Transcripts
1. Trailer: I'm an illustrator and surface designer. In February 2015, I started keeping a watercolor sketchbook. I did the 100-day project and then the 365 days of paint, which I've just completed, and in this Skillshare class, I'm going to tell you about the materials that I have started using. Then we're going to move on to these sketchbooks. I've got 10 of these now. Sketchbooks are a safe place to explore your art, and a fun way to loosen up a bit. You'll see from day to day, from sketchbook to sketchbook, that you are making progress, and that's going to boost your confidence. It's going to make you feel much more willing to try new things, which in turn will boost your ability and again boost your confidence once again. Even if you're only able to do this for a few months, you'll see new ideas develop, and your style will probably start to emerge, which is, surely, a good thing. The end of this Skillshare class is going to be a really simple watercolor tutorial, which I hope you'll join me for. I very much look forward to seeing you in class.
2. Your Motivation: Hi. I'm going to tell you a true story of when I left university. I applied as an in-house designer for Greetings Card Company, and one of the requirements was to be an experienced watercolorist, and I said, ''Yeah, I'm great at watercolors.'' It's quite evident after an hour, I wasn't. Since that time until February 2015, I didn't touch watercolor again. But once I decided I wanted to do this, I looked at the motivation behind why I might consider a sketch a day habit, and I wanted to improve my skills, do something that was not sat in front of a computer. Also, it meant that I could have space for my own art, that was just for me, personal for me. I'd like you to consider some of the reasons behind your motivation for taking up a sketch a day practice. Because sometimes knowing the why is your reasons, which would be unique to you for taking up this practice will help you along your journey. Because it could be a tricky journey some days, what are your reasons is to keep you enthusiastic and looking forward to your next practice, and help you to take action on a daily basis eventually. I'd like you to go forward with optimism and faith and a sense of fun. One last consideration is persistence. I'm afraid you can't underestimate that, as you pursue your sketching practice, because some days it might not be easy and you'll feel like giving up, and you start to doubt your own abilities because that happens to me. But I want you to know that cheer, grit, and determination will see you through these periods, this is going to move you forward in the next few weeks and months. Please keep it fun, keep it relevant to you, and it will be pleasurable and rewarding. You start off, easy on yourself with perhaps three or four sketch practices a week, perhaps 15 minutes long. Then move on to five or six times a week and seven times a week, perhaps 20-30 minutes long. But above all, keep it a fun process for you. What I might consider fun might not be your idea of fun. It's what is going to keep you feeling enthusiastic about your sketching practice.
3. Art Materials: One of the questions that I'm asked most on social media is the social materials that I use from the sketch books, the pens that I use to paint, and even the water brush. So I'm going to give you a quick rundown of what works for me, but I'd like you to remember that as you go through your own sketch day practice, you will find our own unique ways of working and materials that work best with the work that you like to produce. My own personality, I knew I wanted to work in a small sketchbook and in watercolor. I didn't want to feel intimidated about filling a small, empty space. Depending on what sketches you're intending to produce, please find sketchbook that suits your needs and your budget. The best place to look is a big art supply store or on Amazon. I chose a most game pocket watercolor sketch book, which is approximately 14 by nine centimeters or 5.5 by 3.5 inches. It has 30 pages or 60 signs that you can paint on, is 200 grams per meter, acid free, and cold pressed on both sides. I feel the pages are thick enough so that I can paint on both sides without having to worry about it carrying through on the other side. Also due to its compact size, I can take it with me anywhere. The watercolors that I use are a Winsor Newton 24 pen set. As you can see that they are blocks of color that you add water to, and I don't tend to clean my palette because I tend to use variations on the same color from day-to-day, and I don't have to mix it everyday. Now, when I go away, I like to use a smaller compact set which has 14 colors in it, and it's the same again. I keep it messy and I'm able to take it away with me on weekends or on holiday. Here are the pages of a sketchbook when I went to the south of France to Cassius and mose. These were the flowers that were growing in the garden where I stayed. I also visited Avignon and Orange, and also pumped to God. Another art material that I find invaluable and my pen tail water brush pens. You can buy them in sets of three off Amazon. They come in small, medium, and thick brush heads. I find brushes keep a really fine point for detailed work. The handle or barrel comes apart and you can feel this section with water. When you squeeze this barrel section, water's released. I've squeeze quite hard here to show you. So I'm going to squeeze a little bit of water onto this red paint, and I'll show you that you can achieve quite a wide range with this one brush head and it can reach a very fine point. Now, I'm going to show you the pens that I use most often. I prefer to use uni ball gel pens for color work as it comes in a variety of colors and it's easy to carry around, and as part of my travel set. You can buy these off Amazon or eBay, and they give a really fine point. Another pen that I really like to use is the white uni ball gel pen, and it creates a very solid but thin line. Why I used the thicker white lines, is a posca pen and it comes in a variety of sizes. This is a medium nib pack, but I also have a pack of thick nibs, and as you can see, it comes in a variety of colors, and I really like to play around with those and add dots and dashes to my watercolors, which you'll see. I really like using posca pens because they give really solid outlines and they don't bleed. They are also water resistant, and they're very vibrant.
4. Your Safe Place to Explore: I think one of the most important aspects of keeping a daily schedule with practice is, it is a safe and fun place for you to explore your art. You can include the type of art that excites you, that's fun, and you want to explore things that you may not have tried before, and that's a great start. Invariably, you will most likely make mistakes at the beginning, and that's absolutely fine. This is all part of the process that as creatives and artists, we'll have to go through. Please be assured and trust me that it's absolutely fine. I'd like to show you the first few pages of my first ever sketchbook which I started in February 2015. As you can see, I'm just getting used to the paint, and there's actually very little form. I decided to start using a bit of a pencil outline and using objects which I find around my house and my garden. Here, I've started using a black micron line, so I'm trying to paint within the lines and seeing where that takes me. I'm just exploring every day the concepts like structure and shadows and contrast. I'm just painting anything that I see around me so that I get used to water colors. You have to bear in mind that before February of 2015, I had never actually used water colors at all. With this sketch a day habit, I wanted to see that improvement and I wanted to explore how could I make that bowl lifelike? How could I make that mug a little bit more mug like? Or how could I make that tin of tomatoes a little bit better? So each day, I'm trying to improve. I do make mistakes. You can see that I made mistakes. Sometimes it doesn't turn out the way I hoped. But every day, I know that it will get better and better, and I'll learn, and I'll improve. Now, we're moving on to sketch book number 2. I'd like to point out that I'm still using a black line and I'm still not confident about some of the shapes that I'm making. Sometimes it turns out really good, like this banana and at other times, it's not quite what I intended. Please remember to be gentle with yourself every day during the time you set aside for your sketching practice. The images that you're seeing now are about four months into my sketch a day habit and I'm still coming to terms with contrast. But I'm learning with each sketch that I make. The sketchbook is a safe place for me to make mistakes, and it's safe place for me to learn. I'm choosing objects that I have around the house or objects that interests me, like Jane Austen books or classic book covers. Things that I've got in the garden. Whatever interests you will make it fun, and you get the most out of it. You will learn a lot more with something that you find enjoyable and is a safe, fun process. Remember that these are sketches, and in this case, perfectionism will not aid to creativity. Do not think you've failed because it hasn't turned out how it should look, you will surely still have learnt something from the process. It is a very gradual and very gentle process. Please hush that inner critic.
5. Record your Progress: I think one of the great advantages of having a daily sketch with practice is you can physically see from day to day or week to week, and from sketchbook to sketchbook, the improvements that you'll make. With each progression, you'll see that the skills have become more competent and your persistence is paying off. Because you feel this extra confidence, you can actually achieve more within the 15, 20 minutes that you could have done even from the month before, which is such a fantastic feeling. I want to start off by showing you the beginning of sketch book number 3, which you can see I started in 8, August of 2015, and I've been doing my sketches for six months now. On this particular day, I decided not to use a black outline. One day I was using it and the next day I wasn't, and I had realized I reached a point where I didn't have to have the safety of the outline anymore. I was now able to confidently rely on contrast to define the shape, as well as the shadows and the colors. What I realized was my hand and I were now working much better, and I was also working much quicker and exploring the actual paint qualities. Because I was able to work much quicker, I started painting several versions of different objects, especially fruit and food because I wanted to explore different aspects of it from different angles. I'm learning more and more, and my confidence is growing, and I'm realizing that I can achieve more within the 20 or 30 minutes that I've set myself. After several months worth of sketches, you will be able to look over your work and see the progress that you've made, chronologically, from one sketch brick to the next. At this stage, I had fully committed to sharing my sketches on social media almost on a daily basis. By doing this, I was able to factor in the accountability, and my commitment to furthering my creativity. Posting on social media does require a little bit of bravery on your part, but it does mean that you let go of certain perfectionist tendencies, and whatever you post, you are satisfied that you've made progress. I just wanted to say a few quick words about the 100 day project and the 365 days of paint, both of which took place on Instagram using the relevant hashtags, and if you're just starting out, you may not want to be involved with this, but it's a great way of forming a community around you where you can look at each other's progress and comment and support each other's progress. Obviously, it's not everybody's cup of tea, and you may not feel comfortable doing so, but I just wanted to say the support that I received and knowing that people wanted me to succeed and progress in 100 days project and my 365 days of paint was really great feeling. Please, if you want to post your sketch a day on social media, please tag me. I will try and comment on every one of yours.
6. Room to Experiment: As being a safe place, your sketchbook can become a playground for you where you can experiment with new mediums, with new techniques, and develop them and think, oh, I'm going to try this one next time. You won't know until you try. Again, it's the safe place to try out this stuff. The sketchbooks are a great opportunity for you to explore in your own creative time and space. I want to take you through a transition that happened in very early 2016. I was actually quite ill, when I ended up with pneumonia as that month progressed. As you can see, the shapes are very simple, I've painted them on, add the rest and then add the pen work. These shapes are not at all complex. The conditionality, and I didn't have time to create depth in my watercolor, so I've resorted to geometrics and very basic shapes. Even these leaf forms, I've put the color on and then the pen work on top. Although I was very limited by what I could do during that time, I still really enjoyed my scheduled day habit. I was able to keep it simple, may be just geometrics. Simple line work on top of shapes. These pomegranates are a good example of what I was able to achieve with just some basic colors, basic pen work. Moving onto my next sketchbook, which I started in late January. I'm very much exploring the process of line work on top of single shapes here, keeping it just as easy as possible for me at the time. Just using white pen or just using black pen, and just having fun and doing what I'm able to do and being easy on myself at the time, and they're still really lovely for me. Something else that I wanted to touch upon was moving out of my comfort zones. As you can see, as we go through my sketchbooks, I don't often do animals, but here I am trying to move out of my comfort zone doing toucans, hummingbirds, parrots. I've added pen and postcard pen on top of this, I'm using my new found pen skills and creating something that's really decorative and effective like this peacock here. Further on, I started drawing mammals like llamas and the [inaudible]. We're now moving on to this flowery animals with the giraffe and then the cheetah. Remember, I don't do animals, so this is really way out of my comfort zone. Elephant, tiger, zebra. The proportions aren't great, and the slough. The expressions on the animals don't look good, but I'm giving it a go. I just wanted to show you something else that I started doing quite recently. This is a collage that I did at a friend's house. I decided to take it a little further by mixing collage with my water color and Penn style. I think it's quite creative and effective. I added a little bit more within these Christmas inspired elements and icons, and I think it creates a nice contrast. You can add this to your own sketch day habit.
7. Do this for Yourself: On a daily basis, I usually have commissioned illustration projects that I'm working on, and I really look forward to my sketch a day when I can step away from my computer for 20 or 30 minutes and just enjoy that time to myself to do as I please. Remember that this daily practice is for you and yours alone and to enjoy this time for yourself and do something for yourself, and you do very much deserve to have this time, because it will boost your creativity in other areas of your life. For me, my sketch a day habit is like a diversion from the computer when I can step away for 20 or 30 minutes, take a few deep breaths, make a cup of tea. I don't actually have an idea of what I'm going to paint from day to day. I've become less precious about the sketches, and it's more about having fun. It's more about exploration, and I'm doing it for myself. I also think it's really loosened up what I thought watercolors should be. I have over the months found my own unique way of handling it and using subject matter that I feel excited by, I'm able to keep the spontaneity. As you can see from these examples on drawing everything from chillis, florals, vegetables, lighthouses, and these octopi with the postcard pen, details, it's very spontaneous and I think that's one of the greatest aspects of my sketch a day. On this page you can see I have filled it with butterfly fish. They're my favorite tropical fish because I used to do an awful lot of scuba diving. So I just spent 30 minutes making these incredibly decorative and beautiful, and remembering the time I used to spend in tropical waters exploring these fish. I'm well known as a food illustrator and a lot of food and drink does appear in my sketch books. It is just something that I really love to illustrate and paint and look at and smell and cook with. So it's a very big part of my life and it transcends into almost everything. So the food that I might be growing in the garden or the food that might be cooking that night. As you continue with your sketching practice, there might be certain subjects that you're drawn to, whether it's florals, or birds or butterflies, it's whatever excites you. I wanted to show you this time-lapse of cucumber because it just illustrates my point of there is no purpose to doing a watercolor of a cucumber, apart from the fact I love the smell of cucumbers in drinks and in salads, and this one was particularly appetizing, so I did it simply for my own pleasure. When I paint every day, I try not to get too bogged down with trends, especially colors or subject matter, I just do whatever happens to catch my fancy that day. I find that as long as I'm having fun, it translates well into my work. It may appear in a collection one day, it may not, I don't have any preconceived ideas. Florals, I did find difficult to begin with, and I just wanted to have a go to see if I could make it work. I still find them tricky, but I think I'm improving with each attempt.
8. Your Ideas and Style Will Emerge: As I said at the beginning, I didn't actually keep a sketchbook until February in the whole of my artistic career, and I don't have a water color background. But I realized that after a while that style was emerging. The more art I created, the more I was able to explore and push my style further. Now I think it's become quite distinctive. I'm hoping that your sketch today have it. You'll start to find your unique voice, the way you use your paint will be different to how I use my paint or how somebody else would use watercolor. You'll find something else that you'll be excited about, and you will want to explore and push for. This process is a wonderful part of our journey as artists. Even though I was doing many of these sketches completely spontaneously, I started to see themes and techniques emerge. Like this one is on a no terminal theme, but there's also a negative and positive thing happening. The same again with these pumpkins. From day-to-day, I don't know what techniques or materials I'm going to be using, but I tend to return to a theme and explore it further and see how far I can take it. You'll have the same feelings about your work As your work loosens up and becomes more spontaneous, often less labored, you'll know that you're in the flow which is a really magical place to be. Folks often ask me about finding their style, and my best advice is to keep making lots and lots of art. When I turn through the pages of my sketchbook, I now see patterns, themes, and connections emerging even though might have painted them completely spontaneously. Your dedication, persistence to your own unique hand will emerge. You'll be drawn to what suits you and what works best for you in the time frame and your daily schedule. At the end of 2015, I stumbled upon this style where I placed pen line work on top of watercolor and I just went with it and you can see it's a reoccurring theme. I find that I really enjoy using this technique for floras and all manner of things like tea cups, patterns, coffee, pots, even jelly stands. I'm wondering how far can I take it? It's not labored. It's just coming naturally to me and it's got to the point where I can't seem to do a sketch without a little bit of pen, highlight here and there, even if it's just dots or dashes. I just really enjoy working like this. Before long, you will find ways of working that you really enjoy and love.
9. First Steps: In this short video, I'm going to talk you through a really simple tutorial system, basic things to consider when you start your sketch practice to build your confidence and to build your skill level slowly but persistently. I'd like you to enjoy the process and please let go of any preconceptions of what you think it should look like, and don't compare yourself to what I'm doing. Remember I started in February 2015, and please be gentle with yourself, and do remember that first page of my sketchbook that I showed you. I want to show you the setup that I have most days for my sketchbook practice, my ward covers, water in a jar even though I've got water in the barrel here, a cup of tea because I'm usually taking time out from client work, sketchbook, and little hairdryer just to speed things up. On this particular day, I decided to paint lines, but please choose something that you want to paint that's fairly easy. To begin with, I'm using a mixture of bride and a more yellow and a tiny down of angle green. I do tend to keep it very watery for this first layer and then build them up as you'll see. So I've mixed up my yellow line and I'm just going to start in this corner here, keeping it really watery and lose, creating a circle for the lime, and I'm just going to add a tiny bit more green in one corner here by squeezing a bit more water out of the brush, just for contrast here, and I think some here as well. I'm going to leave this pith white and mix up a bit more of a darker green for the skin of the line, and I'm working quite quickly because I don't want to over think and get too bogged down with the details at this stage because we're just starting on, let say that the first round. I'm going to move on, and I think I'm going to do a line which in this section here, keeping it really lose, and I think here will be half lime. So that'll be the main part there, just expand it here and here. Again, I just want a bit more contrast. I'm going to add a drop of green, darker hue just here, and I think this is still wet so I can just add a bit here, and I'm going to do wedge this space here. I think that's a bit too green. Then I'm going to squeeze that out, and what I do is squeeze the water out of the brush like that, and that's how you clean it. I'm just adding a tad more yellow here to give more contrast to this particular slice of line, and I think that adds to the vibrancy. Often, I don't know from day-to-day what I'm going to do I just decided I do line wedge today. Honestly, from day-to-day, I don't know, for some people that might be tricky, as you saw in my sketchbooks, I tend to paint things that I see around me, if I've been for a walk or if I found something in the lake of woods around here, I'm just adding the skin, I think it's a bit too much of an olive green. It doesn't matter because I add details later on and we can look at that again. The wedge version of the line will carry around here like that. That's the skin, and the wedge part will form this shape down here. I really love using the wet technique because I feel I'm able to manipulate the paint much more, and there are more opportunities for serendipitous results which I really enjoy seeing. The bulk of it will come around here like this. I find that if I just mix things up in terms of subject matter from day-to-day, it keeps it fun and fresh for me, and that's the way I'm able to stay excited about my sketch a day habit. If I wasn't excited about it, I wouldn't have continued with it, and I like to see what happens each day, I don't know what's going to happen each day. So I'm just going to use a hairdryer again, and now I'm going to add the segments within the line now, so I'm mixing up a slightly darker green just to contrast with the background here, and we're going to fill in the segments quite quickly so that it doesn't become overworked, and it looks fresh and clean. One of the other reasons why I work quite fast is while the paint is where I might add slightly contrasting color, I don't know, just keep ongoing. These segments are not perfect, I haven't looked at the angle and thought, well, they're all eight degrees or whatever. Lines aren't perfectly segmented, and I think in this one, I will add a slightly darker hue of green in some of these sections just for the contrast so that you can see that they are different. Just a little bit over all leafy green, I think here, oh, that's quite nice, and maybe in this one as well. I'm going to do the same on this one, keeping it lose, keeping it very watery. Well, that's just the way I like to work. If you've watched my skill share class on the three minute challenge, one of the things that I say is, if you work quickly, then you don't engage your brain so much, and to some extent, I feel the same way about my sketch a day. Even though I like to take the time to do it, let's say 15 or 20 minutes, it is in a meditative way. It is also like a challenge to yourself. How much can I achieve, once you start getting confidence with this? How much can I achieve in the 15 minutes or the 20 minutes? If you wanted, you could set yourself a timer. But please don't put undue pressure on yourself, I'm just trying to keep it fun. It is just some of the things that I've done in the past to see what I can do, and the sense of achievement that you might feel when you think, "Oh my gosh, I did that in 15 minutes. That's amazing." It really boost your confidence, and sometimes as artists we do suffer from slide confidence failures, and it just reminds you that you're a really good creative person, and you're investing in yourself by doing a sketch a day, and just having fun at the same time. I mean, that's a complete win-win situation. That's going to add some segments to this section here. At the time of this recording, I was using reference from a stock image library. But at other times I have actually cut open a line to see what they look like inside with the segments. I think for this one in particular, because I've made the background dark, I'm having to mix just a slightly darker green, and we're looking at contrast all the time so that you can see the individual segments, and it's recognizable as a lime. Now, I'm going to go back and maybe add, one of these is still wet. Sorry. I'm just thinking while these are still where I'd really like to just add more contrast in this segment here because it is just that little bit darker. Trying to mix the paint as quickly as I can. I'm doing this in real time, I'm not trying to edit anything out. This video is, I'm hoping, a true interpretation of what happens normally in my sketch, a day habit. That gives just a little bit more definition in those points of these segments here. Now let me go back and look at the skin, especially in this one. What I might do is actually add a bit more skin to that, the skin of limes are quite pitted, and you can see that there are highlights, and very light, and shadow, so, I'm going to try and add that now. With the water brush, I'm able to quite change the effect of the brush. I used it quite, I pressed hard, and then I created that rim of the lime. I think this shadow section is going to be darker again, I'm just going to add a slightly different tone of green just for the underneath, because it is very dark. That's one thing to mention, please don't try to, like what I just did there, I just brushed against the wet paint with my little finger, which is a habit but, it's not the end of the world, and if I decided in the end I wanted to use it in collection, I will just use Photoshop, the claim tool. I think this needs just, if we're going to suggest that there is the rim of the lime goes round here, I just need to add a bit more definition, not all the way, just little bits, and I might mix up with even a slightly different green to add there. I'm going to use that green now to add shadow just to this top section here. Now, I've just created a slightly different shaped lime that it's okay, and I'm going to do the same with this lime segment here. It is really dark here, going all the way around to that pit there. This one I think needs just a little bit. I've added too much olive green, I'm just going to go back and make it more lime green, more in keeping with what we're trying to achieve here. It is dry now, and I'm just going to define the roundness of it by carrying around this section here just to say that, that is in shadow and this is in shadow, and also all the way around here, carrying over to the other side, and there we go. What I did here was, I overworked the segments, so, I'm just going to leave it because it creates a really nice effect, is still really lovely shape and you can still see the watercolor happening in there. If you want, you can add more shapes here, but what I've shown you is very much the basis of how I go about using my watercolors. I tend to do it in layers and it hasn't really taken that long. Please remember not to overwork, not to overthink, and to make it a fun, and enjoyable process for yourself. In the end, I did decide to fill up the remainder of the page with a suggestion of lime segments and slices to create a pattern of salts, and I'm really happy with results.
10. Final Thoughts and Homework: I hope you've enjoyed looking through my sketchworks and it has inspired you to have your own sketch a day habit. I'd like to say that being a sketch for kids not a perfect science and progress is not linear, it's more emotive. Some days will be more challenging than others and that's okay. I ask you not to judge yourself too harshly if you miss a day or you make an unintentional splurge. Remember, with every page you are learning in a safe and gentle place and a lot of what so-called mistakes are serendipitous, so please be kind to yourself. The small daily habits can deliver amazing results in just a few weeks and months. I hope that before too long that you'll become less precious about your sketchbook and you'll become more spontaneous. The enjoyment will take over the overthinking and your creativity will increase. As you loosen up, being in the flow will be reflected in your sketches and they become really energetic, and fresh, and interesting. Once again, that's going to increase your confidence. They do say it takes at least 30 days for the beginnings of a habit to form. I'm now almost two years in and the results for me have been incredible. I'd like to show you some of the collections that I've created using some of the sketches. I want to say at this point, when I set the actual sketch a day, I had no intention of making them into collections. It just happened organically and I didn't have an end result in mind because I was in a relaxed place, it was just flowing. The result was collections that were able to be shown to clients. This cherry blossom was drawn from life and I decided to put it on a solid background to show of it's delicate qualities along with a bit of line work. I created a placement and pattern from it. I had so much fun with these pomegranates. I decided to put them in a very lovely repeat pattern and I was also able to create placement graphic and some matching coordinates. I cleaned up these seashells and was able to create a beautiful repeat pattern from them and also placement art and coordinates to match. My final words, please be brave for the 30 days that it takes to form your sketch a day habit. Please persevere. Please post on social media if you feel like it and tag me in on Instagram and I will try to comment and encourage you further in your endeavors. Sketch today is really close to my heart and I hope that by sharing with you what I've learned over the months and the years that I've inspired you further. Wish you all a happy and creative day. Thank you very much for joining me. Finally, in future skillshare classes, I hope to share with you some of the techniques that you've seen me play around with in the sketchbooks. Please join me for those in the future.
Ohn Mar Win, Illustrator Artist Educator
