Transcripts
1. Introduction: What I really like about these types of practices is that, by taking the time to slow down and look at this, you really notice so much more than you would normally, just by everyday observation. So for those of you that don't know me, I'll start at the top. I am an illustrator and I do classes on Skillshare on digital painting and illustration, normally. I've had a really interesting career journey in the sense that I started as a lawyer and then worked at a digital design agency before finding myself with freelance illustration. So I started to do these illustrated journals as a part of all of that, where I've always liked journaling. I'm a very self reflective person and I started to see that I'm almost having too many hobbies or too many efforts going on at once and I was trying to think about how I can combine all of them together. So I was thinking about journaling and then I was also sketching a lot at the same time and it just happened on its own. So I was really excited to share illustrated journaling in particular with this livestream because I think it's not only a great practice during normal times, but especially helpful during these more stressful and challenging times we are all living through now. I find it very meditative because you're both concentrating on things that have happened to you and being really present with it and thinking about it more thoroughly than you might if you just go through your week. Hopefully, a lot of people find a similar result for them when they think about what's going on in their week and really trying to focus on what's made them happy or comfortable, or if they're feeling sad, let themselves feel that and let themselves process that rather than just ignore it. I think this is a great exercise anytime, but especially now. So I'm excited to be here and do a livestream together with everyone. Let's get started.
2. Illustrated Journaling 101: Hi everybody. Thanks so much for joining. My name is Tiffany Chow. I am on Skillshare's Community Team. Super excited and thrilled for today's live session with Mimi Chao. Mimi, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, although I'm sure everyone here is already really familiar with your work. But then, also let us know what you plan to walk us through today. Yeah. I'm so excited to be here with you guys. I don't want to get too repetitive for guys know my story already, but I'm an illustrator. I work digitally and I've had an interesting career path where I started as a lawyer and then I worked at a digital agency before I decided to take a leap to be something more creative and it's something that I always wanted to do. I loved drawing when I was a kid and then I stopped drawing for I would say almost 10 years when I really think about it, which is crazy. But I started to draw again at night, just as a hobby, just like I imagine a lot of you guys, going to work 9:00 to 6:00, 9:00 to 7:00 and then coming home and then realizing this is the thing that I love doing at night no matter how tired I am and how can I really make that work. It's really exciting for me to be able to share things like that with Skillshare and with just people around the world who are following a similar journey. It ties in really well with what I'm showing you today, which is illustrated journaling. Illustrated journaling is something I started, I think around the same time to be honest, I think maybe a few months and I was thinking about how can I combine my practice of drawing with something productive and also good for me as a wellness practice. I've always liked keeping a journal, but at some point you run into too many hobbies or too many things to do and I'm always going to find ways to be more efficient about these things and illustrative joining is something that happened actually where I'm writing and that I'm drawing as like, how can I also incorporate some lettering practice or some portrait practice into what I'm doing. I didn't call it illustrated journaling in the beginning, but that's what it became. I remember when I first did the Skillshare classes, I think it's two, three years ago now. I don't know how many people are going to be interested in this. I didn't think it's a niche thing, but it was just so cool to see how many people resonate with it and how can I turn it into their own thing and found their own take on it. I find that to be really amazing. It's been really cool to walk through something like that with you guys today. I think is really timely that we're doing this topic right now. I think it's a good way to reflect and take some time to both, I find it very meditative because you're both concentrating on things that have happened to you and being really present with it and thinking about it more thoroughly than you might if you just go through in weeks. In the class, I don't know how many of you guys have taken it, but I framed it as like a weekly exercise or for me it's become monthly or just periodically. But it really can be totally what you wanted to be, it could be daily, weekly, whatever works with your schedule. But what I like about framing it around your own life is that it takes away that stress of, well, what do I draw or how do I fill up this blank page? Because everyone no matter what something has happened to you that week, and you might think it's mundane or nothing special, but when you really go back and think about it, you'll find that it's nice to see what I was interested in this week or something I watched. Today, I've prepared an example that hopefully will be relatable to everyone right now. It's just going over shows we watch or food we ate or just things we enjoyed during this time to be able to focus on what's bringing us some comfort and some happiness. But before we get started, I brought my old log journals to show you guys because I know a lot of you guys might be following on pencil and paper, and I don't want to leave you guys out because I will be working on the iPad, which has a few more functionalities, obviously, especially undo. But I want to show you guys just so you can get a sense of how you can do it on paper and pencil. Yeah, this is how it started. It was, I would cancel it in and then you just erase and then ink it at the end. But it was a lot more flow of thoughts. It wasn't as I made it look like if I wasn't as conscious about making it a certain layout. Then each week I would try to explore a different layout just to challenge myself, but you totally don't need to. I want to show you one that I think works really well for anybody. See this one, these two. These are, I think accessible to everybody, you can write almost like just a typical diary or a journal and then just stick little illustrations on the side. It's really cool because it becomes a little illustrated book. It can be very simple little drawings. I know a lot of people sometimes feel like, I don't really draw very well, I don't know how to draw, so I don't know if this is for me. But I find as I can draw a circle and a square and some lines, like at the end of the day it's for you and as long as you know what it is, that's all it's really unfortunate.
3. Find Your Inspiration: To get started, I want to think about what happened during the week. So I'll go through my camera roll and think about what shows I watch or books I've read and save the images that I need from Google. So I usually work on the iPad, I use procreate a lot so that's what this program is and then on the left hand side here I have some photos prepared. So when I start this exercise, I think about what has happened in my week or my month or whatever time period I'm thinking about and I'll do a few things which is like to think through what I've been doing. I take a lot of photos on my phone just for my own personal memory, I always joke. I'm like momento where I need to take a photo or else I'm going to forget about it and so I looked through my photo roll and then see if there's anything that's interesting to draw there because I try to use this as an exercise in both layout design and looking at typography or doing portraits. I do gravitate towards things that I know would be, not just a good memory but a good exercise, ideally it's a little bit of both. So just to give a sample of what I based this times on was and I thought about what happened this week and so going into here, obviously like everybody's work is going to be a big part of your week or your time and so I did illustration work and I created some products for my website and then I created these stickers so these are all options. Just by coincidence like Tiffany reached out to me in the midst of when I was recording this but I haven't used skills or class out and those obviously are big part of my months because recording, editing and all that is a big time consumption. Then it's up to you, we're obviously going through interesting times in difficult times, challenging time right now. I go back and forth on how much I want to incorporate things like [inaudible] so much through and I wish the drinks to be more of a meditative practice that's relaxing or it gives me some comfort so sometimes I take screen shots of things that I just find very like sign of the times. This was like a Twitter posts that I saw that was about how a Corona virus treatments might have to deal with like llamas and so I just think that's very surreal and strange. So I was like, maybe I can incorporate that somewhere just to like allude to what's going on in the real world but in a way that is something that I can incorporate in a friendly way. I love that there a lot of musicians doing live streams so one of my favorite artists is Porter Robinson and he did this live stream and I love this graphic here, so I thought maybe that could be something interesting to incorporate and then in a food is on a lot of people's minds so a lot of people are baking at home, cooking more. For me, I bought this produce box from a local farmer that has started to do offerings because he used to sell to restaurants and obviously that changed during the times but it's a nice way to see how a society adapts and how in a way where more connected because now we can buy directly from them. So he had this really beautiful produce box and I was like, this is something that's a sign of the times but also it would be really great to draw, I love drawing plants and so that might be really interesting. Then on Fridays we start to lose track of time so it's like, okay, let's start having fun Friday dinners and so we got in and out last week which we haven't had a very long time and we've been watching this show called Steven Universe. I know I'm really behind for anyone who does know this show but I love animated shows and I haven't been catching up on TV because I normally don't watch a lot of TV and like, it's super cute, super sweet and the other side of the spectrum we sort of watching Atlanta which I also really love. I love this title image that they have, I loved the fonts that they use and so I really want to incorporate that or just the logo for their show and we also watched RBG. So these are things that I remember from this month and once you remember and also think could be interesting to draw, like this is a great portrait shot, I really like that graphic design so that's the overall constantly what I'm thinking about. Lastly, I've been reading a lot of books or listening to audible, so I want to think about how to incorporate some of these books that have been really meaningful to me during this time. They're about spirituality and mindfulness and so I think that would be nice reminder of what I was thinking about during this time. So moving over to this side, I just want give you guys some examples of what I have done recently so this is an illustrative journal that I created during the quarantine moths and it starts from March and it goes into April and I was just this a summary of like silly things and serious things happening altogether and losing track of time and that's how I wanted to express this. Then this is something that I created in January before all this started there was a little bit more of a traditional diary journal style with some illustrative elements thrown in. I just want to say like these examples and the classic example that seem like they're graphic for this live-stream took me hours to do so it's like six hours at least to create these so I want to make sure that people don't feel like they have to do something like this in order to make it meaningful. So today I wanted to do something more straightforward and show the thought process behind it so it feels a little less intimidating,. Would you be willing to share some of the different things or people that have inspired you in your style? Yes, I would love to. So I'm just starting from a more classical inspirations, I do like the impressionist period, I love money, I can older like Rembrandt and carbides that's very amazing use of light. In more modern times, I love children's books, I love a lot of the famous children's book authors like Oliver Jefferson and Jon Klassen, I think that they really modernize and shown what is possible within children's books. I also really liked this artist called James Jean, so he does more fine art but it's anime or Asian culture inspired so I really admire what he's done and my childhood favorites still inspire me. So I love Calvin and Hobbes, I always say that that's my favorite book or save it book series and so I get a lot of inspiration from them in terms of, seems like just the simple comic but they talk about these very deep thoughts and philosophical concepts in a very approachable way so I love that. So those are my art inspirations and then outside of that I really love architecture. My partner is an architect and he introduces me to a lot of what's new but even before I met him I've always loved Zaha Hadid and other more modern architects. Their way of expressing, I think is very meaningful to me and I like that it's not illustration so I don't feel I'm borrowing as much but just seeing how people express themselves in different creative fields is very interesting to me. Other than that, I would say the books that I read are absolutely the most influential thing on me. It's hard to explain because it's obviously not visual, but the feeling from the topics that I read about do influence how I draw. I think the way that I draw has a flow to it or is more whimsical and even that feeling that I want to maintain some of that roughness, you can see how that might feel like a stretch. Feels like what impressionists were doing, like we don't know really perceive the world in this super clear, sharp lines and clean vector graphics all the time and I really resonate with that I like the idea of a moment being seeing or a memory being a little bit hazy and so all of these things come together and form the style that I have. It keeps evolving even if you scroll not that far down my Instagram, you'll see that it's been changing but there's a fundamental thing that ties it together and that's the element that's you. So you'll see that, feel free to let your style change but it's crazy that, like someone bought the children's picture books that I drew many years ago and then last year I did a collab with Disney and I drew like a very different style of the Disney villains and then he messaged me, I don't know him personally but he messaged me on my site and I was like, I realized that I bought this thing from the Disney Store and it's like it's you again and it looks totally different. But something about what ties it all together is almost like a subconscious thing that reflects on you, so yes. Don't feel stressed out because you're already you.
4. Draw Along with Mimi: So now we're finally into the actual creation part. So I personally like to work at the largest size for Instagram, which is 1080 by 1350, and I just double that to make sure that the resolution that I'm working will be able to be usable and can serve everyone. You print it or use it for some other purpose. So I have this overall framework and then I use this brush called Max to fill ink around, and part of the MaxPack brushes, which I think a lot of you have probably heard of. Its one of the more popular Procreate brush sets that you can purchase. But if you want to follow on with very similar brush that comes with Procreate. Then in inking down here, this one called dry ink that comes for free with Procreate. That's a very similar brush. So that is what I like to use, but you can use anything. For a long time I was using these pencil brushes and then I would go over it with one of these ink pens. So it's really up to you on what you're comfortable with drawing with. So let me go back to the one I like to use. I'm usually at the brush size around eight percent. So another good thing about working at the 2x size for the Instagram resolution is that the brushes will come out more crisp and you'll be able to work at different sizes in a more versatile way. So that's something else that I like. So when I'm thinking about how to get started, I am already starting to think about layout, how will things fit well, but because this is a digital painting program, I can also just go ahead and get started. So a simple one to start with is the books. So those are just some rectangles, and I'm just going to rough positions in basically right now. So I think if you're going straight to pencil paper, of course you're going to be a little bit more cautious about how this goes down. But I want to show you my true process and this is literally how I would do it. So I would rough it in and either clicks. So I can already imagine that I can write the book titles on these books, and then also you could just reiterate to the size canvas that you're using.Yeah, of course. So you guys are here at the plus sign. [inaudible]. We are here at the plus sign. So it's not going to be in the default Procreate options. So you can go here. So the number is 2160 by 2700. So you do is click here and then you export that in and create a new canvas. So that's a bit of creating new Canvas, and I can save it for future use, and it can rename it by clicking on here and say lnstamax or something like that. So that again, that's 2160 by 2700. So just to explain again, the max resolution is actually 1080 by 1350, and I just doubled back so that I can have a higher resolution image. So once you create your canvas or anything, click on it to name it. So let's call this, Skill share log just to keep things working, and then I'm working on a layer here. I'll show you how you can utilize layers to your advantage by moving things around. So these again are my books. Click this arrow and just shift it over to wherever you like, and then let me show you how I would do. So I want to do the settler analytics, I think is really cool. So what I like to do, and I'm being careful. Sometimes I just go into sketching, but since I want to show you guys some different tricks, you can use a different color. Can I create rulers. So if you're working in a pencil and paper its the same thing as drawing some lines, and then you can go onto another layer. Then I go back to my blue color, and then just actually rough that in. What I really like about these types of practices, on the one hand its nice to reflect on where to show the things that I enjoyed watching or enjoyed seeing. But what I really love about drawing in general especially art studies in general, is that by taking the time to slow down and look at this, you really notice so much more than you would normally just by everyday observation. So if I didn't stop to like draw this, I wouldn't have noticed a lot of aspects about this type. Just notice how they've decided to do, it flourishes on the side, how this dips a little bit lower, how the Serif font works, and then continuing on with that. Again, I'm roughing it in so that I know I can go back later and clean it up. You'll notice over some time that you subconsciously absorb these things that you're studying. So for example, noticing like the L Serif deepens here, and then the dash or the A starts at the same height. That's something you would have never otherwise noticed. Let's move that over. We add space. The reason why I like keeping this on a separate layer as I'm working through it just the roughing and layout portion is that it makes it so much easier to just move it around. So let me just finished up this A so we talk without working. So this is a good example. I'm running out of space and I want to move this over, if I had drawn it on the same layer as this I'd have to go in here and carefully cut it out. But since it's on its own layer, I know that if I hit this arrow its just going to select that text already. So I can move that over and then finish it up. You can leave this on or not. We can turn it off, and then I think that looks good for now, but get there. Let's see, where do I want to go next? Let's do these vegetables next. Again, I'm going to start a new layer, and let's say I started drawing it I think down here like this. This basal guy. We got our first question. If I can throw it your way Mimi. Yes, of course. Sarah Louis is wondering what stand are you using the hold up your iPad, and do you typically draw with it slanted or flat on the table? Good question. So I got this, actually its called Artistol A-R-T-I-S-T-O-L. I got them on Amazon. I can drop it into the chat later on if that's helpful. But I really like it, it doesn't fall and it doesn't slide around. I think I originally bought it for a WackOProducts and then I'm just use it for the iPad, I do maybe use it I would say 30 to 40 percent of the time. It's better for my posture. So I'm guilty of actually working like this, and so I would totally block it if I was working how normally do, or I'll put on my stomach and draw. You guys need to see the screen for this class, I came prepared with my stand. Well answered. Thank you. If you got it too, that's important. I know. So see you during this time I was like, "My back is starting to hurt more often." I would say that actually, I would recommend using it if you can remember to. I think it's actually better than just working flat on the table and being hunched over it. So let's see, I have this, then I have this huge icon in the back and then I learned about a new vegetable. So I want to draw that here, its called a kohlrabi, and so I try and produce box into an activity box where I had to learn all these new vegetables. So let's put that there. Maybe like the cauliflower guy, because it looks like a tree to me. That's good enough for a rough of the veggies and so let's just stick that up here.I could have started and gone and drawn it directly into this area, but it depends, I might want to move that somewhere else later. Okay.Then let's see, maybe the next thing you can draw is RBG. I like to choose different things to study.For example, I could choose this portrait, but I like looking at illustration styles too. It's not necessarily how I normally draw, but it's interesting to observe like how they'd use lines and shadows and it's actually a very simple color palette. So let's do that for now.I would, again rough it in. One of our members is asking if you had a particular way that you prepared the kohlrabi? I haven't eaten it yet, but I have heard that I should grill it and roast it with maybe like either curry powder, olive oil, and pepper.So it was like really simple and it would be really good, so I'm looking forward to that. Do you use any special iPad screen protector? I don't use it for protection, but I do use this thing called,I think, Paperlike or Paperfeel and so I can also share that in the comments or somewhere public afterwards, maybe in the section on the live info page. But it's something that I used maybe actually two years into actually drawing on the iPad, and it just created a little bit of friction so feels a little bit more like drawing on actual paper. I for a long time was like, "No, that's totally fine to just draw on the screen", because I was just used to that. But now that I have it, I really like it.I think especially for the people who are used to drawing on paper and don't like that kind of slippery feel of the glass, then I definitely recommend it. Looks great. Paperlike I believe. I think it's called Paperlike yeah. Also on Amazon. I'm affiliated with them. How do you keep track of which layer is which as you go through? If I'm good about it, then I will go ahead and label it. But since this is kind of a sketch phase and I know I'm going to merge it at the end, it's okay to just go ahead and keep adding. The little icons to me are pretty clear. Also because I'm drawing such different things like it's very clear to me, I don't know if you guys can see, but that's Atlanta and that's the veggie thing. If I do have some files that get very complicated and have a lot of different layers, in that case I'm much more organized. You can rename it by just clicking on it and say R-B-G, and then you can also group it. Say for whatever reason I wanted to group these. So just slide to the right, and then you'll hit up here group. You can say, this one is first group or portraits or however you want to organize it.Those are a few ways that I can organize. You can always like drag and drop, like this as well. Great. Thank you so much. Yeah.When I'm sketching these, I am looking at actually the relation of what is next to what. So for those of you who are fairly new to studies or sketching, I think a lot of times if you draw from what your mind thinks it's seeing. A lot of people still draw the eyes all the way up here because in our minds like the eyes are further up the head. But a good way to practice observational drawing is to not think about that you're just drawing a person's face, but really pay attention to how things relate to each other. For example, I can tell that these glasses are a little bit above her ear. So that's just a touch point, and soon it's like a puzzle, that has all come together.Let's see. I put the nose here and can see like the mouth is kind of in the middle of that and that the mouth tips a little bit and that her cheeks come out here. Then in terms of drawing the neck, I think a lot of people might think, "That's how a neck looks", and you can draw that if you're drawing stylized drawing.We're observing here, the neck is actually pretty close to her jaw line. She has these two strong lines.Here.I really like this treatment, so I know that I want to do something with that later. There's a question about your reference photos. Do you have a method for organizing them? Not really.To be honest, I put this album together for this class. Normally, I'll just have the reference photos like on my phone already or I'll just pull it up on Google Images. But I actually think that this is really handy if you want to create a log of all the images that you've used over time.All I did was save the images and then put them all into a photo album in my photo roll so I can always go back to them later on.Then most of these, like only 25 percent of these are actual photos. The rest of them I just got from Google and on the iPad you just click and hold and then there'll be an option to say save to camera roll or save image. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Would you say that you had a process to discovering your own personal style when it comes to illustrating? Yes, that's a question that I get often, it's something that I thought about a lot and still think about a lot. So it's still funny to think that to me, I'm still on that path and to others they think like, "Oh, you figured it out already" and I think that it's probably true for everybody. If you just follow yourself, I know it sounds, very cliche almost, but I really believe it.I naturally like animation. I love clean modern design. I like architecture, I like nature and so I like drawing plants and stuff, and as I just kept drawing what I enjoyed my style came out of there. It's a mix of observing things and thinking about, "Okay, I like this artist, like why do I like, what about it do I like? I don't like this artist, I don't like this style. What about it don't I like? " There is a part of that, but it's not as regimented as that sounds. I find that as you just keep drawing, it will come out of you, and so it's a mixture of being flexible and being focused and the flexibility part is where you're not pushing yourself to be a certain style. I think a lot of people in the beginning, I always end up copying their idols and a lot of, even more popular, famous, illustrators go through the same phase where in the beginning you're just trying to get skills.Then you reach a point where, you know, you're just another version of this artist you admire and they're already doing it well, so you don't need to do it that way. In fact, like you have a voice that you should share it and everyone has a unique voice. From there, once you have the skills,do start expressing yourselves and combining different things. I think so many great artists actually use combinations of their favorite inspirations, and that inspiration can come from many different aspects.So you might be very inspired by fashion or you might be very inspired by, old posters from a certain era or something like that and you can be free to let anything inspire you. I think costume design is really amazing at design. How people design different types of print materials. So all of that can kind of go into what becomes your style. But it must be in the beginning, letting go of that urgency, like, "I have to find my style. I feel like I'm not good if I don't have my style". Instead when you let go of that and just focus on one, getting the skills down and then two, focusing on what inspires you, like it'll come out of you. Most beautiful. Thank you for all that. Yeah, it's something that I think about a lot, so I'm glad somebody asked that. She is taking up a little too much space. I'll move her over here. One other thing I like to do that kind of everyone can do is create little boxes. So I imagine back in a day when we used to pin up photos on your wall or your bulletin board. I like to recreate that in my e-log sometime. So you can always draw like a little pin, something if you want, or just have MBS photographs. And I'll put little memory capsules there.For example, like our Friday fun meals, we can put a little burger here, draw some fries, draw those peppers that are too hot to eat. And then we can look at the logo. And so it's an easy cut something you can see your whole life. If someone just put you on the spot and asked you to recreate it. You'd be like i don't know what it looks like. So essentially you can observe those things as well. And let's draw some quick sushi. Draw some quick chopsticks. And then another thing I like to do is to Steven universe thing. I also really love this portrait and how that's set up. So you can combine the two. And this is something fun, like a kind of a creative exercise, but something that's very based on things that you can observe. So combining two things that you're watching or looking at is one for me. So they have these foreheads like that. How much time do you usually set aside to do these illustrated journal activities or exercises and do you often complete them in one sitting? Lately because I keep pushing myself more and more into creating much challenging designs. I find that as a blessing and a curse. It's good for my practice in skills, but it ends up being like when you saw my last one I covered two months compared to when I had just the pencil and paper I was doing it once a week. So I would say, if you're doing it as a relaxing hobby, that's why I wanted to do something a little simpler in this example, then I would say go simple. And so you can manage it, You can actually do it within a week and it's more enjoyable for me. When it takes six to eight hours, I definitely don't do it in one sitting. I played through it over the course of four days, like one to two hours every day as kind of my journalism time. And then for this one, I did it in more or less one sitting. So I guess two sittings. So one setting to do the rough sketch and then when sitting this morning to finalize the final so I can show you what it looks like at the end. But there's one pie which took a total of two and a-half hours. So in that case, I could do it in one sitting. I think, fun sounds like what works for you and also what's your goal with this. Like are you trying to challenge yourself and push yourself to create all these different complicated layouts or you'd just want to have fun and record what you did during that week then keeping it simple, I think is that"s the way to go. So in this part, I just wanted to draw characters. It's obviously really powerful to use the iPad to be able to move around and resize them. Do you think there are any benefits to doing it with paper and pencil or pen instead? Yes, absolutely. So I would say that when I was doing this, the best thing about it was that you can't do this. And so you kind of have to just deal with things that don't look as perfect as you would like. For example, this is one i did. I don't like how it get so tight down here but kept but it's just how it is and i think it really helps you let go of thinking it's perfect. And also it's a little bit more experimental, I think. I would say for some of these, Especially in the beginning where we're just doing flow of thought. Like in some ways it took less time to think through some of these earlier ones, But it turned out in a way that's still very authentic and genuine to what I was experiencing at the time. So if you don't have an iPad, it's like each one has its pros and cons. So definitely don't feel like you're limited or you're not going to able to produce something as good or as meaningful. I think there's a lot to be said or that's beneficial to doing it by pencil and paper too. It looks really fun on how you're combining the Atlanta poster with. I would like to get all the keynote. I think they share a similar type of humor. I know it sounds crazy for those of you who are familiar with both. But there is this very satirical humor about both in a way, but it's nice because of what I like about it most. So we're running out of room for emphasis face. I would say if I'm going to come pencil on paper too, if I know that I can't resize things and move things around, I'll spend a little bit more time if I wanted to make it the right layout in just the shape phase. So right now I'm trying to rough in the characters to show more of the drawing examples. But for example, with a pencil, I could have seen much earlier, Say like a Bind-u, I want like a text, block of books or a portrait of somebody here and I have some space to put something to give out like what's going on my life. And I just draw it like literally four circles this way. A box. And then instead of these plans, just like saying that I have that much room to put it in. If I start with this and use that as a really light layout, then I can be sure that it will fit into my page and not worry about having to shift things around. So what it conditionally does sometimes spoil you. How do you put your finishing touches on one of these e-logs? Do you usually transfer into different program when you feel like it's finished? I actually finish everything and perfectly for the e-logs. So for my final professional client work, then there's some things that I'll finish and procreate a Photo-shop. But for illustrious journals like brocade is more than enough. I think that it's almost as powerful as Photo-shop. I really use Photo-shop more for things like setting up the print files and doing some more like formatting things. But just purely for drawing and painting, I think procreate is perfect.
5. Finishing Touches: At this point, this is when I start to really think about, what do I have for now? So it's like this. I think that practically what do I have left that I want to talk about and fill that in. I want to talk a little bit about work. Let's see. This is going to get meta. This is where I'm sitting right now. Skill Share with obviously a big part of these past two weeks supposed to be filming and then now is livestream with you guys. I want you to remember that. How I see it in my mind. I could also draw the Zoom Chat so I could just draw a grid her and all little faces. That's definitely an option, but because I want something that can help me remember both the Zoom Chat and the recording of the new class. I'll draw my guess. I really love furniture and architecture. Being able to have some opportunity to draw some more structural things is a nice complement. I don't always necessarily think about this actively. For example, I really like this set of studies here because I got to draw a portrait, I got to draw some cartoons, do some topography studies, and then plus some plans and housing furniture. It's kind of rounds out my interests very well. Self shooting cameras set up for this here. [inaudible] instead of challenges but. Applying context afterwards. Let me just put some labels on these books. I don't know. You guys may know some of these tricks but you can create perfect circles by tapping. So quite ugly circle like that and then it will smooth that out for you. Then you go up to Edit Shape. You can drag it around like that. I do so for over story. Over story is a novel about Cheese. I highly recommended over story. He has cheese on the cover. And my books come here. Something to bring the brush to get the more details working. I have some little empty spaces left over like how that's looking. Let me just move this cauliflower guy a little bit this way.Let me draw one more and see. We'll draw the picture there,all methods left to be. Perfect time actually. Let's say that's my question. This looks good to me. Let me show you how I would finish it up. At this point, let's say I was done with this sketch. I could just merge them altogether by you squeeze them and they've version into learning piece. They're on one layer. There's two ways you can do it. I actually really like rough lines and when things don't look super perfect. What I'd like to do as almost like sculpting. I'll go back over and clean it up. This is using a line or really quick. I'll expect going in here and if it wasn't perfect, I just start erasing. That's nice as I started naturally clean up but maintain some of that roughness. That's one way to do it. Another way is to double tap and then slide to adjust. You can get it to a lower capacity and then create a new layer and then do your clean line on top of that. That's kind of like I was doing the pencil-and-paper ones before. I would design the whole thing, I'd draw the whole thing in pencil and then go over it in ink, and then erase the pencil lines. That's how I erase if I want to pull out that. I just would go in straight and so start trying this with ink, but it's not like that. I want to show you how I finish it off really quick before we finish this live stream. This is a rough that I had done when I was first designing. This is one version of the finished design. What I like to do is I have this color palette that I use often. If you'd like to add some color, you can just add it like just very rough. It keeps it feeling like a journal. It's not super perfect, but it does add a depth to it. If you turn off the line, you'll see that the color is very rough, like it doesn't have to be perfect at all but being able to add a little bit is nice and I recommend a cool tone and a warm tone that compliment each other so that overall has this nice aesthetic color palette to it. Even, you'll see that even just changing the background color add lot to it so this is how it looks like. Just clean with white by adding some. Moving the background color to a different color makes it fuel or just gives it a different feeling. That is the final.
6. Final Thoughts: Thanks so much for watching my Skillshare live class, recorded with the participation from the Skillshare community. When I was preparing for this live session, one of the main things I wanted to clarify up-front was the ones that are shown in the example or the ones that you might see on my Instagram, took me hours to do. When I was preparing for this live stream, I really wanted to do something that was relatable to everybody and everyone can feel like they can achieve. So I focused on [inaudible] doing a more straightforward collage style and thinking about what I watched, what I ate, what I did, just things that everyone can relate to. I hope that people can see that anyone can really do this and not to feel pressure to make it look beautiful or make it look like what in their mind think it should look like. It's really at the end of the day a journal for you to reflect and to practice whatever you want to practice and so whatever is your outcome is the right one. Thank you everyone for tuning in, from around the world, to this Skillshare live session with Mimi Chao. For more about Mimi and her Skillshare classes, you can check out her Skillshare profile page. Thank you everyone again for tuning in. It was so great to do this with you guys. Thanks so much.
Mimi Chao, Owner & Illustrator | Mimochai
