Well, I have ADHD, and one of the hallmarks of ADHD is black and white, all or nothing thinking. It's very common for me to try to boil things, or distill things down to two extremes. This all or nothing thing. With my feelings, what would happen is, I would see these two things and assume that they cancel each other out, because I can't be grateful and angry at the same time. I must be nothing or I'm only one of these. The problem with this is our emotions all need to be expressed and felt in order for them to pass, in order for their lifespan to be. A lot of my work this year personally has been on noticing, naming, and accepting all of my feelings and that they co-exist all at once. One of the things that helped me process that is this idea of the sky. You could look at your sky right now and maybe you've got this going on, but I've just known in my life that sometimes you look at the sky and there's a bunch of big fluffy clouds altogether. Maybe even some sun rays are coming through and you've got that heavenly feel and it's beautiful. Then over to the right a little bit, you've got a weird streaky cloud. Then over here, you actually have a lot of darkness in the sky because a storm was coming. All of these things that seem like they shouldn't be happening at once, are happening at once. It's fine, it's natural. In fact, there's probably very good reasons for our why there's a dark spot over here, and there's a streak over here, and we've got these fluffy clouds over here. But by the time you try to figure out why they're there and what's happening, you've already missed it and the sky has changed. To relate that back to my feelings, I've noticed that picturing my emotional self as a sky, that's allowed to be filled with all of these things simultaneously. I don't have to figure out where it's coming from. I don't have to figure out why, I don't have to change it, has really brought me a lot of acceptance in myself and my ability to process and feel feelings. Now, I feel like if the emotional spectrum is this long. By this black and white thinking I was keeping myself in this very small area of what I was able to feel. But now that I've opened it up, I have felt so many more nuanced feelings. I've been able to feel that I can be angry at someone at the very same time than I loved out of them. Those things can just co-exist even though they don't make sense because they are. Today's approach is going to be a little bit therapeutic and a little bit abstract. We won't actually be drawing any objects. The list we're going to be making is an emotional check-in. All of our prompts are going to look very different for this. Here's what I mean. I'm first going to do an emotional check-in, and I'm going to get quiet and I'm going to try and list the feelings that I noticed that are present, and I'm not going to judge them or try to have reasons about them. I'm just going to let them come up. If you're more of an intellectual person, sometimes thinking a thought that helps trigger the feeling can help identify the feeling. If just trying to find the feeling isn't bringing anything up, then maybe go to your thoughts and maybe you'll notice you have a thought that's like, my boss is such a hole. Let yourself think that thought and then try to see what feeling comes after that thought, maybe annoyance or entitlement. I'm not going to push it too hard. That's the other thing is like this doesn't, sometimes it's deep and sometimes there's a lot, and sometimes there's not much. The whole point is to allow, not to force. When you're making your list, if you only come up with one word, or two, or whatever you come up with, it's fine. Try to allow them. What I came up with was embarrassed, proud, present, hopeful, and creative. I'm now going to look at my color chart. I'm going to try and pick a color for each feeling. Embarrassed definitely feels red to me. Proud feels like a yellow, like this, just solid yellow. If this is your first time doing anything like this, your brain's probably going to be judging you and being like you're doing it wrong, this is stupid, you're stupid, wrong answer, that's not what she's looking for, my brain is doing it now as I'm picking out colors, like my brain was red and yellow, that's McDonald's color, is really, that's what you want in your sky. But I'm just going to let that thought be there, and I'm going to keep going down the line because these are my real feelings and these are the colors that I'm naturally associating with these things. Present also feels yellow to me, but maybe more of this soft yellow. Hopeful feels like a clear blue. I'll try 291, and creative. Creative right now feels a little purpley, little lilacy. I think I'll go with 603. Now, my goal when I'm drawing mine is to make an abstract sky pretty much. It's just going to be colors. I'm just going to let myself do colors and marks all over the page. If that's a little bit too abstract for you, I know just we're all different as artists, and so some people will love abstract and some are going to hate it, and that's okay. If the abstract of what I'm going to do of just coloring and making shapes isn't your thing, then maybe you can use the colors that you chose for each feeling and you can just draw shapes. Then you could journal about the feelings or write about the feelings on top of the shapes. It's okay to get out of your comfort zone, but I want you to do this page, is what I want you to do. Whatever you need to do to fill out this page, get it done. Next, the way that I'm going to do this is based on the bigness of the feelings or the placement of them. For instance, I feel really present because I'm recording this class and we're doing this. I'm very much right here in this moment and feeling hopeful and creative. Those feelings are much bigger than the feeling of embarrassment or pride. I'm going to do the bigger ones first. Since this is a nice light color, I'm going to color a lot of the page. I didn't even plan to do this, I just started coloring. I let my hand takeover. Hopeful and creative. In my brain what I was just thinking then is my hopefulness. I feel like my hopefulness is threading through all these things in my life. I tried to thread it through the presence. Feeling creative just feels like this big happy thing. The color doesn't, when I picked up the lilac, the colors layering that might not look like happiness or creativity to someone, but I'll know it is. I'll do these little radiating circles because I feel like my creativity is growing and radiates that a little bit of embarrassment. Just feels like a little sprinkle, very strong sprinkle, which is why I chose such a bold color. Then I've got my pride. Again, the pride is also strong but not overtaking anything. That's literally it. That's all this has to be, just an outlet. I'm going to take some time. I'm going to label the big feelings. Then I'm just going to add some journal entries around these feelings or the things that made me write them down. One thing that may help that I just jumped to, I'm able to do it naturally now, but if jumping from the feeling to the color and the drawing is too big of a leap, you can also sit and write down. It's actually a mindfulness technique is describing your feeling. Giving it a texture and a color and a temperature and locating it in the body that might help you express it. Now, I'm just going to try to forget that the camera is on, and I'm going to take a deep breath, and I'm going to go one at a time, and I'm just going to write what comes up. That was so nice. This is one of those practices that I faced resistance to. But when I really take the time to do it, and this was probably our shortest prompt that we worked on and easily the most cathartic. I hope you'll find a way to face this prompt in a way that feels good to you. But that's still challenges you to be present and to check-in with what's going on in your sky today. I'll see you back here tomorrow. 39. Day 12 Demo: My Sky: Now, my goal when I'm drawing mine is to make an abstract like sky. Pretty much it's just going to be colors. I'm just going to let myself do colors and marks all over the page. If that's a little bit too abstract for you, I know just we're all different as artists and some people will love abstract and some are going to hate it and that's okay. If the abstract of what I'm going to do of just coloring and making shapes isn't your thing, then maybe you can use the colors that you chose for each feeling and you can just draw shapes, and then you could journal about the feelings or write about the feelings on top of the shapes. It's okay to get out of your comfort zone, but I want you to do this page is what I want you to do. Whatever you need to do to fill out this page, get it done. Next, the way that I'm going to do this is based on the bigness of the feelings or the placement of them. For instance, I feel really present because I'm recording this class and we're doing that. I'm very much right here in this moment and feeling hopeful and creative. Those feelings are much bigger than the feeling of embarrassment or pride, and so I'm going to do the bigger ones first. Since this is a nice light color, I'm going to color a lot of the page. I didn't even plan to do this part, I just started coloring. I let my hand takeover. Hopeful and creative. In my brain what I was just thinking then is I feel like my hopefulness is threading through all these things in my life. I tried to thread it through the presence and feeling creative just feels like this big happy thing. When I picked up the lilac, the colors layering that might not look like happiness or creativity to someone, but I'll notice. I'll do these little radiating circles because I feel like my creativity is growing and radiates, that little bit of embarrassment. It just feels like a little sprinkle, very strong sprinkle, which is why I chose such a bold color, and then I've got my pride. Again, the pride is also strong but not not overtaking anything. That's literally it. That's all this has to be, just an outlet. I'm going to take some time, I'm going to label the big feelings, and then I'm just going to add some journal entries around these feelings or the things that made me write them down. One thing that may help that I just of jumped to, I'm able to do it naturally now, but if jumping from the feeling to the color and the drawing is too big of a leap, you can also sit and write down. It's actually a mindfulness technique is describing your feelings, so giving it a texture and a color and a temperature and locating it in the body, that might help you express it. Now I'm just going to try to forget that the camera's on and I'm going to take a deep breath and I'm going to go one at a time and I'm just going to write what comes up. Oh, that was so nice. This is one of those practices that I face resistance to, but when I really take the time to do it. This was probably our shortest prompts that we worked on and easily the most cathartic. I hope you'll find a way to face this prompt in a way that feels good to you, but that's still challenges you to be present and to check in with what's going on in your sky today. I'll see you back here tomorrow. 40. Day 12 Timelapse: My Sky: Now please enjoy this overview time-lapse of the day 12 prompt My Sky. In case you want to quickly reference the process in the future. 41. Day 13 Plan: Report Card: Welcome to Day 13. Can you believe we're already at the second to last prompt? Well, I have a treat. Because today's prompt is fun, and it's easy, and gratifying, it is report card. Now here's the good news. If report cards in your past, where thing that brought anxiety, or trouble, or whatever, this is going to be a really good experience because we are writing our own report cards for this. We are going to give ourselves grades on some things we've been doing lately. If I may suggest, picking things that you have only been doing well because why not have a report card of all A's because we deserve it. I'm just going to try and think and for me I wanted to have some levity, but I also do want to pick some things that I like want to pat myself on the back for. I know the number one thing for me right now is I have been showing up. Showing up is my number one, as a person with ADHD and who just recently was diagnosed within the last year, this has been my number one pain point my whole life. For instance, with filming this class, normally I put off the production process like I'll say, "I'm going to start filming Wednesday." Well, traditionally I don't start filming until the Wednesday, two weeks after that Wednesday. But this time, I showed up and started filming when I said I would, and I'm drawing in my sketchbook more, and just all these things and I really deserve an A plus for showing up on my report card. I've also been filling up my sketchbook. I've been focusing on quantity over quality, and I have really been filling my sketchbook pages. Oh, you know what, lately? I'm going say my scrambled egg game has been very strong. My scrambled eggs lately have been fluffy, and flavorful, and not dry. So scrambled egg, Megan. Earlier in the summer, I would have earned an A plus for eating BLT's. Boo. I've been very good, my brother and his dog, Lucy, have been staying with us and I am very good at petting Lucy. It probably goes without saying because of what I've revealed already in this class, but I'm a very good Real Housewives watcher. Let's see, so I've got two real ones. I guess my scrambled egg making has been real too, but that's more levity. Like these, I have four that are levity, two that I'm truly proud of and will earn, like him happy to have an A plus from. Maybe I'll try to come up with one more serious one. I'll say being nicer to me, which is hard. Our thoughts are sneaky and I don't think we realize how hard, like people tell me I'm too hard on myself and I think, "No, I'm not. This is the pressure I deserve, that I need every human should have," and it's just not true and I've really been working on being nicer to me. For colors, for this prompt, and the way it's going to be laid out, and you're welcome to your own interpretation, but I'm going to draw a rectangle that represents the report card and I think I'm even going to draw some washi tape or draw a thumbtack to act like it's like taped or pinned to the wall or the fridge. Then I'm just going to write out these items one by one on top of that and then just give myself a grade or give myself a gold star. I'm really just trying to come up with what colors I want for that. I'm thinking, because I think with the way that the report card will be in the center, I think it'd be nice to do a background pattern, so even a grid or stripes, I think it would just add some liveliness to it. I'm really drawn to this 873 color, one of these peachy colors. Maybe that will be the actual background of the report card, and then the background I think I'm going to do a grid, and I'll do that in blue, in 535. I'll write on top of the report card in my Pentel and then I'll draw the washi tape. I guess I'd need to draw the washi tape first. Let's see, I've got pink and blue, these two colors. What color Washi tape? Let's go pink. 743. 42. Day 13 Demo: Report Card: I've got my markers, I've got my list. Now, I just get to draw my report card. I'm just going to start by drawing some washy tape, some rectangles. I'll draw the body of my report card. I could have drawn the rectangle actually a little imperfect to make it look like it was folded at one point, like the report card was folded. Sometimes those little details are really fun to work in. For the grade, I'm trying to decide if I want to give myself a grade, if I just want to do A pluses all the way down. Also, I was thinking it might be funny to include one funny thing that I've done terribly that I'm still failing at. I've gotten much better at getting something, graphite or something. I'm getting much better at being an adult and putting my clothes away and not throwing them on the floor all the time. However, when it's nighttime and it's time for me to go to bed, I always just drop my clothes by the side of the bed and just leave them there like a child. That might be funny to have a bunch of A pluses and then this one thing that I'm still working on, getting better at. I'm trying to think from my grid if I want thick, straight. Yes, I do. I already know that I do. I'm just going to do a imperfect grid back here just to add some more color, some more fun. You don't have to do a grid, you could just do a color but you could just color one, you could do rainbow stripes, you could draw a pattern, you could leave it blank. You can do whatever you want. As you know, I don't put the date on mine when I'm filming classes but this would be a really fun one to do. To play with the official idea of writing the date that the report card is covering and all of that. I want to do a little design on my washy tape. I think I'm going to do it with black. I think that'll be the best contrast. I could do diagonal lines. I'll do little dots though to contrast the grid. Let me just look at my list really quick to make sure that I want to put them all on here. I think I will add that fun one that I am still working on. That's really funny to me. Let's see, there's the close at the side of the bed. What else am I? There's I'm working on as a human but I want it to be a fun thing. Oh, I know what it is. I'm so sorry but I'm being honest. I am pretty bad at closing cereal bags. I know you're supposed to roll it down and I get lazy and just do it like I'll just crunch it down or do the single fold. That's a funny one that I'll include. Cereal boxes is definitely in there showing up and filling my sketchbook. Those two are definitely in there. Petting Lucy, yes. That's 1, 2, 3, 4. I think five will fit nicely in here. It's honest. I've just been watching so much Real Housewives so I'll pick that one. What I'm going to do is I'm going to put a line for each one where the grade would go and then write the item next to it. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I've got all my items in there. Now I want to decide if I want to just put stars next to them and then just leave a star off for this one or if I want to actually write a grade and then grade myself poorly here. I think I'm going to draw a star. I think I'm going to use a gold. I know that I'll be layering this 026 on top of this coral. It's not going to look exactly like that, but I think it'll still have the effect. If you have gold stickers, you could also use stickers or draw a smiley face. I think instead of giving myself a [inaudible], because I think this is funnier. Just there's just no star here versus A plus, A plus, A plus, A plus, F. Cute. That was easy. Take some time, reflect on what you've been doing lately and give yourself a five star report card because you deserve it. I know you do. I'll see you back here tomorrow for our final prompt. 43. Day 13 Timelapse: Report Card: Now please enjoy this overview time lapse of the day 13 prompt report card in, case you want to quickly reference the process in the future. 44. Day 14 Plan: A Dream: Hello and welcome to Day 14, our final day, our final prompt and I thought a nice prompt to leave us is, or to leave off with is a dream. This, of course, could be a literal dream you had at nighttime while sleeping that you now remember and would like to depict. I could see that being fun because like in dreams you're like, in my dream, I was at my aunt's house, but not really my aunt's house, it was actually my high school gym and it's like how that stuff doesn't make sense. So it'd be really funny to draw that out and write it down and get it on paper. But the approach I'm taking is more a dream for my future, something that I'm dreaming of. Of course, you know by now that in the class resources I've provided some alternate approaches that you can take to each prompt, so definitely check that out. I've been thinking a lot about this one when I first wrote the prompt, I thought that I have a dream of one day designing a book of stamps. But honestly, that is technically like it's still in my list, but where I sit now there's no reaction really. I'm like, yeah, that is a dream of mine, but I'm not super excited. The dream that I want to focus on is really I haven't seen my family in over a year and a half because of the pandemic, and Brooks and I just bought our first home and so I have a dream for the future that my family will visit for Thanksgiving. It would be super cool if I felt up to drawing a whole scene like, a lively dinner table scene with everybody around it and all the energy because that's definitely what I picture when I wrote this down. However, I'm not trying to draw a bunch of people today and a whole scene, then I have to figure out the composition and do sketches and that's not what I'm interested in. So I think instead I will draw a Thanksgiving dinner like draw the little turkey whatever they look like, and then maybe some potatoes. Yeah, I think I'll just do a flat lay of the things that would be at Thanksgiving dinner and then I can either use the turkey as a shape to write on and say, I have a dream that I'll get to host Thanksgiving in our new house one day or I can write and fill in around it. But I do know that I off the top of my head, I'm not going to be able to just draw Thanksgiving food, and so I'm definitely going to find some references for that before I get started. As far as colors go, I know probably since I'm drawing food, I'm going to try and stick to the colors of the food so that it does come across that way, so I will pick colors as I go. For now, I'll go ahead and find some references. I have trustee Unsplash. Let's see if I just type Thanksgiving what comes up. This is a good idea of spread, they've put some citrus to fill in the little candles. That's a good idea for like filling the space. Pie, let me make a list. Oh, Ham. Actually, I'm going to draw a ham because my family actually does have a ham more often for Thanksgiving than turkey, and I like the crisscross, I'm excited to draw that. I was actually excited to draw the turkey with the way it's stick out and everything, but now that I see the ham, that sounds easier and better to me so I'm going to do that ham. Some type of pie, I'm not a pumpkin pie fan, that's okay if you are, I'm not. So maybe I'll draw an apple pie. I'm going to write fillers over here just so that I remember that I can use little candles, little sprigs, lemons, lemons slices, rolls, see all the stuff. Oh, the gravy, I don't like gravy actually, but I like the way the gravy boat looks and that's a recognizable thing. This is an American holiday by the way. But anyway, what I was saying is all the foods are very casserolely and comforting so they're not very distinct to draw. But I'll do some type of casserole, some type of potato, do a garlic clove. We always have multiple salads. I think I've got enough to go off of, let me just look through a few more. Oh, that's cute, the pie is missing a slice, so that helps show that it's a pie or you could do a drink. You could do a little cranberries, forks and so cutlery, and napkins, pumpkins, and squash, of course. I'm going to go back to the first picture I found because I think I'm going to draw the ham going up and down like this, and then on the top part where it's pink is where I'll write. Then this crisscross will look like the ham. Look at all this work we've done. 45. Day 14 Demo: A Dream: Look at all this work we've done. The last page. Okay. A dream. I know the main thing on my table is this ham and so I'm going to need a light pink color and then like a rich brown color. But I don't want the outside to be too dark because I want to be able to draw those crisscross lines on top of it. So I think I'm actually going to do something like 946 and then maybe I'll get 873 back out for the inside. I could sketch, I could just at least with lightly in pencil draw a few of the light dishes. But I feel pretty confident that this mishmash is going to work no matter how I'll be able to fill in any awkward spots that there are. Now one thing I want to do, so the slices of ham come off and I'm going to use negative space to help show those. I'm just going to do rainbow lines and then color in the rest. Since my lines are going to be going diagonally, I may as well help that along by coloring it that way too, working in that direction. I think I'm going to wait to add the details. I'm going to go in and place all my items on the table first and then I can go back in. It's like I'm still deciding do I want to show like leave some white space of where this plate would be. Those are the kinds of things I'm still working out. Next, I think I'll do the pie up here because I'll get to show a bit of it. The tops of pies are just nice and a pretty brown. So I'm going to use two brown colors for that. I did like in the drawing that they showed the piece of the pie missing. But I think since I have this little space, I'm just going to draw the crust and do the latticework because I'll be able to tell that that's a pie. I wanted to use 942 early in the class and I couldn't find it. I'm going to look somewhere really quick. I'm not sure. I don't know what I did with it, so I will do 992 and 977 instead. First I'll draw, and our apple pies don't actually have this to it, but I think that that helps communicate the pieness of it. I think I'm going to color the whole thing in with this light beige color and then I will create the latticework with the darker value. I started coloring in straight lines, but the pie actually, I want to get some of that roundness in there, so I will curb some of those. See latticework just like, what was it that I did earlier in the class? Drawing the brain where I was like, I know how to draw a latticework and then this does not look like latticework. But it's okay. I think since I put this so far away from this, I think I am just going to do a light pencil line to remind myself that I want to do plates around these things. I really liked that gravy boat, but I think just with the space I have, doing just some corners of dishes is going to be the best use of my space. Let's see. We have a casserole dish here. Let's see. Casseroles are just, you know what? I'll do mashed potatoes because I will use a lighter color, so I'll use my lightest beige, and then I can do some chives on top and that will bring some green to it. I'm going to do some wavy lines to help with the texture. Instead of using a dark brown, maybe I'll use a little bit of gold so that it pulls a melted butter. I just grabbed a green without looking so I didn't grab the brightest one, but I think it's still nice because I have this texture up here now and just like another color other than the mashed potatoes. Then since I'm leaving the plates white, I'll probably color in a background color for the table just for some contrast. Salads. I will do a salad down here because that will bring the green down. Again, I grabbed another green without really looking, and so this one is definitely brighter and cooler than I would've probably chosen. But I just have to reiterate that. The point of this is just to enjoy going and I'm just in the groove, so I just wanted to reach in and grab a green. It's okay if it's not the perfect green. This time though I will be intentional so I can have a green that goes with that. I think I'll bring in a warm green to pair with it just to bring it down a little bit. I'll try 249, which is at least darker. My aunt always makes really beautiful gourmet salads that have lots of interesting ingredients and textures in them. That's nice, gives some life down there. Then again, just for some more green, I think I want to do some sprigs of herbs on the table. Maybe we could do a little tea light, a little candle somewhere. Let's see. The candle would just have this flame. Then do I want to do, I could do a drink here to bring in some more red like I think that reference photo I looked at had a nice cold red drink and maybe that would be better than another food. Then I could draw a roll peaking in here. For the drink down here, I want to show that it's in a glass. So I'm going to use one of the light colors I've already used and then some ice cubes too. Maybe I'll go ahead and already draw out some of that negative space to play with. I'm actually going to layer my green on top of the red because they are complementaries so I can make a darker color to help. Just add a little bit to the glass down here. Cute. I think I am ready to start. I'll color in the background color because I think I can write on top of the other stuff around there and I don't have to go too dark on the background. Let's see what would be fitting. Something that fits the fall theme. So maybe even this light green, maybe something neutral. Like one of these more khaki colors would be nice and warm. I could use a pretty dark brown. I might actually go with one of these darker colors. Since I have a warmer palette, I think I'll try this 679 and it might end up being too dark honestly, but that's where I want to see where it goes. Since the drink doesn't have a plate, I'm going to leave just a little white space around it so that I can write the name of that cocktail or cranberry juice or whatever it is. The candle. Actually, I'm just going to go around and make sure that I save my white spots. I'm just going to trace around where those pencil lines were so that I know where I can color. You'll notice I'm not going straight up and down. I certainly could. That would give me a uniform look, but I'm following the contours of the shapes to give it a more organic flow around the table. I'm just going to get into adding details and notes. Now the last thing I'm going to do to finish off my piece is I'm just going to write a little entry about how just some context for this exactly what I said at the beginning. I haven't seen family in a while. We have this new house. I really hope this dream happens one day. Cute. Then one final touch before I finish it off is I feel like these plates just need a little separation from the background and so I'm going to grab one of my really dark colors. I'm not using my pencil brush because I need something a little bit more solid. I'm just going to add some, what would be shadows. Nothing too extreme just to give a tiny bit of separation and help us see the plates a little bit better. That's it, guys. That's our final prompt, Day 14, a dream. Take a second to think about what are your dreams, whether there are actual literal dreams you've had or dreams that you are thinking about for the future. Pick one out and get it down on the page. 46. Day 14 Timelapse: A Dream: Now, please enjoy this overview time-lapse of the Day 14 prompt, A Dream, in case you want to quickly reference the process in the future. 47. Now What?: In this video lesson, we'll cover binding separate entries, revisiting prompts, sharing your project, and reflecting on your entries. If you created your entries on separate sheets of paper, collect them into a folder or envelope for safekeeping. You can also use washi tape or a hole punch in some pretty twine or ribbon to bind them together into a book. The great thing about these prompts is they're really designed to be revisited over and over again. The things that make us laugh, our dreams, even our favorite colors, they change from day to day and season to season. While the prompts don't change, your response and your approach probably will. I recommend coming back to these prompts and a month or six months and seeing how you've changed since the last time. You could also combine these prompts with the ones from my first-class and have a whole month of checking in with yourself. The sky is also the limit with you coming up with your own prompts to answer. Basically, I recommend trying to keep this practice alive in some way. Whether you plan to share all your entries upon completion of the project or want to drip share them one at a time as you finish them, I do hope you'll share your project in the class project gallery. On one hand, it helps inspire others and gets them moving. But on the other, it helps you practice to see that crossing that fear river and putting your work out there is worth it, and it's not as scary as you thought, especially, on a creative platform like Skillshare. I show how to capture and publish your class project in the earlier video lesson, sharing your class project. I'd also recommend setting a reminder on your phone or writing it down in a future calendar date to come back and look at the work you created in this class. Let me prove to you that those seemingly mundane things and the courage to show up and finish the page aren't mundane at all, and are actually some of the most precious moments from our daily lives. 48. Thank You!: Thank you so much for hanging out with me for another 14 days and for showing up for your illustrated time capsule. If somehow you landed here without watching Part 1, well friend, I would recommend going and watching part 1. There's 14 more prompts waiting for you. If you'd like to be alerted when I publish a new class, give me a follow here on Skillshare. To hear about the behind the scenes of my art practice, be the first to know about upcoming classes and collabs, and to generally be plugged into Dylan world, sign up for my quarterly newsletter at bydylanm.com. If you want casual encouragement and to see how funny I am on a regular basis, give me a follow on Instagram at bydylanm. Whether you do any of those things or not, thank you for being a fellow artists and for showing up for your creativity. Until next time.