Nurturing Your Creative Practice

1. Introduction: Hello creative souls. I'm mani and I'm absolutely thrilled to have you here for this inspiring journey of self discovery and creativity. In this class, nurturing your creative practice, we're going to embark on a quest to unearth your creative identity and unleash your artistic potential. In this class, I'll show you my main secret of how I keep a consistent sketchbook practice. This class is for beginners, but other levels can benefit too. I understand that sometimes life can be a whirlwind and it's easy to lose touch with our creative selves. But I want you to know that you're not alone in this journey. We're here together as a community of creative explorers to encourage and support one another. So are you ready? 2. Class Project : I'm so excited you decided to take the class for this class project. You'll be making your own book of references. I have multiple reference books like this and it's been the biggest help. Whenever I get stuck, you can apply the techniques, tips, and strategies you learn in this class for your project and use this opportunity to experiment and expand your skills. We'll be making a book similar to this one right here, but please feel free to get anything that you'd like to use as your reference book. You can put anything that you want in your book, take photos, document techniques that you learned. Any subjects that you like drawing. Basically, this is a notebook for you, complete your project, and make any necessary refinements based on what you learned during your creative process. After you're done, create a skillshare project in the class project gallery. Include images or descriptions to showcase your project and the creative journey you've undertaken. Engage with fellow students by exploring their projects, leaving constructive feedback, and offering support and encouragement. Share your thoughts and insights in the class discussion section as well. What did you learn from this project? What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them? Please feel free to ask questions or seek advice from your classmates. Next, we'll move on to the materials. 3. Materials: There are a few materials you'll need for this class, but please feel free to use whatever you have. The most important thing is having some good paper. Since we're building a dictionary of sort, you would want to choose a paper that's heavier in quality. I prefer watercolor paper mainly because I use a lot of watercolor. But please feel free to use what you have. You'll also need a ruler. You'll also need some thread. I'm going to be using embroidery thread. Any strong thread would work. You'll also need a needle, scissors. Alternatively, if you don't want to sew your own book, you could also use a hole puncher. So you'll need a whole punch, some ring binders. The next items are your personal preference of materials you use. I use mainly watercolor ink wash, so I'm going to use a paint brush, a micron pen, but any waterproof ink pen works. I'll also be using a pencil. Like I mentioned, this is based on your personal preference. If you use acrylic or watercolor pencils or any other medium, just substitute what you need. Additional items would be Al and a template ruler, but they're not needed. Another optional item is a candle. I find that lighting this at the beginning of my practice helps set the mood. You could also incorporate other activities, such as taking a walk or turning on some music. Or even starting a meditative practice only 10 minutes, 15 minutes right before you start. Let's move on to making up the book. 4. Making the Book: In this lesson, I'm going to show you two ways you can make your own book. For the first book, we're going to sew it, plan out how many pages you want your book to be. You also want to decide on the size you want it to be. I use mine everywhere. I tend to make mines a little bit smaller, so it'll be more portable. After you decide on the page numbers, you can start folding them. What I typically do is fold the paper in half, score it down the middle, and then cut it in half again. Once I have a few of them stacked together, I move on to the next step. You'll need your ruler for this. What you want to do is grab the first page and open it up. Lay it down flat. Take your ruler and line it up in the middle. You want to pick two spots where you could put a mark at. You could pick an inch away from the top and an inch away from the bottom. What's important is you keep it consistent and continue to make the same marks on the rest of the pages. Now that you have your pages marked up, grab your needle and punch a hole through the mark that you just made. Once you're done with that, start laying the pages on top of each other. The next thing you want to do is thread your needle with the embroidery or whatever thread that you have picked. I like embroidery thread because it requires less stitches for me to do. I usually measure out four or five times the size of the book, but this also depends on how thick your thread is. If you're picking a thinner thread, you might need more. Once you thread your needle, you might want to decide how aesthetic you want your book to look. What I mean by that is, did you want the ends of the thread showing once you tie off the knot? Or do you want to hide it inside the book? If you want to hide it inside the book, begin with putting your needle through the hole from the middle of the book. This way when you tie it off, the knot is going to be inside the book. Once you pull the thread through, leave a little bit of a tail. And then put your needle through the next hole. And repeat that one more time. Once you pull the needle through the second hole, you want to tie a knot. I usually tie two or 3 knots just to make it more secure. If you're tying your thread and it's going to be on the outside, you can make it look more aesthetic by leaving a tail and maybe making it a tassel later on and you're done. Pretty easy, huh? Now, if you don't want to sew, the second option is also simple. You begin the same way as we did with option one, but instead you cut it again in two halves. Once you stack your pages, punch a hole in the same side in all the pages that you just cut out. Now, stack them back together and grab your binder clip, put them through the hole, and then you're done. If you want more stability, you could add another bind to clip. Now that we've created our books, let's move on to the next lesson and put it all together. 5. Putting It Together : So let's put it all together. Have you had these moments where there's inspiration all around you? You look around, there's so many colors and things you want to draw. You want to come back to your sketch book and you want to start scribbling away. But then when you get there nothing or have there been times where you don't know what to draw, that's when the reference book comes into play. I usually start my reference book with the vision board. You start, take some time to reflect on your short term and long term goals. What do you want to achieve in various aspects of your journal or sketch book? Look through magazines, books, or online sources to find images and words that resonate with your goals. Cut out anything that inspire you or represent what you want. Start arranging the images and visuals on your board. Be creative with the placement and design. There's no right or wrong way to organize it. The goal is to create a board that resonates with you. Take special note of the colors and subjects you gravitate towards. Next we'll talk about composition and layout. Many of us struggle with composition. When we first start off, I found it really helpful to have a guide with me when I'm working on my sketchbook. I make it a point to note down which compositions that I like and practice it in my sketchbook. Techniques are fundamental to the mastery of any creative practice. In this section, I note down any painting drawing and sketching techniques, this might be personalized towards whatever you're working on. Please check out my other classes for a more in depth look at these techniques. One of my favorite sections is colors. Colors play a significant role in various creative fields, from the visual arts to design, to fashion and marketing. Understanding color theory and its applications can greatly enhance your creative work. I try to note down any color palette that I like and keep a record of all my favorite color swatches. Writing down the subjects that you're interested in is a great way to avoid creative block. This way you'll always have a list to draw from. Another way I use this handy tool is to make some layouts. This is great for color swatches and thumbnail drawings, 0 if you wont. Once you're done with your book, decorate the front cover. I hope you can see the value of having something like this in your tool kit. 6. Conclusion: Congratulations you guys. You've reached the end of our creative journey together in this class. I hope you're as excited and inspired as I am about the progress you've made and the creative possibilities that lie ahead. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for joining me on this adventure. Remember, your creative practice is a lifelong journey, and every step you take brings you closer to realizing your creative potential. As you move forward, I invite you to reflect on what you've learned and how you can apply it to your creative endeavors. And please don't forget to share your classroom project with me and the class. Once again, thank you for being a part of this creative journey. I can't wait to the incredible work you'll create, the ideas you'll bring to life, and the impact you'll make through your journey. See you in the next class.