Improve Your Wellbeing With Sketchbook Journaling

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to my new class. Improve your well being by Sketchbook journaling. My name is ImRan. I'm a graphic designer and illustrator. And I've been sketch book journaling for many years now, and it's a fantastic way to just get away from the day to day of life and the stresses that build up along with it and to really just have a nice little retreat a window. Express yourself in your thoughts where you can focus purely on yourself without any distractions. And I found that by doing this, I've managed to really enhance my overall well being and improve my mental well being at the same time. And it's just given me that opportunity to reset, relax, and going again the other day. And I really want to share this process with you, and I want to kind of open up this world to sketchbook Journaling. And that's the reason and purpose of this class. So we're going to start the class off by the benefits of sketch book journaling, how they'll help you with your overall well being. And then we're going to jump straight into the exciting part of looking at the various sketchbooks that are available. And yes, I bought many sketchbooks over the years. So I finished. So I haven't. So I'm going to go through and review the best ones that I think you should start off with in order for you to quickly get started in this wonderful world of sketchbook journaling. We will also look at the different mediums and tools that will help you along the way to make this journey as easy as possible. And then once you've got your mind completely focused on which sketch book you want to start off with and your mediums ready and set. Then you can start fixing in that time into your time table, and we will look at how we can inspire ourselves to do so and how this will fit around your daily routine. And I will also provide you with some lovely templates that you can use and review the ones that I've used in my sketch books when I go through and flip through some of the sketch books that I've used over the past few years, just as an inspiration for you all. And that's it. You'll be ready to start this wonderful journey into the world of sketch book journaling, to improve your well being by just focusing on yourself and have that lovely getaway to just escape away from the hard and stressful life that you're going through and have this lovely little element window where you can just express yourself and focus on yourself on your thoughts and enjoy a bit of therapeutic doodles, drawings, watercolors, whatever you like so. I know you're excited as I am because I'm gonna go ahead and start doing some skeptic journaling right away. And I want you to join me on this, grab yourself a nice drink, get yourself an ice cake, sit back, get into a relaxed mood, and let's get started with the class. 2. Benefits of Sketchbook Journaling: Ok, welcome back. Let's now start off by going through the benefits of Sketchbook journaling. Why Sketchbook Journal? One of the main aspects of Sketchbook journaling is that it provides a stress relief. Engaging in artistic activities can be calming and meditative helping to reduce stress and anxiety. And I found this to be absolutely 100%. That's one of the main reasons that I do it. I've got a very busy lifestyle where I work as a graphic designer as my day job, and I also work on the weekends, freelance work, and I've got to deal with a lot of things because I've got kids, and I'm an active dad, so stress levels are usually quite high throughout the day, dealing with deadlines. Again, you may or may not be able to relate this depending on your lifestyle, but generally, stress is something that we can't get away from. We've got to face it, and the best way to face it is to have an escape to counter stress. So stress relief via the tool of sketchbook journaling is just absolutely brilliant, and it can be done not just once a day, but it can be done two or three times a day and sometimes I have actually gone ahead and done it two to three times per day, and it's just a fantastic little getaway. Number two, emotional expression provides a safe outlet for expressing and processing emotions visually, which can be therapeutic. Sketchbook journaling, I myself find that the entire process is therapeutic and I can express my emotions in the writings that I do, whereas, instead of having to fight your emotions or fight the thoughts that are in your head in the spiraling way that usually goes in swings and roundabouts. It's just such an easy way just to get it all down on paper and then follow it up with a doodle or you could do it the other way around. Either way, it just works as such a great little mechanism to just let it all out on paper, and it's just absolutely fantastic. Number three, mindfulness. Courages, mindfulness by focusing attention on the present moment and the act of creating. That's another key of sketchbook journaling, this idea of mindfulness, of having that focusing on the present moment. In addition to that, I would say that the best way to do that is to get away from all the noise and distractions and that's one thing that I do. I sketchbook journal, I make sure that I'm not doing it in the same place where I'm dealing with all the stresses and hustle and bustles of my daily routine. I make sure that I get away and have a different place, even if it's in another room in my house, or even if it's just going out and sitting in the car or the garden. It's just that little escape where I can focus on the present and really encapsulate my thoughts and just get them down on paper, and it works as a brilliant tool. Number four, enhanced mood can elevate mood and increase feelings of happiness through creative expression. Now, happiness and elevating your mood from not so good to a more better mood is the absolute objective of sketchbook journaling. Might have a time where you're really down and your moods really down. I get it all the time. I might be dealing with a deadline at work or one of your kids might be having a tantrum or I might have spilled copy all over the table, and my mood's just gone really down because I'm juggling with so many things. This idea of really enhancing your mood by just getting away and doing a little bit of doodling and writing away from the noise and the drama of your day to day life. That's what this open window to expression is all about. I find it absolutely brilliant, improving your mood, which will overall improve your well being because it'll make you happy. A happy mood, good mood generally means that you're going to feel a bit happier. Let's get happy by sketchbook journals. And number five, self reflection, promotes self awareness and personal insight by reflecting on thoughts and feelings through art and writing. Self reflection is so important, reflecting on your thoughts and your emotions and what's going on in your head is vital for stress relief and for general well being. That window to writing your thoughts and doodling in that therapeutic meditative way is just brilliant, and it gives that access to the escape that we're all looking for Now, remember, this ain't going to solve your day to day problems in life. This is just an escape away, momentarily escape from the reality of stress and the hardness of what you're going through into just a little world of your own where you can either put your thoughts down and create something from imagination, or you can just write down your objectives that you haven't been able to achieve to help do that self reflection process, or whatever you're going through in life, just put it down on paper to just really get that weight off your shoulder You'll find that once you do this and once you've done your doodle, you can just take this nice deep breath and you just remove that element of stress in that present moment. It's not going to solve your problems, but again, it's just that escape and allowing that time for you just to focus on yourself, and I absolutely love it. It's something I've really been doing every single day. For many years now. I I don't do it, I have this like itch, where you get an itch and you need to itch it. I've got the Sketchbook journal itch. So I have to do my sketchbook journal in order for me to just remain nice and relaxed and to overall improve my well being. So those were the five main points that I would say are the benefits of sketch book journaling. Now that we've gone through these and you can think about these in a little bit more detail personally for yourself. We can now move on to the exciting stuff and start looking at yes, you guessed it. Lovely Sketchy books. Let's move on to that. Next. 3. Small Sketchbooks: Okay, DK, welcome back. Let's now talk about the wonderful world of sketch books because you're going to need a sketch book to start sketchbook journaling. Of course, you are, so let's go through some of the ones that I've used, and I'll go through whether they're good or not so good. So let's jump straight into it. On the screen over here, you'll be able to see I've got three smaller size sketch books. Now, I would say that if you're starting off in Sketchbook journaling, then it's probably best to start off with a small sketchbook. The advantage of that will be that you'll be able to quickly access it because it's really nice and mobile. You don't have to have this huge thing that you've got to carry with you everywhere. Secondly, because these are really nice and small sketchbooks. They can actually be very cost effective, and I'll just quickly go through these three that I have used and I'll tell you which one I'm currently using. The one on the left here, which I've got a nice little label on, it says Daily reflections, book three. This is my go to daily sketchbook that I use for my sketchbook journaling. This is an A six size book. This is made with just standard cartridge paper. You can get this from any art store, you can get these online. All the links to all the materials and sketchbooks and supplies that I go through in this class will be available on the class resource sheet. Do check that out. This one is the A six cartridge paper book. If I just quickly flick through this, you can see, I've got some nice little writing here. Again, I've kept to this nice format where I've got writing on the left and then a bit of a doodle on the right, and that's what I've pretty much done throughout this book. I've managed to fill quite a few of these over the last few months. Again, it's a current book that I'm using, so I use this book on a daily basis. I've actually got loads of them. I'll just show you here, I've got loads here, a whole bundle of them, and then I've got even more in my bookshelf as well, which is somewhere down there in my studio, but a fantastic book that you can start using straight away, nothing fancy, simple cartridge paper inside. And it's really cheap to buy. The only issue with this type of a sketch book is that it's cartridge paper. So you can't really use many mediums on it. It can take up to, I would say fountain pen ink, maybe some water based markers, but that's about it. If you're thinking that you just want to have something nice and simple and you just want to start off with ink, then this is a fantastic option. Let's move this one to the side. The one that I've got in the middle over here now, this one is a nice A six book made by a company called pith, and they produce absolute fantastic stuff. A lot of this is recycled material, so very good for the environment. The binding on this is really nice as well, so you can open this book flat. With this book, you can see what I've got here is, I'll just move the other two out of the way. You can just open it up completely flat and you can see, I've got a nice bit of doodling over here with some colors on here as well. On this one, I've used a little bit of light watercolor. The paper in this book can take watercolor, however, it doesn't have watercolor paper in it. Do bear that in mind. I only use very light watercolor, so I wouldn't say if you're going to use watercolor, then go for this book because it's not 100% suitable, but you can get away with it. It does tend to walk the paper when you use it, so do bear that in mind. The actual paper quality itself in this book is just fantastic. Again, I've used this quite a lot for my journaling, but to be totally honest with you, it's more of a start and stop type book for me. It's not one that I would regularly buy and it's quite expensive. If you have this, maybe start doing a little bit of sketchal journaling in it. If you don't, I wouldn't go out and buy this because again very expensive compared to this one over here. I think this is probably ten times the cost of one of these or even more. Do bear that in mind. But it is a good book, nevertheless, and it's the same A six size. Then we've got more of a watercolor based book. This one is one that I used from a company called adi made in India. Very nice book, very thick. And very absorbent of watercolor and ink. So again, with this one, it's probably not the best for writing, which is why I have not done much writing in it. So for journaling, I wouldn't say it's the best, but I thought I'll just show it you just to see what type of results you can get, and it might be something that you really like to use. But again, for me, this is more of daily sketching rather than daily journaling. But again, it's a nice one to have or test out if you've already got it. So they were the three options that I've currently got and I have used. The one in the middle, this one, this is the one that I use on a daily basis, and it's the one that I highly recommend. 4. A5 Sketchbooks: Doke, let's now look at Sketchbook number two. Firstly, we looked at the A six sketchbooks. Now we're going to be looking at the A five size sketchbooks, and this is where things start to become a bit more interesting. Let's have a look on the screen where I've got three lovely little A five sketchbooks. On the left hand side over here, I've got one by Stillman and Burns. This is the Epsilon Sir series. I think that's what it is Epsilon series, whatever that means. But this has really nice paper in this. It opens up flat and I think it is a very nice sketch book. But again, it's not a watercolor sketch book, so do bear that in mind. Stillman and Burns do have a watercolor sketch book, but I personally haven't used it. This is just one of their decent quality paper sketch books, and it does do a great job for sketchbook journaling, especially if you're going to use ink and maybe fountain pen or just normal fine liners. It works great. The paper feels really nice. The only thing about this type of a sketchbook is the binding on it. I think that the binding can maybe get a little bit loose because of the threading that goes through it. However, the more factor that affects it more is the actual cover itself because this is a soft cover. With sce book journaling, generally, I would say it's something that you're going to be doing on a daily basis. Well, I hope you do it on a daily basis, and you want a kind of book that is a bit more sturdy, so a hard cover, in my opinion, would work best. However, if this is something that you like with this soft cover, Then maybe if you've got one, go ahead and start using that for this project of Sketchbook journaling, or if you're interested in getting one, it would be a good option, but they are very pricey. So that was the Stillman and Burns. It's one that I don't use that often, but I have used it in the past. Then maybe I'll go through this one next, so I'll move this to the end. This one is just a cheap hardcover sketchbook from Kenji, was just a store in our local shopping area. So if I just show you this, these are beautiful books. And they have this really nice kind of like diary feature in it where they've got templates that are made, and it's kind of a dot grid page, so it helps with alignment. And you can see over here, I started doing my sketchbook journaling over here with a little bit of creative work and then kind of did a bit of writing. But I didn't really feel this paper to be very good in terms of whether it can handle decent ink or not. This is more of just rough sheets of paper to do ideation concept working, just like doodles. I wouldn't really recommend this. I just thought I'll show it you because I did fall into the trap when I started sketchbook journaling by buying loads and loads of sketchbooks that just looked beautiful, but they were expensive and they just didn't work out for me. That was the Kenji one that I used. It's moved that to the side. Now for the main star, and that is the Mlskin book. This is my go to sketchbook. I've used this for many years now. This is one that I highly recommend. This is one that I use for my sketchbook journaling, and you can see it's watercolor this one. They do do non watercolor versions. If you do want to check this book out, then make sure you get the watercolor book, not the standard one because the watercolor one is way more durable, and again, you've got the advantage of doing watercolor. Although I tend to do a lot of ink in these books. You can see here. I'll just do a flick through. This is what I call my coffee shop book sketchbook journal where I go to coffee shops, every week or twice a week with my wife when we go out doing the shopping or just for meetings at work. And I always end up doing my sketchbook journaling there. I think it's just a fantastic place, a coffee shop or a cafe where you go to eat, have a meeting, sit down, just spend 15, 20 minutes, half an hour or even longer if you've got the time to just do a quick little sketch of what you see. And then a nice little doodle to accompany what you were going through in that particular day. I just think it's fantastic. What a great book this is. Again, very durable. The paper quality is great. If you do come to doing some watercolor in them, it can hold watercolor very well. No brilliant, but I would say very well. It's not the best watercolor book, but for light water color, I would say it's just excellent, and I absolutely love this book. Again, it comes with that like string that goes around it as a little flappy thing at the end to put some important documents or receipts or whatever, and it just works great, nice and durable, very compact, easily goes in your bag. And you can use a lot of different mediums on it. That is my number one recommendation, and I'll just show you the pile of these books that I've got, I've got so many of them. These are the ones that I've got. They do come in the landscape orientation as well, which I have used in the past. I'll just quickly flick through this one with this one. I did do a little bit of sketchbook journaling in this, a bit of urban sketching and creative work. So just like that, I don't actually think I did any writing in this one. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. I did. I did actually do some writing in this, so I did use it for sketchbook journaling. I'm not just making it up, so there you go. And a little bit of watercolor with this one in a coffee shop style that I'm used to doing on a regular basis. So this is a fantastic book, if you like this orientation. So With this, mole skin, you've got so many nice options, landscape, portrait, but do get the watercolor version because with the watercolor version, then you've got that option to use watercolor and even markers that are water based. So fantastic book that one, highly recommend it for sketch book journal. 5. Bigger Sketchbooks: Okay, k you, welcome back. Let's look now at the final Sketchbook, and that is the medium sized sketchbooks, which are slightly bigger than the A five. Let's have a look on the screen. These are the three sketch books that I've used. I'll start off with this one first. This is the one that I probably used the least or not really for sketchbook journaling, more for sketchbooks, but I really like the feel of it, and I think the quality is great. This one is by Stillman and Burns again, if you remember, we have the Stillman and Burns, the gray one that we showed previously, I'll just quickly grab hold of that and make sure the books fall on the floor. So that was the Stillman and Burns. A five, let's just get a Zoom Zoom back on this, so we can see this better. There we go. That was the A five book of Stillman and Burns. This is effectively a bigger size than that. It's not a four in size. They have their own different sizes in this. If I just go this way, it's probably about two lots of So with this one, this one is the Beta series. This one is the Beta series of Stillman and Burn, and that is basically the watercolor one that's suitable for watercolor. I has some decent watercolor paper in it. You can see over here, this is more of my whimsical style of drawing. And again, I actually did intend to buy this for sketchbook journaling, but I just liked the paper so much that it worked so nice with watercolor that I just ended up leaving it at that and not doing any journaling in it at all so. I wouldn't recommend this for Sketchbook journaling, but if Stillman and Burns ta series is something that you really like using, then go for it, maybe get it in the smaller size and have it more compact because it's got the soft cover on it and it does tend to warp quite a lot with watercolor if you're going to use watercolor in it. But again, just wanted to show you that in the Stillman and Burns range. Moving that to the side. Then now I'm coming to a new brand of sketchbook that I've only recently started using. I would say maybe the last maybe a year or so. And I absolutely love this one. This one is the one by the company called Etch, and this is the B five size sketchbook. This is the watercolor sketch book, B five, and it comes in this really nice canvas material, that's cotton canvas that's around the binding, the binding is really nice. It's a hard cover, so it's very sturdy. It's got a nice bit of elastic to it. The only downside of this is, it's this off white color, which does tend to get really dirty, but you can actually go ahead and draw on it as well if you want. But it's absolutely fantastic. I'll show you this. This is my sketchbook journal, and this is the one that I spent quite a bit of time in. I wouldn't say this is one for daily sketchbook journaling. I would say this one is for maybe daily writing and spending a bit more time on the drawing side of things. But if you have maybe a couple of hours a day to do sketchbook journaling, then that's fantastic. Maybe go for a book like this where you can go ahead. And start doing some really nice therapeutic designs, come up with your thoughts, write them down, jot them down on a daily basis, and it just works great. You can see over here, I've got a complete different layout scheme. Every page has a slight different layout to it. I've used various mediums, I've used markers, gel pens, inks with brush, and I've used watercolor, done abstract work on it, and it's just fantastic. On this page here, I've got pencil work, watercolor, I've got a nice green fountain pen ink over there. I just love the results that you get on this book and the paper, the quality of this spread is just fantastic. I'll just quickly flick through some more of these. You can see different layouts of sketch book journaling. I actually did spend quite a bit of time on the sketchbook journaling when I got this sketch book because I was so excited about it. I really wanted to test it out. Because the results were so good, and I'm so happy with the results, I just got into the groove of doing this on a daily basis. But the thing is, like I said, with the writing, I would have done the writing within maybe 5 minutes, and then I would have spent more time on the sketching. Of drawing with pencil first, then ink, then watercolor, and I stretch that out over a couple of days. It was like more of a sketchbook journaling that lasted for a few days rather than a daily sketchbook journal. Again, that's the advantage of maybe having a couple of sketchbook journals where you have one like this, the small one, where you use this for your daily sketchbook journal, where you're doing your thought and a quick little doodle. Then maybe you have a bigger one like this where you can do your doodles of your thoughts and then go ahead and do that nice drawing if you really want to express yourself, With your art materials, that's a fantastic way, but again, it depends on how much time you have in the day. If you have the time, I would suggest definitely go for one of these books and use your watercolor and your mediums, because this book can really take it. It's fantastic. I can't take alcohol markers, so don't use alcohol markers on this. Again, I have a whole class on alcohol markers and ink and what books are suitable for that. So do check that out if you're interested, but avoid alcohol markers or alcohol inks in this book. But everything else in terms of mixed media works fantastic on this. Brilliant one of my go to books, and I've actually completed this one. With this one over here, y, I did a little note at the end, and this one was complete and I'm actually probably on my third book right now of this. I liked it so much. The only thing about this is this is quite a pricey book to buy. They usually have offers on them once a year in the seasonal type of period. Do a pack of three for a certain amount, and that's what I usually do. I buy them in packs of threes. This is the cold press. I always prefer cold press where it comes to watercolor paper, but they do do a hot press. If you like smooth paper, then go for the hot press if you're interested. That was the etch book and the size of this is B five. I think B five is a really great book. I actually keep this in my bag where I go to do my coffee shop sketching or whenever I'm going out. I tend to have one of these, I'll have my small book in there, and I'll also have one of these, my mole skin book, I won't have this one because this is the long one. It's the landscape one, I'll usually have my coffee shop book. I'll just grab hold of that. Usually in my bag, I usually have these three with me. All the time. Again, that's a great tip for Sketchbook journaling. Have a few options in your bag or with you all the time, so you can use whichever one you feel like, whichever one you're in the mood of being in that particular day. Use that and that will really open up the pathway for you not to get bored of repetitiveness, and you don't want to end up getting bored of something. Because I tend to get a bit fed up of using the same medium on a daily basis. Sometimes I like to switch to watercolor. Then again, if I'm using this book, then I can't do that. I tend to have my moleskin book or I have this one where I can just go ahead and use my mediums as and when I please, and it just be a fantastic channel to really give you that beautiful window to expressing your thoughts and feelings. And getting it all out on paper. So they were the three books that I used, but I do have a sneaky one over here, and I'm going to quickly show you that next those and move them out of the way. So this one over here. Again, this is the same company Etch, and this is the same size book as the previous one, but it has a more premium cover on it. It's kind of this fake leather cover, but it feels really nice. It's called the perfect sketchbook by ECA, and it's a limited edition. I really wanted to try this. But the only thing about this one was this was even more expensive than this. Yes, it was. It was more expensive than this, and I couldn't justify getting it, but then I just gave in to my kind of art to nature. Let's call it that, my art nature, my love of art, my kind of crazy love of art. So I just went ahead and bought it, and the paper is absolutely fantastic. It's got this kind of nice, kind of rippled edge to the paper, beautiful edge to the paper, and the paper is different in this book than it is in this one. This one actually has fabriano watercolor paper, so very high quality watercolor paper. It's really nice and heavy and thick. You can see, I've started doing some sketchbook journaling in this and I really really enjoyed it. I love how the colors turned out. I've got some template designs here, and again, some unfinished work moving on to some more creative things like this. Then again, just some doodle work over here, that's unfinished, and then just some abstract work. It can handle all the materials and mediums that this one could, and it's just a fantastic book. If you have this lying around or if it's something that you want to get, then try it out with Sketchbook journaling. It works great. So there we have it. I've gone through all the different types of sketch books that I've used in my journey of sketch book journaling, just to open up the options and make you start thinking about which books you would like to use for this fantastic adventure. All of the books that I've gone through will be available as links in the resource sheet, if you want to read up on them or have a look at them again again. These are not just the only books that you can use for sketch book journaling. There are so many different books out there. I've personally bought so many different beautiful looking journals and books that I've started using, but then I didn't like the paper. Again, it's just one of those things. It's a personal preference. You might not like watercolor books, you might like just cartridge paper books or those planner style books that they have in the shop and that there's no problem in using that. Just get whichever book you like. Just make sure that you're using the right medium. So let's now move on to quickly do a coverage of the different types of mediums you can use for your sketchbook journaling before we start talking about the templates. I think I might need a coffee break, but I don't have enough time to go to the coffee shop and do a bit of journaling. Now, I'll just make myself a nice coffee and might even treat myself to a nice little cakey cake. I'm going to have a break. You have a break. Think about what we've talked about with the sketchbooks and the inspiration, and I'll see you on the next one. 6. Mediums: Kiki, welcome back. That was a really nice coffee and cake. I'm sure you had a nice little treat also. Let's now start talking about the mediums to use in our sketchbook journaling. As I said, it's super important that you make sure that you get the right sketchbook to accompany the mediums that you use. It's vital that if you're going to use watercolor, the sketchbook that you get is a watercolor sketchbook. And if you're going to use alcohol markers, then you would need a sketch book that can take alcohol markers, but I highly recommend that you do not go down the alcohol marker route. Instead, if you really want to use markers or brush pens, then go for water based bonds, and you can get some fantastic water based markers. I personally use water based markers myself. They can be used on cartridge paper, sketch books, on watercolor sketch books, they work fantastic. So watercolor markers are a great option. But initially, I would say all you need is a pen any type of ink pen, even a biro will do, especially if you're going to be using small sketchbooks like these ones where you can just go ahead and do your writing in any style you want, do your doodling in any style you want, but just keep it nice and simple in terms of the pen. You want it to be accessible. You don't want to have mediums or tools that are really expensive, that you don't want to take anywhere with you. It's always best to have a few mediums with you handy. Your pencil case, that you can easily pop away in your bag with your sketchbook nicely. You can just go ahead and do little doodles like this, and that's what it's all about. It's all about accessible portable mediums that you can take and watercolor is another one. Fine liners, inks, any type of pen and then any type of coloring medium, whether it would be brush pen or watercolor, will work fantastic and you can get watercolors in nice portable sets. But again, just have a think about when you start this, you want to really be consistent in it and you don't want to overwhelm yourself with mediums. Maybe have a watercolor sketchbook for watercolor sketch book journaling like this one or the molskin one. Then maybe just have a small sketch book like this for just in standard ink sketching and journaling. That way you have both options and you won't get stuck. And it's just so easy to just carry them around. Let's have a look at what I have as my daily tools for my sketch book journaling. Okay, Dokey, so this is my pencil case. This is just a nice hard shell pencil case that I have, that's easy to hold. I don't have to think about carrying loads and loads and mediums or materials with me. It just goes into my bag with my sketch books. Let's have a quick look, what we've got inside. It's got a nice zippy zip on it. Again, let's just move this in the middle. You can see I don't have too many different tools and mediums here. We'll start off on the left. Ve got some fountain pens here, so this is just my standard fountain pen, and this has a nice fine tip on it, absolutely beautiful filled with just waterproof black ink. So fountain pen over there with a nice thin, fine tip on it, and then I've got another fountain pen, which is again, another fountain pen with a broad tip on it. I like to keep a broad tip and a fine tip fountain pen just to change the variation of my doodling and writing. So if I'm writing in my watercolor book, then I would go for the thicker tip which works well if I'm using my maybe cartridge paper, sketchbook, then I would just use my fine tip works absolutely great. The only thing that you've got to remember with fountain pens are, make sure they stay filled. Therefore, just in case I've run out of ink on my fountain pen, I always have a nice ballpoint biro. Just a standard black bi barro just to save the day, if need be, so I always have one of them. Then on the right hand side, I've got my fine liner here, my standard micron, not 0.8 fine liner, fantastic tool that, again, waterproof ink just in case I want to start doing some watercolor on my sketches. Then I've got my micron brush liner. So this is just a nice fine brush tip pen. Again, it has the same waterproof ink in it, fantastic little tool for kind of nice, loose strokes. And then I've got another fine liner. This is the UNIPen fine line. This is a 0.5 with a kind thinner tip then the 0.8. So again, waterproof ink in that one. A nice three set of fine liners. Then most importantly, I've got a pencil with a little rubber at the back and I've got a ruler. It's really important that you have a little ruler and a pencil with you. And the reason for that is I'll show you because with me, I like to do a lot of like sketching alongside my doodles. Actually, that's not a good example. I'll show you another example over here. With this one, this is my sketch coffee shop Sketchbook journal, and I've done so many of these. I'm in the routine of actually doing the doodle on the top of the page, accompanied by the writing at the bottom. Then what I tend to do is, firstly, before I start, I just go ahead and I just draw in the lines that I want to put in for the writing as a guide. That just helps me plan my page and I can work quickly while I'm at the coffee shop, while I'm doing these sketches of what I can see. That's another thing. It all depends on what you like to sketch. When I'm out in coffee shops, when I'm out and about, I just like to at what's in front of me and just do a quick doodle of it. But when I'm at home, I tend to do a lot of doodles on creative stuff that I come up with like my weird and wonderful creative landscapes and things like that. So it's whatever interest you have on the drawing side, go ahead and draw it. And if you're struggling to come up with ideas of what to draw, then it's just a good idea to just draw where you are. If you sat down in your living room, just draw a little corner of your living room, or draw a coffee mug that's on the table if you're having a coffee or a tea, or just draw the tell that you're watching, or draw some other lamps or lights or shades that you have in your room. I tend to do that when I don't have any inspiration, just to get that memory muscle working and you're actually getting some doodles down, some form of drawing, that therapeutic mark making on paper. That just helps that bridge the gap between your thoughts and the thinking to the more artistic free flow of lovely medium to paper. That's it for my lovely little pencil case, and you can see, I'm just going to quickly drop them back in. Otherwise, I'm going to lose all the bits, and they're going to fall all over the place and I'm going to be like, where are my pens? I'll just leave that on the side. Again, with the lovely watercolor world, I usually have a nice small watercolor set that I take with me, but I tend not to do my watercolor when I'm out. I tend to do my watercolor when I come back home. With my sketch books again, with a coffee shop sketchbooks, my aim is that when I finish a sketchbook, completely with the inking, then I like to come in and start doing a little bit of therapeutic watercolor. Again, there's no right or wrong way of doing this. If you like to just go straight in with watercolor, then go ahead and do that, or if you like to do ink sketches first like me, then you can do it that way. But that's it for the medium. Grab yourself, whichever medium you're comfortable with in terms of the drawing part, and for the writing, if you like to write with fountain pens like me, then go ahead and get your fountain pens ready. Whatever mediums you want to use get them ready, get them put away in your pencil case because next, we're going to talk about some of the funky layouts that I've used and I've provided you with a nice resource in the resource sheet of different layouts and templates for you to use in your lovely sketchbook journaling. Let's quickly look at that one next. 7. Layouts: Dk you, welcome back. Let's now quickly go through the resource sheet that's in the resource pack. Have a look at what's on the screen. I've got a nice printout of the layout designs for portrait spreads. Again, this is available in the resource pack for you to print out. This one is for portrait books like I've got, like my Echa book that I've got or the Moleskin ones, I tend to use the portrait books for Sketchbook journaling. That's just a preference. If you like to use the landscape ones, then print out the landscape version of this. Both are attached. Or if you like to use square books, then print out that one. This is just a good little tool to have that you can fold away and actually put in your sketchbooks. I tend to do that. I tend to keep it at the back of my sketchbooks like this or in the little pocket that I have. Just to keep it as a reference for when I need a little bit of inspiration, so I can just quickly access it and then think about the spread and the layout design of the spread that I'm going to do for that particular day of my sketchbook journal. I'm just going to quickly show you some of these layouts that I've actually gone ahead and So maybe go to the first page and see which layout it refers to. So with this first layout that I've got, you can see, I've got the writing on the left. Then I've got the picture going through the spread, and that is this one here, that's number one. And then if I just flick through the book, maybe have a look at this one over here. Let's see if we can find this, I've got writing going all the way across the page here, and a nice scene over here. This one on my template sheet is number ten. So I've got that one on number ten. Then let's maybe have another look over here. For this one, this is more of like a raw organic type of layout. I've just got a drawing here, and then wherever the white spaces I've put the text. I've actually got that somewhere over here. I think on the spread so yes, it's number 14 over here, you can see, I'll bring it up on the screen, these spread examples. Number 14 is what I've got down here. Again, that's what I've done throughout this journal. I've gone ahead and done different layouts. You might not like to do different layouts on every part of your spread in your journal, and that's absolutely fine. This is just to give you some inspiration. You when you start this. If you're getting a bit bored of using the same layout, maybe you can switch it up and make things a bit more exciting. That was it for the templates, try try it out in maybe the smaller sketchbooks, if you've got them again, with me for the smaller ones, I tend to just have the writing on the left and the drawing on the right or the other way around. So if you want to play around in a smaller size, you can go ahead and do that. That's absolutely fine. Do whatever you're comfortable with and whichever options, work with you best. So that's it for the templates and the layouts. Let's now gather our thoughts and have some final thoughts on your class project. 8. Class Project & Final Thoughts: Okay, Dk, welcome back. Hopefully, you will watch all the lessons of this class. This was a short class compared to my regular classes, and it's just really a inspiration class for you to get started and be motivated in this wonderful world of sketchbook journaling. For your class project, all you need to do is go through the lessons in the class, get your sketchbook ready for this process and start sketching and getting your thoughts down on a daily basis as and when you find time throughout the day. The best time will be different for all of us. I personally go and do my sketch book journaling usually in the middle part of the day, when I'm having my lunch at work and then usually at night before I go to sleep. On the weekends, maybe when I have a little bit more time, I tend to use my watercolor book for my sketch book journaling, spend a little bit more time on it with the layouts. But I make sure that I do something every single day, whether it be in my small sketchbook or in the bigger one. That's the key to start. That's all you need to do for your class project is get your sketchbook ready, maybe draw in a couple of templates from the template sheet that we had. With the templates, maybe just draw in three or five spread templates with a pencil. That way, you'll have some direction for you to start filling in, or maybe do it for a week for seven spreads, or if you have a small book like this, maybe just do every single spread laid out already. That it's ready for you to start writing and drawing in. With me, all I tend to do with these small books is I just go ahead and draw in my lines in advance, so I have the full book complete with the lines so that I'm just ready to start writing. I don't have to draw the lines every single time, I start a new spread every day. Another important thing to note is when you start your sketchbook journaling, you don't have to finish a spread every single day if it's too much, especially if you're using a bigger book and A five or like a B five size book like the eta ones, just do as much as you can, but be consistent in it, maybe spend 15 minutes a day on it or maybe 20 or 30 or whatever time you can spend, just make it into a consistent habit, and that's what it's all about. Your class project is basically to just start your sketch book journal adventure. Then once you've got a couple of spreads done, and do take a picture of them and upload them to the class project gallery. Now, don't show your writings because your writings are going to be personal to you. The best way to do that is if you've got a sketch book like me, where you've got the writing on one side, picture on the other, then just cover up that writing with maybe a sheet of paper. If you've just got a sheet of paper, just cover up that writing like that, and then you know that people are not going to read your personal thoughts because they are personal to you, cover up the writing bit, take a picture of it, or just take a picture of the book itself. It's absolutely fine. Whatever you're comfortable with But do take a picture of your progress and share it with us all because that motivates us all to do it. That's what it is. It's just getting you started on this wonderful journey. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're really excited and you want to start straight away. But I would say, take a step back, watch the class and just have a bit of a think about it before you start. You don't want to jump into something straight away and then think that you've made mistakes. Because that's what tends to happen when you're excited. Maybe take a day just to sit back and reflect in your day and think about your thoughts, collect your thoughts, and then start looking at sketchbooks, maybe go to your art store or online and have a look at some sketchbooks or just get them out of the cupboard or the closet where they've been hiding for so many years and get your mediums ready, get yourself into this mode of sketchbook journaling, get that excitement ready, and then The next following day or next couple of days, start doing the journaling part and the drawing part and see how it goes on a daily basis. If you feel that it's too overwhelming or you don't have the time, then just start litter just get yourself a pack of these small books and just start like this. Don't go ahead and spend a lot of money and get yourself an expensive book like this that you might end up only doing a couple of pages on and then you get demotivated because the key really is to stay motivated. How do you stay motivated? Keep it nice and simple steps and keep it small. Then once you're into the groove of things, then maybe jump onto a bigger book and start bringing in watercolor, but just make a start. A nice slow and steady start. That will be the vehicle for you to be consistent in this beautiful journey where it will help improve your lovely well being and get you in a better mood. Hopefully, I'll be able to see the lovely work that you produce and that way we can motivate each other and help each other in this wonderful journey of life itself. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your patience. I know you're excited because I'm excited, but just grab yourself a nice cup of tea, or a biscuit or a cake, or a nice little treat, sit back and have a nice think about things and just relax. I want you to relax. Life is stressful, but there's always way to counter that stress. This is just one window to help you get to that level. Sit back, relax, take care of yourself. Don't stress. Let's remove the stress from our life and enjoy this world as it is, take care of yourself, and I'll see you on the next one. Peace.