Sketchbook Seeds: An Easy Intro to Sketchbook Practice

1. Class Intro: Hey, there artist. I'm Step Eiser Coleman, and this is Sketchbook Sets, a beginners introduction to Sketchbook practice. Now, I'm a bird artist, but over the years, I've illustrated over 55 children's books. I've also illustrated for products like greeting cards, t towels, art prints, puzzles, all sorts of different things. I've made a ton of art, but some of my most satisfying art has actually been made in my sketchbook. Not necessarily my prettiest start. Um, but my most creatively satisfying art. I started my sketchbook practice a few years ago after spending about ten years illustrating children's books in photoshop. I was kind of feeling a little bit frustrated with my nearly all digital process. Everything was filling a little uptight, and I knew that I wanted to get back to exploring with materials on paper, and I wanted to change things up with my art practice a little bit. So I started my first sketchbook, and it did not go well. I had a really hard time getting started. I had a hard time letting go of expectations of what a sketchbook was going to look like or should be. And once I got to the point of being able to let go of those expectations, that's when I really started having fun in my sketch books. That's when I started experimenting with different materials in my sketchbooks and different ways of drawing things. And that's really where I learned to be a more competent artist. And really just a happier artist because I've noticed that time spent in my sketchbook helps me feel more grounded in my creative practice. And my sketchbook practice is really, like, the center of my entire art practice at this point. If I miss a day in my sketchbook, I feel like just kind of off kilter for the rest of that day until I finally find a few minutes to get in my sketchbook and make some So, I built this course to be a gentle introduction to sketchbook practice. I know from my own experience that I needed a really soft approach to starting my sketchbook practice. I needed to find ways to take it easy on myself and to give myself, you know, the ability to explore things without judging myself. So this course is really low pressure. You're going to be given some light parameters to guide you through starting your sketchbook practice in the form of seven sketchbook exercises. This one. This is the one that we're going to be doing on Day seven. They're going to be super simple sketchbook exercises that are just geared at getting you started, getting you comfortable, getting you to understand the materials that you want to use and how you want to use them. You're also going to learn a really easy writing exercise that you can use to connect with your sketchbook on a deeper level and really start to notice things that feel good about your process. In addition to that, you are going to get some tours of my sketch books, and I'm going to talk a whole lot about my philosophy behind sketchbook practice and how we can grow as artists by showing up for our sketch book practice on a regular basis. So, I hope you'll join me in class. 2. My Sketchbook Practice: Hey, there, friends, welcome to Sketchbook seats. In this first lesson, I'm going to be talking about my sketchbook practice, kind of how it started, where it's going, how it's doing. All right. So you may know that I have been a children's book illustrator for about the past ten years. Now, in my children's bookwk, some of it actually does start on paper. I always feel that I do best when my ideas start on paper as opposed to, like, starting in photoshop or in Procreate. So my process has always involved like some level of sketching on paper. But it's always been really specifically for a project. If I have a kid's book, I'll start, you know, sketching on paper for that kids book. If I have you know, something I'm doing for, like, maybe, like, a greeting card client or something like that, yes, it will start on paper, for sure. But for The better part of a decade. I really didn't have a sketchbook practice that was for fun. I didn't have a sketchbook practice that was just for me. And what happened is a few years ago, I started to feel that. I started to feel like my work wasn't fresh anymore. I just really started to feel like I needed something. I needed I just needed something new, really. And it took me a while to figure it out. But what I actually needed was to give myself some space to just make some art that was for fun, for exploration. Not for a client. Not for a project, not for anything specific, just for me, just a place for me to go and hang out and make some art. So a few years ago, I want to say probably like four years ago now, I started back down the road of having a sketchbook practice again. Um And it wasn't easy. You know, it took me a while to figure out how I wanted to use materials. Actually, it took me a while to figure out which art materials I liked, which sketchbooks I liked, how I like to use materials together, how things layer. So, you know, it was at first a frustrating experience for me because, you know, you see everybody's beautiful sketch books on Instagram and on YouTube. And I think that you just expect, you know, like me, I've been working as an artist full time for 15 years. So I kind of expected to be able to pick up a sketchbook practice and just be awesome at it. And that was not the case for me. So this is the point in this course where I'm going to tell you to be patient. If you are new to a sketchbook practice or if you are looking to refresh your sketchbook practice, starting over or starting for the first time, it's probably not going to feel great at first. You're probably not going to be able to make the kind of art that you want to make at first. You're probably going to be really frustrated with the results at first. But here's what I want you to know. Tim spent making art is never wasted time. You are constantly learning from the experiences that you're having in any art that you make, but in your sketchbook, especially, you've really got the chance to explore things, to follow the what ifs of making art, to ask yourself, well, what happens if I combine these colors? What happens if I combine these materials? What if I draw something this way? Okay. What if I try to draw it this other way? This is a really great space for you to just try things out and learn as you go. You will learn something from every single page of your sketchbook, even if it's just learning I don't want to do things that way. I don't like those colors together. I don't enjoy how I drew that. I would rather try it again some other way. So for me, having a sketchbook practice has meant uncovering new ways of making art, feeling more confident as an artist in general, not just in my sketchbook, but as an artist in general. And my sketchbook practice has also meant uncovering things that I can take to my digital art or to paintings that wouldn't have thought of before. You know, different ways of drawing things, different ways of mixing things. There are just all of these, like, beautiful layers of things that I've learned because I've opened myself up to a sketchbook practice. And that's what I hope that you're going to gain from this as well. I hope that through your sketchbook practice, you're going to be a more confident, courageous artist, and you're going to feel so much creative expansion. I'm really excited for you. So head over to the next lesson, and I'm actually going to give you a tour of three of my sketchbooks. 3. Look Inside My Sketchbooks: Okay. So in this video, I'm going to be taking you on a tour of three of my sketch books, actually have a stack, like, a big stack of sketch books. And it was really hard to choose which three to share with you. But I ended up choosing one that is really specific, which I'll show you in a minute. This one is a current sketchbook that I'm working through now, and this one is a sketchbook that I use specifically for my bird illustrations. So I thought it might be interesting for you to see the three different sketchbooks and how I kind of approach each one differently, and how I have multiple sketchbooks going at the same time for different subject matter, for different materials, for different purposes in general. And sometimes, I'll just, you know, like to skip around in my sketch books. So if I'm working in this sketchbook and things go sideways, then I'm going to switch over to another sketchbook for a while to just sort of, like, refresh myself a little bit. Now, before we get started, looking through my sketchbooks. I just want to mention that my sketchbooks are not, like, the beautiful sketchbook tour kind of sketchbooks that you see on like YouTube and Instagram. My sketchbooks are very messy and unfinished, and I actually think that they are really beautiful anyway. I don't need a sketchbook full of beautifully finished paintings and illustrations and drawings to prove that I'm a good artist. These like this space within my sketchbook. Is for exploration. It's for play. It's for following the What if? And I don't feel like it needs to be a performance. Not that people who have really beautiful sketchbooks are putting on a show or anything, but for me, if I was really focused on just having a sketchbook that contained nothing but beautiful art, it would definitely be a bit of a performance, for sure. All right. So, let's take a look. Let's actually start with this sketchbook. This is a bird sketchbook I've been using for about a year or so. It's not actually full yet. This is a Moleskin ye blank notebook. It's not technically a sketchbook. It is like a blank notebook. It's got kind of thin paper. But I have used these for years in my children's book projects. Whenever I'm sort of like figuring out art, it usually starts in these. So that is what we're going to be looking at right now is this sketch book. Now, these are sketches that are going to become something. So this isn't just like me sketching for the fun of sketching. This is me sketching to understand a specific species of bird that I'm intending on illustrating. So you'll see, as I flip through here, I actually tend to not sketch in pencil or rather graphite. I tend to sketch with either neo Color two crayon, these or with luminous colored pencils, which are these. Sometimes I sketch with markers. Sometimes there's some paint in here. Um, but the overwhelming theme in this bird sketch book is that I don't want to be sketching with anything that's going to let me get really uptight with my details and my shapes. That's not a bird. I just want to be able to, like, keep it loose and fun and not too serious. And you'll see because this paper is really thin. You know, you can see the images that are like coming through on the other sides. But I kind of like that. I think it just gives it this sort of, like, friendly, approachable sort of feeling. You'll see here, if you use marker to block in the shapes, like the shape of the bird, and then I go back in with a pains gray luminance pencil and add in some of the details. And I kind of stuck with that method for a while here. L I love to write like little notes to myself. And then sometimes I'll do some little thumbnail sketches. If I have if I'm working on an illustration, I love this sky. I kind of love blue and yellow together. Here's a Robin. It's another one. I love this one. I know I said that I actually don't use graphite, and this is graphite. But this is actually a graphite stick. It's like, I would show you if I had it right here, but I don't like, just, like, a, you know, long rectangle, that's like this thick. So you can't really get a lot of, like, good fine lines and details with it, which is why I like it. And I love the texture that you get with it. Here's another little bird. Beginning. Yeah, I just kind of decide, Hey, I want to draw some humming birds. This was from a humming bird cam. That I was watching on YouTube, but I was just doing some rough quick sketches with markers. This is from a drawing session with my friend, Holly Surplus, called a Bird in Hand. See, I guess there are some random drawings in here that weren't for specific things. This one, though, is an American Pygmy Kingfisher, and this actually did become an illustration. Most of these did become illustrations. These were some ideas I had for some bird illustrations for my children's book portfolio, and for my licensing portfolio. These actually never did anything with, which I'm kind of sad about, but I did draw these humming birds. U This is a gray crowned crane. You see, I'm just kind of trying to capture shape and indications of feathers, a little bit of motion, a little bit of movement, but I'm not trying to be really serious with it. Again, this is a theme with my sketch books. I'm not trying to make final paintings and final illustrations here. Look at that cranky little guy. I'm just trying to explore a little bit and learn a little bit about shapes. It Looks like here I actually started working with markers. Which, you know, this paper is very thin. So if you're going to be using markers and paints, it's going to bleed through this paper. This guy, I did a little mixed media approach. I used marker and neo coolors, a little bit of gouache paints, all sorts of stuff. You can see the page as a little buckled. It's because I use stuff that this doesn't want. Here's a little bird sketch that I did. And this marker actually was showing through the back side of the page. So that's the sketch. And then on this side, I painted the bird shape with a little bit of gouache, a very little bit of gouache and not very wet, because, again, thin paper. And then I used neo coolor twos to add in these leaf shapes. Actually really like this. Um I feel like I should do something with it. Here are just some more random bird sketches. In this case, I sketched with the neo Color two crayons, and then I added a little bit of water. We'll talk about those in a minute. And one of the other lessons. Again, papers kind of buckled. This doesn't really bother me. But, you know, it kind of buckles up. More sketches. Oh, I love these guys. I was just kind of experimenting with making marks to create the shapes of the birds, and then going back in with pencil. I also love this color palette, like this, like indigo blue with a paints gray. And this is luminous pencil. I can't remember what color it is, but it's really beautiful together. And then here is a hickey illustration that I was working on recently. You see I had a little accident right there. And that's it for the sketchbook. So let's go on to our next sketchbook. All right. So let's look at another one that is actually a really specific subject matter. Okay, so it says I started this on December of 2020. I actually didn't start drawing in this until January of 2021. So I'm about two years into this, and I'm maybe, like, three quarters of the way through it. So one of the things I like to do in a new sketch book to kind of get over the fear of the blank page is to test some materials, which I did here. I had some new Karen Luminus pencils. So I wanted to test some colors out here and, you know, make some scribbles. That way, I've already used up the first page. It's very low key. I don't have to stress about it at all, no. And then When I turned over to the next page, I was playing around with some acrylic guh, which I had gotten, and I somehow landed on drawing a polar bear over this acrylic guh background and then adding some snow. And I thought to myself, why not just make this sketchbook entirely about polar bears. So that's what we've got. I've got another little materials test here, and a note that I left myself about a polar bear story, which I didn't do anything with. This guy is probably one of my favorites out of the entire book. I love his pose. I love his cute little face. I love all this texture back here, which I got from layering some gouache and some neo colors. This one was really satisfying. I did skip some pages in this sketchbook because I went kind of heavy on the gouache. I didn't really want it to show through the white polar bear on the next page, so I have skipped some pages. There's another little scene. There's another, like, sort of big scene. You sort of get like the icebergs and all of this texture. So fun. There is a tiny little polar bear there. Lot lots of green in this sketch book. I was loving this green color. Here's another one. Most of these are drawn from reference photos, obviously stylized in my stuff style. I love all these just like layers of gas and neo coolor and pencils. It gives such a gorgeous texture. Let's just keep going. There's another tiny guys kind of switching up the colors. It this guy's face. It this guy. I actually drew this guy a couple of different ways. I had just gotten some pan pastels. So I wanted to experiment with doing a negative space shape with some pan pastels, which I thought was actually kind of cool. Actually cut out this shape with a piece of paper, laid it down here, and then smoothed over with some pan pastels to make this texture. Se here the pan pastel has rubbed off on this page. That's why I didn't draw on this page because I didn't want it to rub off, and I also didn't want to have to shove a piece of paper in between there. There's the same guy with some gase and some textures. These guys are ridiculous looking. This guy is foreshortened in a weird way. I love this one. I love a lot about the shapes of the polar bear, the textures. I love this little sort of like peachy orange color with the green. That's really satisfying. Here is a vertical one. I like that one, too. Oh, I should have left it turned. Now I'll go back this way. And I was just drawing with paint at this point, like, just sketching with paint, which I think is a really fun practice. Is another one of icebergs, another tall guy. And Oh, look at that guy. He is beautiful. I haven't looked at the sketchbook in a while, so I'm kind of discovering things that I'd forgotten. One little penguin in the midst of a polar bear sketchbook. Here I was testing out some new materials. I think these were stabilo, woody pencils, maybe. Here's some negative space experiments. Again, negative space, negative space, and we are going to have a lesson on this. It's one of our I think it's our day three drawing exercise. But I love negative space exercises in my sketchbook. It's such a great way to discover, like, some really delightful, quirkiness in anything that you're drawing. 'cause you're kind of having to give up a little bit of control when you're doing a negative space. It's just a scribble. It's another negative space guy. More negative space. I told you I was really into negative space. Oh, I love this one. Oh. This is a negative space drawing, too. I just love these wonky shapes. I love the blue and orange together. So so fun. Another negative shape, kind of, like, harkening back to this guy in the beginning, this sort of, like, slidy splot thing. Love that. This funny guy. Here is just, uh sort of like a pinkish polar bear. Here, I try to do some white on white experiments. Went crazy with some pink acrylic ink here. I'm here. I did a little bit of collage, so I scribbled on some papers, cut out this bear shape, and then I kept the cut out and used it as a negative negative shape. Here's another negative space experiment. With this one, I had just gotten some liquidx acrylic markers that have this really wide tip on them. And I was just kind of experimenting to see what kind of effects I could get. Obviously, just testing some materials here. This is, you know, not just a way for me to start a sketchbook, but it's also a way for me to be mindful when I am feeling kind of, like, uptight about a sketchbook. You know, when things are feeling a little like, Oh, like, I'm getting too serious about things, I love to just, like, make a mess here. And then we've just got some more. I think I drew these with brush pens. And you can see, I tested the sky right here, dream with a brush pen, and then right here, I did a negative space drawing. I just love these. Here's a really big negative space drawing. I just did with a little bit of textured gash. And that is it for the polar bear Sketchbook. Now that I've flipped through it with you, I'm actually pretty excited to start using it again. Alright. Now, here is our final sketchbook in this sort of long sketchbook tour. It's fun though, right? I love checking out other people's sketchbooks, too. Now, this sketchbook, I forgot to tell you, this one. This one is a Royal Talents art creations sketchbook. And it's actually what I'm going to be using for this course. I'm going to use this one, so I've got a fresh sketchbook, just like you do. So yeah. This is that sketchbook. I love these because they're affordable. I think the size costs maybe, like, I don't know, $15. You can paint on it. If you're doing watercolor or anything that uses a lot of water, the pages will buckle a tiny bit, but they don't really bleed very much. It can actually handle a lot of stuff, which is really nice. So that's what we're going to be using for the course or what I'm going to be using for the course. Now, this is an archer and olive watercolor notebook. Um, here they are. I don't actually think they make these anymore. I checked for them a couple of days ago, and I couldn't find them. But the paper is kind of similar to this Hanamul, which I'm sure I'm not pronouncing right, but you can see it right there. These watercolor books. These have 100% cotton paper on them, which actually means they handle wet media really well. So if you're more of a watercolor person or you like to use squash with a lot of water, these are really fantastic for that. But again, we're using the Royal Talents rt creation Sketchbook for this course, which is affordable. You can also take a beating. So this is an Archer and Olive Sketchbook. This is actually one of my current sketchbooks, and my goal with this sketchbook was that I wanted to focus on painting. Um, like, you know, with a brush and paint and not as much using like markers and other things. So a lot of this is just like testing out different strokes and ways to use the brush. I've got pages that are just like testing new brushes that I've gotten and seeing what kind of shapes I can make with them, what kind of textures I can get with them. Like, how I would draw certain flowers. Like, this is I'm testing out some lavender with some different brushes, and then testing out lavender with some different materials. So this side is watercolor. This side is guash, used as watercolor, like, really thinned down. I love this. I've decided after much trying and erroring that I really like gah better than watercolor. Again, just testing out some brushes, this time to see, like what kind of, like, cool textures I can get with them. And just making note of what I can get with what brush, I can come back to that. Let's see here some flower shapes that I drew. I don't like a lot of this. And I think it was really important for me to share this sketchbook with you because I look at a lot of this and I'm like, h. But as I flip through the sketchbook, I kind of see like moments of me figuring out how I like to paint and how, you know, all of those things work together. Like, I am not happy with this painting, but I can also see that I learned a lot as I went through this and I kind of carried it forward with me and my art practice, which is What a sketchbook practice is all about, you know? It's about learning things and making new discoveries that you wouldn't have discovered if you weren't giving yourself a space to play. Like, for example, I love layering. I've discovered. I love layering, like leaf shapes with, you know, line art leaves and then colored pencil textures. I just find it really satisfying. And then I got this page with these cute little lady bugs. I love this page. I think it's adorable. I got more flowers here. I love this flow actually, I really love this flower. And these are cool things for me to make note of because I'm saying, Okay, I love this flower, I love this flower. I love this flower on this page. So I'm kind of just filing those things away in like my visual library so that when I am working on an illustration or just working on a painting, I'm coming back to these things that I really loved. And when I need a little bit of inspiration, too, I'm also finding that it's really helpful to just flip through my sketchbook. And I see things that at the time, I thought were kind of M. But then as I come back to them, I'm like, Oh, like, I actually really like that. That's something that I might use in the future. I love pages like this where I can just fill up a page with, like, a really general shape. Like, here I was just exploring different shapes of leaves, which, you know, I'm a bird artist, so drawing leaves is obviously a big part of what I do. It's going to be in my art a lot. So I really loved experimenting with these pages. Some more texture tests here. And then I think this is the most recent page where I'm experimenting a little bit more with, like, layering paint with other things. So I've made notes here of when I'm, you know, mixing, like, neo coolor and gouache or luminants with water color and then more luminants on top or, like, luminans and gouache, and then paper towel to remove the wet paint to create a texture. You know, just all kinds of fun notes for myself. I discovered that if you paint with guash, and then you kind of, like, color in around the edges with eco line brush pens, you get this amazing texture right here. It's just fantastic. So, yeah, that's where I'm at in this sketchbook. I've still got maybe about half of it to go. I hope that you've enjoyed this really quick tour of my sketchbooks. I hope that, like, it makes you feel hopeful that my sketchbooks are not full of, like, absolutely beautiful perfect drawings, because I really hope that you are going to feel encouraged to show up make some messes in your sketchbook, try some things that you maybe had never thought of before, and just really dive in and have a lot of fun with it. So go ahead and head to the next lesson, and we're actually going to change gears a little bit. We're going to talk about mindset and art. 4. Minding Your Mindset: Hey, there. Welcome to the lesson on mindset. So I know that this is a sketch booking course, but we are going to take a little detour into psychology and mindset just to talk about what I think is a really important concept that we can all apply to our sketchbook practice and to our art practice as well. And the concept that we're going to be talking about is growth mindset. So growth mindset and fixed mindset are two terms for intellectual motivation that were I don't want to say developed or uncovered, but let's say uncovered by an American psychologist by the name of Carol Dweck. Carol is well known for her studies of intelligence and motivation. And in 2006, she wrote a book called Mindset, the New Psychology of Success. And that book set forth that successful people fall into one of two categories. We have fixed mindset folks. And if you have a fixed mindset, you believe that everyone is born with a certain amount of intelligence, talent, strength, whatever. And then if you're on the opposite end of that, if you are a growth mindset person, you actually believe that there are no limits to what someone can learn as far as, like, intelligence, or, you know, growing a talent or in strength or whatever. A growth mindset believes that you can always learn, you can always improve. And a fixed mindset believes that you're just kind of stuck with what you get. So in art specifically, you'll find a lot of people, you know, who believe that, oh, you're just born talented. You know, like, everyone is just born with a specific amount of talent, and then that's it, you get what you get, and you know, that's all there is. But those of us who have made art for, you know, a large chunk of our lives, know that Most people don't just arrive on the earth, making their best art. You know, there has to be a level of practice and exploration and trying things and giving yourself space to grow over time. So I think you see where this is going, right? I am hoping that, if you don't already, I'm hoping that you will adopt a growth mindset in your art practice, and especially in your sketchbook practice. So in art, I know that as long as I'm willing to put in the work, As long as I'm willing to, like, kind of, like, embrace the messy and perfect middle, I can improve at anything. So an example for me is that I don't like drawing houses. Don't like drawing architecture. Actually, there are a lot of things I don't like drawing. But houses are a good example. But I also know if I committed myself to drawing houses on a regular basis, I would get better at it. If I said to myself, I'm drawing nothing but houses this week. By the end of the week, I would see some level of improvement at drawing houses. If I kept going for a month, I would see more improvement. And if I kept going for an entire year, I probably would, you know, look back and be like, Oh, I can't believe I ever thought houses were difficult to draw because they're so easy. Um, any single thing that you put your mind to and are willing to put some effort into, you can improve your skills at that thing. You will get better at it. You know, the reason that I am so good at drawing and painting birds is because I've drawn and painted, like thousands of them. You know, I wasn't that great at them at first. I got better and better and better. You know, I'm better at illustrating children's books overall now than I was, like, ten years ago, because I've worked at it, because they've improved, because I've put effort into you know, becoming a better artist and practicing the things that were holding me back. So I definitely, obviously, am an advocate for Growth mindset in art and in life. I 100% believe that if you work hard and put in a focused intentional effort at something, you will get better at it. And that's a thing to note to. When it comes to improving at anything, it's not just, Oh, I'm going to show up and make art every day, and I'm going to get better at it. Yes, you will get better at it if you just do that. However, if you put a focused intentional effort into it, you know, for example, my houses example, that is a focused intention. I want to improve at houses. I'm going to work on that. Your intention might be I'm going to work on color. It's not something that I feel comfortable with, and I would like to feel more comfortable with it. So I'm going to focus, on color in this sketchbook. I have one sketchbook going right now that's specifically for painting in Guash because it's something that I want to get better at. And I know the only way that I'm going to get better at it is if I actually have a focused intentional that it. So I hope that you will adopt a growth mindset as we begin this journey through your sketchbook practice. And I hope that you know that where you are at right now with your art is not where you're going to be at at any point in the future. I a week from now, a month from now, five years from now, you're going to grow as an artist. So if you are feeling frustrated with your skills right now, or if you're like I was back when I was just working on digitally, and you just feel like you need something fresh, don't feel like you're stuck here forever. If you're willing to show up, And put in the work to do the thing, you're going to see some differences. You're going to learn some things. If nothing else, you're going to learn how to enjoy the process, which is really important to you. So Carol Dweck is quoted as saying, and this is from her book, Mindset. The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even, or especially when it's not going well is the hallmark of growth mindset. So that's an important point to keep in mind. Growth mindset isn't all sunshine and daisies. You are going to have days where you don't feel like drawing in your sketchbook, you're going to have days where you show up and draw on your sketchbook, and you don't like any of it. You'll have days where things go completely sideways. But you will learn something from every single time that you show up and draw in your sketchbook. That's the difference between an artist who's going to improve and feel more confident and courageous in the art that they're making and an artist who's feeling stuck. You have to be willing to put in the work, even when it doesn't feel great. Even when it doesn't feel like it's going really well. And you know, the funny thing is, like, when I go back and flip through my sketchbooks, I have found time and time again that things that felt so crappy at the time and things that I was so annoyed about, they actually aren't that bad. With a little bit of distance. I've realized, like, Oh, like, the stuff is actually Yeah, the stuff is actually not bad. And I can see that I've learned things, too. So I'll see that, like, you know, Oh, I obviously learned this and then used it in future sketchbook drawings or used it in illustrations. So there's always this, like, learning and absorbing going on when you're working in your sketchbook practice. Even when you feel like you're not having the best day in your sketchbook practice. And one final note before we head to the next lesson. This is me inviting you to let go of expectations. This is what kind of got me kind of twisted up when I first started my sketchbook practice, is just seeing everybody else's beautiful sketchbooks and expecting that my sketchbook would also be beautiful, or seeing the body of work that I've done over the last 15 years and expecting that my sketchbook would reflect exactly that. But what I was forgetting is that I was approaching a sketchbook practice from an intention of exploration. I was feeling very uptight with my digital art, and I really wanted to bring more, like, traditional materials into my digital illustrations, and I really needed to explore and figure out what that even meant, what kind of things I even wanted to be using. You know, how things worked for the way that I illustrated. So in order to do that, I really had to let go of expectations. I had to let go of any idea of any outcome whenever I sat down for my sketchbook practice. And I invite you to do that, too. I invite you to focus on the process. I invite you to focus on the moments that feel really good. You know, you're going to have those moments where you're pushing a marker around on a page and you're just like, yes, I love how these colors are smushed together. I love this texture. You know, I love the shapes that I'm drawing right now. So pay attention to those little, like zing moments as you go. And what you're going to find eventually is you're going to find that you're in a place where you just really enjoy the process, and the outcome is just a bonus. If the outcome is something lovely and that you're really excited about, amazing. If it's not something that you're really excited about, you will still know that you learned things along the way, because you paid attention to those little moments during the process, that really felt like something. So your sketchbook practice won't always lead to something beautiful. Don't we all wish that every time we sat down to make hard, it would be something beautiful. But there's a lot of bad art that's kind of, like, got to pass through us before we can get to the good art. So embrace that process. And if you pay attention, you will always learn something. I promise. So join me in the next lesson, and let's start uncovering your sketchbook practice. 5. Your Sketchbook Seeds: No matter where you're at in your art journey? It's important to take a few moments to ponder what you hope to gain from your sketchbook practice. Are there specific skills you hope to focus on or maybe specific subject matter or materials you'd like to explore? Would you like to build your confidence as an artist? Would you like to loosen up or maybe do the opposite? Would you like to have more fun with color or maybe explore an entirely new way of making art? Or do you just need a break for making art on a digital device? Maybe it's one of these things or maybe a combination or maybe a totally different list altogether. As you embark on this sketchbook practice, I encourage you to choose one, maybe two, but no more of your ws to focus on. Having 47 ys makes it tough to focus on any of them, and that's why I really recommend narrowing it down. Remember, this choice isn't forever. You can focus on one thing this month and then switch it up next month or hold one focus until you feel good about it or get bored with it, and then move on to another one. You can come back to a focus after leaving it for weeks or months or even years. Now, write your focus on a piece of paper and tuck it inside your sketchbook or just write it directly in the sketchbook if that feels better for you. And now, join me in the next lesson, and let's talk about sketchbooks. 6. Choosing A Sketchbook: Hey, there artist. In this lesson, we're going to be talking about choosing a sketchbook. Now, the first and most important advice I'm going to give you in this lesson is to start with what you have. There's no need to go out and buy a new sketchbook. If you're like any other artist on Earth, you probably have a stack of sketchbooks, hidden away on a shelf somewhere, waiting on the right moment, which is funny that we do that, right. So I would say number one, if you have a sketchbook that's just been sitting around waiting for the right moment, what if right now is the right moment? Ahead and grab that sketchbook and use that for this course. I was also one of those people in the past who would buy nice sketchbooks, and I would sort of tuck them away, waiting until my art wasy of them. I think that I felt like I had to be one of those people who is going to make a really perfect sketchbook, which I'm not. I'm a person who's going to make really messy sketch books where there's a lot of exploring and trying things and, you know, half finishing drawings, and then moving on to the next thing. And that's absolutely fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But I kind of had to come to terms with that. And when I started, when I started my sketchbook practice a few years ago, I had one of these sketchbooks. So this is an Archer and O olive. It's a blank notebook, but a lot of people are using them for sketchbooks. It's really nice. It's got this really nice, like cloth bound cover. Um, and the paper is actually really nice. The paper is really smooth. You can paint on it. I prefer a sketchbook that has got smooth paper in it. You might prefer a sketchbook paper that has got textured paper in it is completely up to you, and that's something that you need to think about when you are choosing a sketchbook. Anyways, I had this really nice sketchbook on my shelf for a really long time, and a few years ago, when I got back to my sketchbook practice, I was like, you know what? I'm just going to start drawing in this sketchbook because I am deciding right now that my art is wy of this sketchbook. And now, I only draw in, like, you know, nice sketchbooks. I don't need to, like, pick up a sketchbook from the Dollar bin or, like, draw on a stack of, like, you know, computer paper because when I'm telling myself that my art is only worthy of drawing on a stack of loose computer paper, I'm telling a pretty telling story about what I think about my arts and what I think about myself as an artist. When I tell myself, my art is worthy of the sketchbook. I'm telling myself a different story. I'm really saying, Hey, man, I've got confidence in you. I believe in you and I believe in the art that you're going to make in this sketchbook, and that it doesn't matter if it's beautiful or if it's messy or whatever. Still deserves a pretty sketch book. So if you want to be a pretty sketch book person, be a pretty sketch book person. If you want to be a, you know, stack of paper person, be a stack of paper person. It's totally up to you. So I'm actually not going to suggest a sketch book for this course, but I'll tell you some sketch books that I like. So we've already talked about this one. This is an archer and O olive blank notebook. They're very pretty, which I love. The paper is really nice and smooth, and it's really lovely to draw on. So bonus. I've also drawn in these moleskin sketchbooks. These are actually not my favorite. I know a lot of people love these. There's just something about how the I don't know, how the materials push around on the paper that just isn't as satisfying to me. But more satisfying is these guys. So these are royal Talents, art creations, sketchbooks. They're actually pretty affordable. I think this size, which is, like, five by eight ish costs like ten bucks, 12 bucks. So they're pretty affordable. The paper is amazing. You can actually, like, this is acrylic ink on this page. You can really use, a decent amount of water and paint and marker on these. And the pages will buckle a little bit, but they can really stand up to a lot of damage. So these are kind of like my go to book because they're affordable. They come in super pretty colors. So, I get to keep up with my nice sketchbook practice. And I just really like the way that the materials that I use work on this paper. Now, if you are going to be using watercolor or anything that has anything that's really wet, material wise, this may not be a great choice. You can probably do a little, like dry ish wash of watercolor and get away with it. But because, you know, things like watercolor are going to soak into the paper, this paper is not made for that. For that kind of thing, you would actually want to have like a 100% cotton sketchbook. So look out for that if you want to use watercolor in your sketchbooks. Now, if you're using guash, these are still absolutely fine. These are great for markers, pencils, pastels, whatever you want to use. I love this one. One of the other sketchbooks that I'm kind of digging now, and this one's actually good if you want to paint. This is a Stillman and Burn Zeta series Sketchbook. And it's actually got it's got smooth paper, but it can handle a lot of paint. The pages, I think it's 140 pounds. So the pages are nice and thick. This is a little bit better if you like smooth paper and you like to paint with a lot of water. Like, right here, I used quite a bit of water, and no buckling or anything. And then one more option for your sketchbook is these handbook sketchbooks. This is one of their watercolor books, and it's got a really nice, like, textured paper on it, which, you know, obviously we like around here. But again, you don't need to buy a new sketchbook to get started in this course, at all, you can start with whatever you have. So grab something off your shelf. And get started. So before we head to the next lesson, let's actually talk about digital sketch books. Which is something that I liked for a really long time. I loved sketching in my iPad. My big problem with sketching digitally is that you have the ability to easily erase or undo things or move things around. Basically, all the things that make digital art amazing make it not so great for a sketch book practice because a lot of the spontaneity and the messiness is just going to be erased immediately. Now, that said, I know that not all of us have the same situations in life. So it may be that for you, it's easier to sketch and procreate on your iPad. If that's the case, I don't want to discourage you from doing that. I don't want to stop you from making art. I do want to encourage you, if at all possible. Get a sketchbook, make sss on paper. So you can really feel like what the difference is between sketching digitally and sketching on paper. I swear you're going to notice. That said, if you are 100% going to be sketching on your iPad for this course or just for your art life in general, here's what I recommend. No erasing, no undo. So that's it. Don't use your eraser for anything and don't undo anything. Every mark that goes down for your sketchbook, for your digital sketchbook is a mark that stays down. It's a mark that you have to work around and figure out how to work with. It's a way that you're going to be able to keep this foneity in your sketches. And it's going to take a lot of practice because we're also trained to automatically, like, hit the undo button and procreate or control Z in photoshop. So it takes a lot of practice to undo the tendency to undo. So If you're digital sketching, no erasing, and no undo, but I 100% recommend actually, like, sketching and painting on paper. You're going to learn so much. There are so many, like, happy accidents that happen on paper that you're just never go to run into if you're working digitally. For me, when I'm working digitally, it's almost like I have to manufacture those happy accidents. I have to know I have to know what the happy accidents even are first. So for me, I'm learning about those happy accidents in my sketch books. And then when I go to work digitally, I can be like, Okay, I like how these colors mixed or I like how these materials layered. So how can I bring that into my digital art? So yeah, that's my $0.02 about digital sketching versus paper sketching. I prefer paper sketching, but again, it's up to you where you want to get started. Alright, so you've got your sketchbook picked out now. So join me in the next lesson, and let's talk about choosing materials and colors to work with. 7. Choosing Materials & Colors: All right, artists. So in this video, we're going to be talking about choosing materials and colors. So let me talk a little bit about just a couple of ideas I like to keep in mind. I personally like to keep it as simple as possible, especially for this course. So I have chosen materials that don't require a special paper. So we're using this Royal Talents art creation Sketchbook, which will handle actually a lot of things pretty well, but for watercolor, that probably doesn't work. Um, so I'm making sure that I'm just choosing materials that we can definitely use here. And I also really like to have sketchbook materials on hand that don't require a lot of prep. So if I want to paint with Gach, you know, I have to get my paints and my brushes and water and towels, and it's a bit of a production, a fun one because I love painting and Gach. But sometimes you just want to grab some workers, make some scribbles and get started, right? And the materials that we've chosen here you can actually do a lot with. So I'm actually pretty excited to share that with you. So, let's talk about the materials that we've got laid out here. This is what I'm going to be using for the course, but I always 100% encourage you to use whatever you have. So if you have favorite materials, grab those. And if you have things that have kind of been like hanging out in the back of, like, your art drawer, like your art supply drawer, grab those and give them a try. And, of course, you know, if you are in the mood to buy some new things, these are some of my all time favorites. So again, Royal Talents art creation Sketchbook. This one is like five by 8.5 ish. Let's take the a little thing off. There we go. So now we can open it up and see that it's got really nice smooth paper. And so we can kind of get over the fear of the blank page here, which we will talk about a little bit in the next lesson. I'm just going to go ahead and open this up so I can start making some scribbles. So one of the first things that I want to start with is I want to start with these eco line brush pens, which are actually some of my all time favorite art materials because they're super easy to get started with. So let's pick a dark color here. So this one is deep green, number 602. And I love these markers because, like, look at how like juicy that is. Like, it's so pigmented when you use these markers, and I've got a little bit of water off camera here and just this Princeton Neptune square wash brush. So I'm taking a little bit of water and Dabne and look at this. You can actually get a watercolor effect with these eco line brush pens. Now, again, this particular sketchbook is not going to like a whole lot of water. So I'm actually going to be pretty mindful of how much water I'm using on this sketchbook. But I just think this is so cool that you can use these in this way. You can also blend colors together very easily. Let's pick a green here, and then let's just start coloring a little bit. And you don't have to use water, but I just think that I just think that it's fun, and I just want to show you how it works. Yeah, look at this. We can create these nice, like gradient fades of other colors. It's really beautiful. It's really satisfying. Let me just rinse my brush out real quick. So these are going to be my first material that I will almost always choose for my sketchbook practice. Eco line of brush pins. Another really cool thing about this particular brand of brush pin is that they're refillable. So you can actually pop the lid off here, and you can buy bottles of this liquid water color, and you can drop the color in here and then pop your lid back on, and you'll see here. If you look at the nib, it's actually got an extra nib on the inside. So this pulls all the way out, and you can swap it for that side when it gets worn out. So I just think it's really cool that these are so fun, so pigmented, and then also they're really eco friendly, so you don't have to worry about throwing the plastic marker bit away when you're done with it. Next step for me almost always is, these are neo color two water soluble wax pastels. These are really cool. This one is Jade Green. I will give you all a list below this video of all the colors that I'm using here, of everything that I've got selected. These are really cool because you can use them in a bunch of different ways. For this class, one thing that we will be doing with them, obviously is sketching. So I love that you can just use them as like a crayon. You can sketch with them. You can tilt them over on the side. And get some really awesome texture. Like, how cool is that? That's a really great texture. And again, I've got my little dar of water back here, and I'm just barely dipping my brush in it. Look at this. These are water soluble. So you can lay them down and then apply a little bit of water to them and get some really amazing textures and all kinds of different effects. You can also let me grab. Sorry, my dar of water is kind of gross. Yeah, just nasty. So you can also dip the tip of your crayon in the water. And use it like that. So you kind of get a really nice, like smudgy sort of effect. And then you can sort of lay it on its side and sort of paint with it like that. You can just do so many cool things with these. That's why they are like, over and over again, one of my favorite materials, because you know, again, you can use them as crayons, you can use them wet. You can dip them in water. You can put water on top of them. It's just so cool. They also this is a little wet, so this isn't going to work too well, but they also layer really nicely over your ecolne brush pens, which is nice. Now, one thing to know about No colors is that these two things, colored pencils and brush pens do not layer over top of these unless you've put water on them. So, like, this part, I've put water on it, and I can layer brush pens and pencils on top of it. But, like, this part right here is very waxy still, so it's not go to layer anything on top of it. And don't worry because for our day one sketch booking exercise, we're going to be experimenting with these materials and kind of seeing, like, what they can do. Because, you know, the best way to learn how to use these things is to, like, get in there and try things. Alright, so my next favorite, most often used material is these Karen dash luminance colored pencils. This one is number 739. It's dark Sap green. It's one of my favorites. These are so soft and so pigmented. So amazing. Layer over the arn dash. Again, you see here when I try to color over that wax, part of the neo color two, you can see that wax kind of shows through there. That's just part of learning how your materials work, and you might like that. So make note of that. They also go really well over the eco line brush pens. You can, you know, again, get a nice soft texture with them if you use the side of them. You can get a really nice firm pencil line. I like to grip my pencils and my brushes in different ways when I'm in my sketchbook. So sometimes I might hold out, you know, way at the end and see what I can get. And then sometimes I might grip really tight if I really need to do, like, some nice details. So I've got a variety of colors in all of those things so far. Now, Before we head to the next video, where we're going to talk about the blank page. Let's actually go ahead and talk about color. But a quick note before I forget, you will notice that one material that you do not see here is a eraser, and you will also notice that you do not see a graphite pencil anywhere. That's because we are in the practice of embracing our mistakes in our sketchbooks, because they're not really mistakes. They're just little stones on the path of our artwork fort, right? So No racing at all in this course, in my sketch books, no acing. So you will not see a graphite pencil, and you will not see an eraser anywhere. We're going to be drawing without sketching and getting some really quirky and fun results because of it. All right. So let's talk a little bit about choosing colors. No. You haven't actually seen what we're going to be drawing for this course. You haven't seen the reference photos. So I would actually encourage you to choose your colors now before you've seen the reference color the reference photos. Well, the reason that I love to do this is because, again, it just takes me down that path of, like, what if with my art? What if trees are orange? What if grass is blue. When I choose a color palette in advance of choosing my subject matter for that day, I just think that it kind of pushes me outside of my comfort zone, and I really encourage that for you as well. Um. So, this is the color palette that I'm choosing. I've been really into, like, sort of, like, greens and yellows and oranges lately. But if you're having a little bit of discomfort, choosing a color palette, I want to talk about a couple of ways that you can do that. So the first thing that I really recommend is just paying attention to color. Attention to things that you like, pay attention to color combinations that you like, or, you know, start with, like, your favorite color. Start with what you know and love, I think is some of the best advice that I can give you. So, like, I love this color palette right now. So I will use this color palette in my sketchbook until I get sick of it. So Sometimes that means I'm going to use this color palette of my sketchbook for a day or two. Sometimes it ends up being a week or two before I get tired of it. If you struggle with color, I recommend getting a color wheel. It's so helpful just as a reference. I can really do a whole class on color. Maybe I will one day. But for now, I'm just going to say, I recommend getting a color wheel that will show you the compliments compliments, complimentary colors, split complimentary colors, which are like a triangle shape, triadic colors, which will make like an actual triangle. And then you have tetratic colors, which are going to be four colors that go together. So my tendency with colors is to either build an analogous color scheme, which is actually what we've done here. So my analogous color scheme runs from orange, all the way over to like blue green. So basically, this whole half of the color wheel is the color scheme that I'm using. You can always use this side or like any other combination. As long as the colors sit next to each other, like in this row, they're going to be happy together in your illustration. So that's an easy way to think about that. My other favorites are complimentaries and split complimentaries. So if you know my work at all, you know that I absolutely love blue and orange. It's one of my favorite color combinations. Now, keep in mind when you're choosing colors from the color wheel, like, it doesn't have to be like this blue and this orange. It can be, like, a dark, like, indigo sort of blue, and then it can be sort of, like, a peachy sort of orange, like this one. This is just, you know, a starting place for you. This is just a place for you to get inspired. So, in addition to complimentaries, which are across from each other on the color wheel. I also love split complimentary. So a split complimentary means, so we'll go blue, which is my favorite. A split complimentary is the colors on both sides of the compliment. So blues, complimentary, color is orange. The colors on either side of that are red orange and yellow orange. So I can build a color palette that is blue, red orange, and yellow orange. Um Those are my favorites, but you don't have to follow the color wheel. You don't have to follow any rules. Just pick colors that you love and are excited to use. This is your sketch book, so this is a really great place to experiment and have tons of fun making art. All right, so let's take a look at This other little sketchbook that I've got right here. Look at this tiny little KD. Also, color note. I just, like, sat this sketchbook on top of the sketchbook, and I love these colors. Like, I could build a color palette around these two colors right here. So good. I love them. So, when you see stuff like that, Ma note of it so you can come back to it later. Now, One thing that I like to do is I have this tiny sketchbook, and I actually use it for color tests. So I'll test, like layering different colors of different materials. This was acrylic ink, I think. But I'll also use this to choose my color palettes. So I will, you know, scribble down some different colors. So here we've got some oranges and greens and like a pop of like purply pink. And then I'll find, whatever materials that I want to use that have those colors. I'm here, just choosing different palettes. Yeah, I've obviously done a lot of color tests in here with different materials. The reason that I like to do this is because I can come back to this if I'm feeling unsure about colors or overwhelmed, I can come back and flip through my little notebook. Like I love this color palette, all is like the earthy browns and rusts and then the pops of this darker blue green and this brighter green and the yellow. It's a really good palette. Yeah, when I need inspiration, I've got this little book here. It also gives me a place to test my colors if I want to. That's a nice one. Oh, here's that color palette I liked. It is a indigo, paints gray, and then a dark flesh 5%. Colored pencil. Yeah, looks really nice. So yeah, I just like having, like a little space like this to test my colors. You can also test your colors in your sketchbook, can use a scrap piece of paper to test your colors. Just do whatever feels exciting and comfortable for you. So One last thought about colors is When you're choosing your color palette, especially if you're doing something like this, where you're choosing colors before you have actually chosen your subject matter for a sketch book session, it's a really great idea to make sure that you have dark colors, medium colors, and light colors. So you'll notice like my green section right here from my Ecoline brush pens, I have a light green, which is a pastel green. Medium green, which is bronze green, and then I have a deep green, and then I also have like a turquoise screen. But you see here, I have different values. So that is going to help me create contrast and my illustration. It's going to give me a lot of different options. And if I don't have, you know, like, my yellows right here are actually pretty similar value wise, but I've kind of balanced that out because I've chosen a lighter yellow down here. This is a yellow neo coolor two pencil. So it's a little lighter in value, and then I've got this medium cadmium yellow, luminance pencil that's a little bit lighter. So I've got enough variation in not just color, but also in contrast in value. So that's really going to help me as I get started with Musketch booking. Alright. So head over to the next video, and we are going to have a lesson on the blank page or how to get over the fear of the blank page. 8. Fear of the Blank Page: He there, artist. Let's talk about the blank page, perfectionism, the fear of getting it wrong, the fear of messing up, the fear of not being good enough. As artist, I think we all suffer from fear of the blank page, whether it's a sketchbook or a canvas or, like, a document in photoshop. Like we all kind of suffer from the paralysis when it comes to getting started. So I have one trick that I'm actually going to share with you to help you get over your fear of the blank page. And here it is. The easiest way to get started is to get started. So usually, for me, that means getting started with something small or something that feels easy. So my go tos are usually testing out materials on the first page of my sketchbook, drawing a bird because that's something that's really easy, and I can consistently do well. Or just like smudging, paint and marker and whatever all over the page in my sketchbook. So let's take a let's take a look at a couple of my sketch books and see how I started these. So in this Archer and O olive, I started with some materials tests here. I was testing out. I think I was actually testing whether or not I could use water in the sketchbook. So yeah, I tested that out and then went on to draw on the next page, some pretty cute owls. Look at those guys. I love those guys. But the cool thing about starting out with, you know, making marks on a page or testing materials or drawing something that you're really familiar with is that it immediately gets rid of the blank page. It's no longer scary. You've already, you know, you've already drawn something, you've already messed up the page, so you're not going to, you know, make it any worse or better. Here's another one where I've just tested out materials on the page. And then on this one, I drew a bird. Because birds are something that I'm really comfortable with drawing. So for me, starting a sketch book with a bird. So like in this one, I painted a bird on the first page. This is a really good way for me to start out. On this one, I just smushed some colors around on the page just to get started. Any you know, any way to make marks on the page and just sort of get rid of, like, the scary blankness of it all. Any way that you want to do that, do that. I also use these methods when I'm feeling really uptight in my sketchbook. So if I feel like I'm like that perfectionism is creeping in, and I feel like I can only put a drawing in the sketchbook if it's gonna be a good drawing. If I start to feel like that, I'm gonna take some paint and slap it all over the next sketchbook page. I'm just gonna make a huge mess. Sometimes I'll draw something on top of that paint. Like, sometimes, you know, I'll kind of see something in the splatters and be like, Oh, that looks like, you know, a cute little bird or a monster or whatever. And then sometimes I just leave it. But because I have made the mess, already, because I've covered the page, it already gives me the comfort of knowing, Okay, well, this is already messy, so it's okay for me to loosen up. It's okay for me to dive into this and do whatever I feel like doing. So I hope this helps. Little bits. You know, just make it easy, make it approachable, and either make some marks, make some messes, or draw something that you are really familiar and comfortable with already. So head on over to the next lesson, and we're going to be talking about your seven days Sketchbook challenge for this course. 9. 7 Days of Sketching: In this course, I'll take you through a series of seven sketchbook exercises created with the intention of going through one exercise each day. So instead of rushing through all the exercises at once, I encourage you to go ahead and watch the videos, but then commit to doing one exercise per day for seven days. Slow down and give yourself time to ponder each day's work before moving on to the next. Might find it helpful to use a tracking sheet for this project, so you'll find one in the Project and Resources section, along with a reference photo PDF for inspiration. Over the next seven days, I'll guide you through some simple sketchbook exercises. You'll learn to loosen up and hopefully enjoy your sketchbook time. Each exercise will build on what you learned in the previous exercise, starting with Mark making on day one, and ending with a beautiful wildflower Sketchbook spread on day seven. Remember to release your expectations of what your art should look like, and instead, just follow the trail through the forest of your art and see where it lands. Embrace the process, practice, enjoyment of the making of the art, over focusing on the outcome. 10. A Simple Writing Practice: Because we're creative, we tend to be our own harshest critic. We see the worst in most of the art that we make. And that's why I like to include a simple writing practice along with my sketchbook practice, to help myself focus on finding the good stuff, and to appreciate the work that I've done, even when the work isn't good. At the end of each sketchbook session, take a couple of minutes to answer the following prompts right in your sketchbook in a journal or on the downloadable worksheet in the projects and resources section. First of all, find three things you like about today's sketchbook pages. What's one thing you'd like to try in a different way next time? And what did you learn today? 11. Day 1: Mark Making: All right, friends. Welcome to day one of our sketchbook seeds, beginnings exercises. Now, these exercises are designed to build upon one another. So today, we're going to be starting with mark making and really exploring our materials, experimenting with layers and creating textures and making different marks, experimenting with adding like water to blend things. And then, you know, as each day progresses through this week, we'll be adding in some new experiments, trying some different things until eventually we get to day seven, where we are going to be drawing a beautiful wildflower meadow in our sketchbooks. So as we work through these exercises, you can look at the reference photos if that helps you to feel inspired. For today, I actually am not going to be looking at the reference photos. I have scrolled through them on my iPad over here. And, you know, I've got some ideas just of, like, textures and colors that I want to keep in mind. So you'll see here that I've got my sketchbook opened to the first spread. You remember on the first page, we did some tests in the video about choosing colors and materials. So this is the first double page spread. And I've got these little exacto number two bulldog clips that I like to use to hold my sketchbook pages down, so they're not flopping all over the place. So my plan is that I'm going to on this side of the page, I'm going to lay out, like three rectangles in our marker, and then I'm going to test layering, like, different things on top of them. So let me actually start out with that. I'm going to use this is a apricot. And I'm just going to block in, like, some rough rectangle shapes and just color it in. This doesn't have to be neat, or it can be neat. Your sketchbook practice is your sketchbook practice. So if you want to be messy with it, be messy with it, if you want to be neat with it, be neat with it. I know, for my personal creative exploration, it helps me to be a little messy because I'm not really in real life, that messy. So it helps me to relax a little bit, I think, and sort of, like, uncover things in my sketchbook that I normally wouldn't be like apt to uncover because I'm a little bit up tight in general. So when I'm doing something like this, one thing that helps me to loosen up is to hold my materials like really far down. You notice, like, I'm holding this marker like down on the end instead of, you know, here. Again, totally up to you how you want to approach this. But what I want you to do is just what I'm doing, which is make three blocks of color. I have chosen an orange, a yellow, and a green. This is apricots, this is yellow ochre, and this is bronze green, which is actually one of my favorite eco line colors. I have this in like the jar watercolor two. Really nice. Now you see these are leaving like some, you know, marker marks as I smushed them across the page, so it's not a perfect block of color, and frankly, that's fine. So we're going to let these dry for a minute, because if you don't let these dry, when you start to layer on pencils and neo coolors, you're not going to get the expected effects. I'm going to go ahead and clip down this side of my page, too. I didn't think I was going to, but it's already starting to buckle up a little bit, so I'm just going to add that little clip. So let's go ahead. Let's test some water, so I've got my Princeton Neptune square wash brush. This is a quarter inch. It's got soft bristles, which I like. I'm just going to dab that in my water jar and give it a couple of dabs on clean towel. I'm just going to smear it on the edge right here. Just so I can see what kind of effects I get with these colors in this water. I really just love how it softens the edge of the eco lines. No, I got a little bit of yellow in there because I wasn't very mindful of rents in my brush. It's very typical of me and very fine because it's a sketch book. So I'm just going to wipe that out. Now, while we're waiting on those two chill out, let's actually hop onto this page. And let's test some marks. So I'm going to pick some different colors. Let's pick. This is a deep orange. So I just want to see what happens. If I hold the marker really far away, what kind of marks can I get? And if I hold it really up close and go very light on it, what kind of marks do I get then? And if I push down, Well, that's kind of cool, right? So that's cool for, like, drawing birds or flowers. Like, that's a really nice shape. And let's see if we can do it this way. Yeah, look at that. Look at those cute little tear drop shapes. That's something to make note of for future reference for sure. So let's see if et's see if you go this way, you kind of get this nice little like rough edge on the bottom, if you do your lines this way. So that's kind of cool to note. And if you sort of work it on the edge here, you can actually get some cool textures as well. So All good things to know. So let's grab one of our neo coolors real quick. I'm going to stick with oranges for this side, I think. This is a vermilion that is obviously broken a half. With these, I can try to use it on its side. And you'll see that I'm going to get a really nice texture here. I can make a really nice waxy line with these. I can also make like tiny little lines. I cover a lot of area here if I use the side of this. Let's dip it in water. Dip it in water and we'll get a little bit of a creamier texture that's fun, right? And then if we dip just the end of it in water, Yeah. You'll see that you get a lot of nice texture on the edges there. So that's actually really cool. Let's dab a little bit of water on our brush while we're at it, and let's just smudge across here. I really like doing this with the neo coolors because even after you wet it down, you'll still see a little bit of the original texture of the neo coolor you can actually pick up a little bit of color when you're smushing it around and then use that to make some more marks and some more textures. It's pretty cool. Let's rent our brush off. And now let's pick a colored pen. Pencils. So I'm going to just pick a dark cadmium orange, which is number 533. These are my favorite color pencils, again. So I can do a lot of different things if I hold these in different ways. So if I want to be really up tight with it, I can get some really nice uniform marks, and these are really just honestly fun to draw with this way. But I can also shade on the side. Which is really handy. This is like with the light hand. Then if I go with a heavier hand, you can see I can get much more pigment, which is nice to know. I can also try to just hold the pencil like on the end, so I'm not going to grip it too tightly. If I do that, then I can try to make Sa, I'm drawing a bird. And I want to do some feather details. It can make some really nice wonky shapes. Oh, my d broke. This is kind of, like, you know, the danger with the luminant spencils, is that they're very soft. So it's really easy if you're pressing down too hard to maybe break the lids. But then you can just use that edge to make some more, like, really cool textures and stuff. So all sorts of, like, fun ways that we can use these. So I'm hoping that for the stay one exercise, you're going to take at least 5 minutes to do this. Preferably longer. But, if you're easing into a sketchbook practice, I think it's a really good idea to start easy. So start with 5 minutes and see where it goes. All right, so let's start layering on this side and kind of see what happens. So over here, we've already added a little bit of water. Kind of see what happens there. I've got this Burnt Sienna eco line, and I'm just going to draw a couple lines down each one of these colors here. We can kind of see what happens. So we can kind of see like, how much transparency we're getting, how much layering there is. I'm going to dab my brush and water again, and I'm just going to run it down the edge of this second line that I've drawn here. Let's see how those blend together. The different layers. And again, you'll see my scotch book is already starting to buckle here. So, I use water sparingly as much as I can. But in this case, I think it's really important that we experiment a little bit to kind of see what layers over what. So let's pick. Let's go with a darker pencil for this. This is my dark sop green. So let's see how this layers over Eco line, and it actually layers so well over Eco line. It feels really good when you do this. Like, it's just it's kind of nice glide to it. So cool. Yeah, that's really nice. And then we'll see that like it does the same thing here where we added water on the edge. It really layers very nicely there as well. This is a little wet still this layer Vico line, but everything layers really nicely, and we can know, again, we can scribble on the side here. And get a lot of different texture and because you see I'm holding the pencil back a little bit further. It's getting a little wonkier, which I personally enjoy. That's pretty cool. All right. So let's now take a look at our crayons. Since we're already in this green range, let's pick this baby. This one is Jade Green, and let's just see what happens when we just draw over the existing colors. You can actually layer that over the illuminates just fine. Now, these are not totally opaque. As you're drawing, you'll see that it looks different on different colors, on different base colors. It's fun to experiment. Thought I would just stop and notice right here where I've added this water to this area of eco line. Look at that nice little splashy watercolor effect that we're getting there. Then this line is bleeding into this line and giving us a really nice effect. So These are all things to make note of as you are testing these out, like, what happens, when I layer things. What happens when I add water. What you know, thing layers that over one thing and it doesn't layer over another thing. So let's add some water. So let's let's do some little marks here and see what happens. So we'll just do some of these little guys right here. And I'm kind of this is one of my favorite ways to hold my neo coolors instead of like this. Hold it like this. Because again, it just lets it be a little wonky. And I think that's fun. All right. So we've got our little brush, and let's grab some water and see what happens here. We'll just use a little bit more water at the bottom to see how much it blends. And then at the top, maybe we'll do a little less scrubbing. So here, we'll just run that across there. And then down here, we might scrub and blend a little bit. Well, that's really nice, isn't it? That's a nice texture. Again, we're just going to run the water a little bit here and then down at the bottom, we'll sort of scrub. And this is actually, again, it's a pretty cool texture, and you'll see that we're getting some really nice lines and blends as we go through here making these marks. So that's actually really satisfying. Let's take a look at what happens when we layer the same colors again. This is the Apricot. Do we get any more darkness if we layer those together? And this is the yellow ocher And just like with using a lot of water, Layering a lot of eco line brush pen on this paper is something to do with caution. Let's look at the other side here. So you'll see here we're starting to get a little bit of bleed through here from our water. That's fine. That's actually why we don't very often use both sides of the sketchbooks. I have a lot of, like, blank backsides in my sketchbooks because I want to make sure that, you know, illustrations aren't bleeding through. Still want to have fun too. All right. So layered all of those things. Now, let's go back and let's pick a lighter colored pencil and see what happens and also a lighter luminance and see what happens. So I'm going to pick up this yellow. Let's layer it here on the ends, kind of see what happens on the eco line. So actually see that with the lighter colors, you're not going to get as much contrast, but you still get some nice blends. So I think that this is really fun and nice to know. This is a fun way to start your sketchbook. I think this is so fun. Let's see. What else do we want to test out? So that was a lighter color of neo coolor. Let's also try a lighter color of pencil. So I'm again going to pick a yellow. This one is medium cadmium yellow, number 520, and let's see what happens. Let's go back over here. I don't even know if you can really see that on camera, what's going on there. But we're kind of getting a really nice layering effect there, really nice blend. Well, obviously, this one, you're not going to be able to see really well because it's darker yellow. And then let's go down here and see. Again, you get sort of like a glazing effect. So that's actually cool too. All right. All right. So this is your first sketchbook spread. I'll finish. Take a minute to notice what you like. If there are specific marks that you want to commit to memory, so you can come back to them again. Textures, color combinations. And if you feel like it, do more spreads like this. Test out different ways of layering your materials, try pencils first, and then put markers on top of them, let's do that real quick since I mentioned it. So we've got some pencil right here. So we can see what happens if we lay your marker on top of that, which is actually kind of a nice effect. So I'm glad I mentioned that as an option. Yeah, sort of come back and add some extra layers here. So that's kind of cool. But yeah, so just pay attention to things that your light. You like things that you're curious about, shapes and textures that are interesting, different colors that are interesting, different spots where you've maybe tried to add a little bit of water to your sketchbook to see what happens. You know, there are all sorts of experiments and fun things to take note of. So as we head to the day two lesson, which here is my reminder to you that I know you probably want to rush through all these lessons, but I really recommend doing this over the course of a week and setting a calendar for yourself, like an appointment for yourself to day and do a brand new lesson. So I hope that you will notice things that you like about this. Make note of them as part of your simple writing practice for this. And then let it marinade. Let it sit until tomorrow. Come back tomorrow, and we're going to be doing the lesson on shapes and patterns. We're going to be using some of the things that we learned from this mark making lesson. So Before we sign off on this lesson, I just want to show you a couple of things that I like about the marks that I've made. So first of all, I really love the soft edges that you get from adding a little bit of water to the eco line, and I really love layering eco line on top of Eco line and then adding a little bit of water. I think that's just such like a nice watercolor effect. It's really beautiful. I love the contrast of this dark sap green with this yellow ochre. I think that's really satisfying. I also think this little section right here is really satisfying. Like the lighter sort of peachy colored background. Actually, it's Apricot. And then another layer of it right here, the yellow pencil, or I'm sorry, the yellow neo coolor and then we've got the blue neo coolor with a little bit of water right here. So that's really nice. I'm going to keep that in mind for sure. I think that might be useful as I work on my flowers. And then I just really like this little green section right here. Just the really sort of, like, earthy greens with the pops of yellows and the blues. Looks like a little landscape. So those are things I'm noting. I'm also kind of remembering, like the different textures and shapes that I made with, like, different brush strokes here. I hope you enjoyed this first lesson in our sketchbook practice. I can't wait to hang out with you again tomorrow when we're going to be doing a lesson on shapes and patterns that's going to build on this, and it's going to be really fun. 12. Day 2: Shapes and Patterns: Hello, artist, and welcome to Day two of Sketchbook SDs. Hopefully as Day two. Hopefully, you did this yesterday, and you can come back to it today and take another look at it and make note of anything else that you see that you like or don't like or, you know, that you're interested in bringing into your work as you progress through your sketchbook. In today's lesson, we're actually going to be thinking a lot about shapes and patterns, which is exciting. So I am going to We just pen down or clip down both sides of my s book. And now is actually a really good time to be looking at the reference photos that you got with this course. So you got a PDF that you downloaded at the beginning of the course, hopefully. It's got all of these different flowers in it, just isolated, different flower shapes. We've got, as you get further back in here, some sort of, like, meadows and landscapes and macro shots. Just a whole lot of, like, floral inspiration. And then at the end, I've added some leaves and foliage. For those of you who feel a little bit more inspired by those things. So what I want to do as I get started with Day two, Again, we're thinking about shapes and patterns in this lesson. So I'm keeping in mind what I learned yesterday about textures and shapes. But I also am going to be thinking more specifically about wild flowers today. Now, I'm not going to be drawing flowers from the reference photos. I'm actually not going to be drawing flowers at all. What I'm going to be doing is I'm just going to be concentrating on creating some bold shapes on my sketchbook page, and then I'm going to layer some marks and some textures and some patterns over that. Um, this is just, you know, another way for us to explore before we begin creating art more, like, final art in our sketch book. And if you're wondering if this is indicative of my process. Often, it really is. I really spend a lot of time in my sketch books exploring all the things that I'm sharing with you, exploring shapes and lines, and patterns and textures, and different ways of doing things. If you watched my sketchbook tour from earlier in this class, you'll see that my sketchbooks are really full of unfinished thoughts or just like little bits and pieces of thoughts. So that's kind of where we're at right now. We're just kind of getting a hold on the language of what we want to draw. What we want to say as artists, what we want to put down on these pages, and, you know, we're picking the way that is going to feel that's going to bring the least amount of friction. There's so pressure in this because, like I said, we're not picking this up and drawing flowers, like, write the second. We're kind of easing into it. So what I want to do right now is I'm actually taking a look at my PDF, and I'm just going to scroll through here. And as I scroll, I'm just going to make note of some things that I noticed as far as shapes go. So one of the first things I notice is these yellow Tandies, have these really nice sort of circular shapes. So I'm actually not planning this spread at all. I haven't practiced it, so Um, we're just going to see what happens as we go. So I'm going to go ahead and start with these yellow Tansis. I'm not really looking at them for direct reference. I'm just thinking of Okay, yellow dots. So that's what I'm going to do first. So I've grabbed my light yellow eco line brush pen. And I hope this shows up on camera because this is a very yellow yellow. I think it's okay. Yeah. And I'm just going to draw I'm actually going to draw a cluster of dots because in the reference photo, the tansy in, like, a little cluster. You can choose any shapes you want. You don't have to be inspired by this tansy. You can be inspired by anything in the PDF. You can be inspired by anything in your surroundings. You don't have to be drawing wild flowers if you don't want to. U I'm going to draw a couple more over here, so we kind of have like a balance on the page. Now, you can see from yesterday, a little bit of lead through is happening on the page here. It's fine, though. It doesn't really bother me. So let's go back to our PDF. And let's see if anything else pops out right away. I actually really like this. These little leafy shapes right here on this vetch. So let me Let's just draw some random shapes. I'm actually just going to use my dark sap green pencil here. Let's just start drawing in some shapes that echo that vetch that we saw. And let's do one over here to to kind of balance out the composition. Let's have it. Let's have a cross that circle. That's nice. All right. And now I want to draw in those sort of like oblong leaf shapes. So Let's see what we can do with the brush pen here. I am just varying the pressure on this as I go just to try to get like a leafy shape. And these aren't perfect. They don't even really look like leaves, but That's not the point here. The point here is that we're exploring shapes and patterns and a little bit of texture. And we're also just getting more in touch with the materials that we've chosen. You know, if you're using these eco lines for the first time, look, look how juicy that is. You're just getting used to, like, the flow of these pens or markers, getting used to how they layer over everything. Well, that's fun. See, I like this already. This is, I like these screens with these yellows. And these are all things that I'm just sort of like tucking away so that I will have them when I'm ready to make something more finished in my sketchbook or make a finished illustration somewhere else. Let's see what else we have. Oh. So I really like the shape of these. I like the sort of like Almost like a cup shape of the whole flower, and then I like the shape of the individual petals as well. So those are fun. I'm going to grab an orange because I don't have this color. Remember, I picked my color palette first. So I don't actually have this sort of, like, burgundy color available to me, which is frankly fine. I don't think that's a big deal. So I want to definitely draw L et's just draw some petals in the general shape of these flowers. Oh, wow. I really like that shape a lot. Hm. That's nice. Okay. And let's do a smaller one down here. I like when I'm drawing shapes like this. I like to actually just leave the marker or the pencil or whatever down on the paper the whole time. Just use it pushes me to make things maybe a little quirkier. Then they would be otherwise. All right. That's actually pretty cool too. I'm actually going to do a couple more of these. I feel like things are looking a little too even if I do three of those as well as three of the vines. I'm doing right across the bleed on the sketchbook here. I love sketchbook spreads that go all the way across. I think that's fun. Now that I'm looking at this, I kind of like this little like swoohy angle motion here. So I'm just going to build on that by adding these little shapes here. Again, this is not anything. I'm not trying to draw flowers. I'm not trying to make anything really beautiful. I'm just kind of exploring and seeing where it goes as we go. So let's have another scroll, and let's see what else we like here. There's a lot that I like. Honestly, they're flowers. There's so much that I like. So it's actually really hard to pick. I love these shapes. Um, I actually I love these little flowers right here. Oh, look at this. So, I don't know what plant this is. I'm usually better at plants, but I love these little, like, heart shaped sort of leaves. So let's add some of those in. Let's grab. This is one of my favorite Ecoline colors. This is bronze green. Oh, it's so good. So let's just grab a few of these little heart shaped petals, petals, leaves. I'm going to start just placing them ad. No real rhyme or reason. Let's just add a whole bunch of these. That sounds fun, doesn't it? All right. Those are really cute. Now, if you're looking at these and you're thinking, Oh, but in the photo, they have tiny stems on them. We're going to be going back and adding in some patterns and some line details and some textures. This is just about creating some bold shapes on your pages. Also, we don't have to follow these photos exactly as they are. We're just going to be making it up as we go, learning what we like, and exploring that. I really love these with the different kind of oval shapes. So let's include some of those in our sketch layout. And I wonder what color we should use. Feel like we've got a really good balance so far. So let's actually do these in a couple of colors. So this is a yellow ochre, and I think I'm going to do one that sort of runs right here to start with. So I'm actually just going to start filling in shapes and I think I'm going to switch colors as I go. That sounds fun. So we started with yellow ochre. Now we're going to switch over to deep yellow. This is a favorite yellow of mine, for sure. And you'll see there, I've got some nice mixing going on there. That's another thing that I love about these eco line brush pens is that they really mix a lot. You just get so many fun effects. So is this light orange? I don't know. Let's see. I can't tell if that's the color that are used or not, but we're just going to go with it. It doesn't really matter. It's not the end of the world. If we use a color that we've already used. And then let's grab this one we definitely have used, I think. This one is deep orange. I think that's the one we've already used. Or maybe it was the lighter orange. Yeah. Maybe use this one yet. Which is a shame because this is a great color. Oh, that's so pretty. I love that. I really love this. This is really fun so far. I hope that you're having fun, too. I hope that you're drawing along with me and having a lot of fun with. So I want to add in a couple more of these. Hm. So I think that I might do one right here. Let's grab our yellow ochre again. And let's Just start these shapes. I love taking a flower and just abstracting it into just it's, you know, little shapes, little details, and it doesn't necessarily have to look like the flower. Now, I'm going to scribble my marker here a little bit. As you'll see here, the tip is a little stained where it mixed in with that green. So I'm just kind of scribbling a blow up at the top of my page to clean it. Can do this on another sheet of paper. If this makes you feel panicky, you just scribble on the page that you're working on. You don't have to do this. It doesn't bother me. So I'm totally fine with it. Alright, I really like these. So I do want to do one more, and I think I'm just going to have it kind of run this way across the page. Yeah, so let's turn our sketchbook a little bit. I don't know about you. But I sometimes forget that I can turn my sketchbook or, you know, whatever I'm working on, because I, you know, I have been a photoshop illustrator for many years. And, photoshop, I work on a sintik, which, of course, I can turn it, but it's not the same as, you know, turning a piece of paper. So I'm kind of out of the habit of it. And that does solve that mystery. This was actually the light orange. Now, we've got the colors next to each other. You can see. Anyways, I do sometimes just forget the simple act of rotating your sketchbook or your paper. Can just be so powerful and can just make your life a lot better than it maybe otherwise was going to be. Oh, these are so fun. Okay. So let's see where we're at with this. I feel like we maybe need to add something in here because I think like this part of the page looks kind of bare. And it can be. You know, this isn't a finished illustration or anything. So it actually can be bare. Let's see what else we can put in here. Shape wise, that looks really good. I'm just kind of flipping through Our different options from our reference pack. There's so much good stuff in here. I actually think I'm going to go back and use these. So like this flower shape right here. I think I'm just going to do it kind of scribbly, like the flower shape is. I think that's a really I think that's a fun idea. So I am going to go back to our original yellow, which is this light yellow, and I think I want the size of the shape to be between this and this, and I just want to use them to fill in some space here. So I just kind of scribble. That's nice. Down here, we'll do one and we'll just have them overlapping a little bit so we can see what kind of effects we get because I really liked it when those overlapped. Okay. Fun. Then we'll do maybe one here. I picked up some of that green. That's nice. We'll do a little one here. And then I think just one here is really good. Okay. So we need to take a second, and we actually need to let this dry. Because again, if you are trying to use your crayons or your pencils or wet marker, it's going to behave a little differently than, you know, it would otherwise. So at this point, I think I'm actually going to use a little bit of water. While we're here because that was one of the things I liked yesterday. So I've got my quarter inch square wash brush. I'm just going to dip it in a little bit of water and then dab it on a towel because again, this sketch book is not a watercolor sketchbook. It's not actually made for this, but it can handle a little bit of water, which is nice, especially with these eco line markers because they are so pigmented and if you add just a little bit of water, you can get some really gorgeous effects. You see down here at the bottom, the brush is dry. I'm actually getting a dry brush, texture, which is nice. I'm just going to do this on this specific part of this page because I don't want to I don't want to be waiting forever on this page to try. Okay. I think if I just do these little bits here, I think this can dry while we're working on some of the other pages. Now you'll see here because I used a lot of water on this first one. I really lost a lot of definition. That makes me sad. I'm actually going to go back in with some markers and see what we can pick up here. This is already wet. I'm going to get some different effects by going in here with my markers. This is just another really fun way to explore shape and texture and mark making, see what happens when I layer this in. Now, because this is wet, and these markers are very, like, you know, juicy. We actually don't want to do too much of this layering because the pages will begin to pill. I don't know if you can see this in the video, but, like, right up here, the paper is starting to, like, come away a little bit. So we want to make sure that we're not being too hard on our paper. So this one I added too much water to I do like these shapes right here. Actually, I really like this one, where you kind of have this dry brush sort of thing, so just very little water, I think is the way to go. And then I also love this. It has a nice amount of water as well. All right, so now it's time to jump in and start adding some patterns and some lines and some shapes to this page that shapes. We've already got shapes, textures. We want to add textures. All right. So I'm actually going to start with these yellow dots, which were some of the first things that we drew. And I'm thinking back to what the reference image looked like. But I'm not actually looking at the references at this point. I've turned off my iPad and set it off to the side. At this point, I'm just trying to remember what I saw as I was being inspired by these shapes, and I want to start filling these in. So with the Tanss, for example, I know that I'm going to start filling them in with circles. I'm using a dark cadmium orange karen luminous pencil. Look how pretty that looks over those. Oh, I was actually going to fill this all the way in with dots, but now that I see just the center, I like that. And then that'll give us some room to play with some more cool textures and lines. That's exciting. Yeah, we'll come back to that and fill in a little bit more. Now, since we're on day two of this sketch book course, your goal for today is to work in your sketchbook for 7 minutes. I've obviously already gone longer than that. So don't feel like you need to fill up this much space, give yourself permission to do what feels good for you instead of feeling pressure to do exactly what I'm doing. So if you need to work less time on this page, then definitely do that. Your goal is 7 minutes. I am very distractedly, going to go longer than that. So I know I said we weren't actually drawing specific flowers, but I couldn't help it. I really wanted to turn these into flowers. You know, so that's what we're doing here. We're making these little flowers. You see, I got this little boop here. That's fine. That's not the end of the world. So that goes behind there. Another one here. Those are kind of cool. So let's think about these guys right here. I think I'm actually going to pick up this dark sap green pencil that I love so much and just make them sort of like I don't know. Maybe they're just little leaves floating through the air on the breeze. Or maybe they're just fun shapes that I like to draw. I think it's fine either way. That's nice. Pretty. Oh, I forgot this guy, didn't I? I bet you saw the items I was drawing, and you were like, She's missing one. Alright. We'll get that guy. That's pretty cool. Alright, I love that. So now, this is dry. Yeah, this is dry, but we actually need to deal with these as well. So I actually want to grab. I wonder what color we should use for those. I really like this orange. This is, um Oh, this is a neo Color two pastel. It's number 50. I'm not sure what color it is. I think it's actually just orange or it could actually be flame red. I love flame red. So I am going to sharpen this really quick. This is a Fiskers, crayon sharpener that I use for my neo coolor twos. It works really well because I like my neo coolor twos to be fairly sharp when I use them. So that works well for me. So I am actually going to do a pattern on these. I'm going to draw in stripes. I really like the look of this orange on orange. Again, just making note of that for future reference in just for this sketch book series and also just for the future. I like this this color combination lots. This is one of my favorite bits of pattern in my sketchbook is adding stripes and dots to things. Now, you might find that you like something different. You might find that you like drawing organic shapes or squiggles and wiggles and things like that. What whatever feels good to you is what you should be doing. You don't have to worry about what I'm doing or what any other artists are doing. You just have fun being you. That's one of the cool things about a sketchbook is like this is if you're a professional artist, if you're working illustrator, if you work with clients or customers. A lot of your art is going to have some other people's opinions involved in it. That's sometimes hard. It's nice to have this one space where you know that it's just for you, and no one. No one else matters right now. This is your sketchbook. That's all that matters here. It's just that you are having fun and exploring your art. So let's I wanted to add a little stems here. We're drawing like a pseudo flower garden at this point. Not actually based on any flowers, but this is good information to know as we go through the lessons over the next seven days and do a lot of experimenting. This is how we get to know what we're going to end up drawing. Because we're not going to end up drawing on day seven from reference photos. We're going to look at the reference for inspiration. Of course, we love that. But we're not going to be staring at the reference, we're not going to be letting the reference loord over our creativity. Let's keep that in mind now. All right. So I want to do a couple more things on this one. I want to add some lines to these yellow tansy dots. And I actually think I'm going to pick. I'm going to use this Karen Dash. This is a jade green. I've also got a pencil over here that is cobalt green that I think would be really cool for this. But I don't know. I just very often like the wonkiness of the neo coolors. Oh, look at that. Isn't that fun? Yeah, I kind of just love how this line is a little more uneven than if I was using the colored pencil. It's actually one of the things I love about the No Color twos period is that it kind of forces me to not be as uptight as I naturally am. And I actually don't say uptight as, like, a negative thing. Like, I think in general, it's not the worst. But when it comes to art making, I think it's fun to let go of the perfectionism. I love this, though. I love this yellow with the orange centers and the blue lines. Like, I love it. So again, making note of that is something that I might want to come back to as you know, I progress through here. So when I finish this drawing in my sketchbook and I go to, you know, my writing exercise, this is one of the things that I'm going to note that I really like. I like this color combination a lot. Love this combination of, like, you know, a circle shape and tiny little dots in the middle and then stripes on the outside. I think that's actually pretty cool, and that's something that I can definitely use. Now, I've grabbed the cobalt green pencil, and I'm going to try to add some little like petal bits here, you see that I have actually kind of given up on the idea that this is not a flower garden because it is obviously a flower garden. We did start with some, you know, bold shapes, and now we're just adding textures and details and kind of seeing what happens. So, you know, you might want to you might be using different materials than me. So if you are Make sure that you're looking back to your day one exercise when you need inspiration and that you're thinking of the different ways that you can hold your pens and pencils. I forgot another one here. That's okay. Cross it over there. All right. And now I think I'm actually going to hang onto this guy. Actually, you know what? I'm going to use this guy. This is a number 229, No Color two. It's already kind of sharp. So I'm actually going to use it to add some details onto these flowers. So let's, I don't know. I'm kind of nervous about this choice here. But this is a sketchbook, and this is part of the fun of a sketchbook practice. You know, you're trying things that may not necessarily go well. And if they don't go well, which I kind of at about this choice right now. I'm not sure that it was a great choice. But, like, if it doesn't go well, then it's cool because I can try something else. So I'm actually going to pick up this vermilion instead and see if I have different feelings if I use it to add some details to this flower. You know, this happens with sketchbook practice, and this happens with art. Sometimes you're cruising along, and everything is going really well, and you're really happy with how everything is turning out. And then you make one choice. It goes a little sideways. Not that this has gone sideways, but I actually think that I like these better when they're just the dots when they don't have these details in them. So, you know, that's just a little something to make note of as I work on the next lessons in my sketchbook. So let's turn this. I'm trying to think if I should try a different color instead, or if I should just commit to this one. Just for fun, let's try the pencil. So this is my dark cadmium orange, luminance, and I'm actually just kind of kind of hold it. In weird. Again, because I'm trying to let things be a little quirky. I'm trying to uncover what happens when I don't hold on so tightly to the art that I'm trying to make and instead just wander along the path of what maybe the art wants to be. Maybe where it wants to go. Okay. Alright. So that's it for D two's shapes and patterns exercise. I hope that you enjoyed this. I hope that whatever you are creating so far, you've enjoyed the process. You don't have to love the outcome, but I really hope that you can get to the place where you really enjoy the process more than anything. And then, of course, take a few moments as you wrap this up to go through your writing exercise and to make note of the things that you like, and also make note of the things that you maybe want to work on in the future. All right. So, again, I encourage you to do these exercises, just one per day. So you've got plenty of time to marinate on this, and then when you come back to it tomorrow, you will have new eyes, fresh eyes, and you'll see some things that maybe you missed before. So give it a day. I'll see you tomorrow. And for Day three, we're going to be doing some contour drawing. 13. Day 3: Contours: Hello, artists. Welcome to day three. In this lesson, we're going to be doing some contour drawing. So I'll show you what I'm talking about in just a second. We're going to be doing some regular contour drawings and then some blind contour drawings. This is day three. So if you're working up, if you're stepping up your sketchbook time every day this week, today, you'll be spending at least 10 minutes on this exercise. So I've actually pulled up a reference photo from our bunch of this I forget what kind of flower this is because I'm recording, so, of course, I can't remember. But we've got a lot of different angles with this flower, and I think this is going to be a really cool one to experiment with. Now, the gist of a contour drawing is that you are drawing by keeping your pen, pencil, marker, whatever, on the page. You're not lifting it up at all. So there's one version where you can look back and forth between what you're drawing and your reference photo. And then there's another version where you look at the reference photo, you do not look at your drawing at all, and you kind of see what happens. So we're going to do both of these, and then hopefully that'll inspire you to get going. So I am going to choose material. I actually really like the Karen dash neocolors for this. But I'll show you example. Examples of a few different materials as well. We'll do one of each. So I would actually suggest doing testing on each of your materials, and then whichever one feels like most, you know, intuitive and fun for you. I would do more examples with that. So, again, I've got my reference photo here, and I'm going to be doing a contour drawing right now. So I'm actually just going to be looking back and forth between the reference and my page here. And I'm not going to be lifting my crayon off the page, and I'm actually going to hold it. I like to hold them this way because it gives me even less control. Which, again, for a person who really likes to be in control of everything and tends to get a little easily uptight in her art. This is a really good exercise for me. It's really enjoyable. It doesn't make me feel panicky at all, which has taken a long time, honestly. But, yeah, I have come across all sorts of, like, you know, good ideas that I don't think I would have come across if I had not allowed myself to be a little messy in my art sometimes and try some new things. These are fun. Oh. See, this is where the fun comes in. So again, looking back and forth between my drawing in my reference photo and I am not picking my crayon up at all and just tracing back across. Oh, I'm going to put this one on the side. Actually, it's on the opposite side on the reference photo, but I don't want to cross the page here because I want to be able to use it again in a minute. Okay, so fun, right? This, to me, is always really exciting because, I'm uncovering some, wonkiness and some quirkiness that I probably wouldn't uncover, otherwise. So this kind of forces me to explore a little bit, which is very fun for me. Alright. So I've picked up aluminuus colored pencil now. This one is a number 850. It's Cornelian. This time, I'm going to just be looking at my reference photo. I am not looking at my hand. So you're looking at my hand. I'm not. And I am choosing a different reference this time. So Let's see how this goes. All right. And this is a funny exercise because I'm telling you the temptation off the page I felt that. Temptation to look and to see what's happening is so strong. Oh, gosh. I just I don't know. I feel I feel very tempted to look, but I'm not going to go back across for the last leaf shape. Oh, you know what? That's actually not bad. This part actually went pretty well. Compared to the reference photo. This is hilarious, but I also kind of love it. I feel like there's, like, some magic happening here. So I'm going to go ahead and turn to a new page of my sketchbook here. I'm going to pick another reference photo and I'm going to pick my trusty Bronze green Eco line pen. And we're going to start. Let's do another blind contour. I think that was actually really fun. So let's do another one of those. I'm actually going to pick this. We did this one first, and then this one. So I think I'm going to pick this one. Um because I think it can go across this double page here, and that's going to be really cool. All right, again, I'm going to do a blind contour, so I'm actually not looking at what is happening here. I actually Other is the gutter. And then let's just try to get those shapes in. There's one that goes across. I can't really see what my marker is doing, but I really feel like I'm probably pushing on it a little bit hard. Sorry, marker. Okay. Okay. I just feel like this is. This is so funny because, like, in your head, you're just like, Oh, no. This has gone sideways, but you also can't see. It's done. Okay. Okay, well, that actually is not quite as sideways as I thought it was going to be. So I feel like that's pretty pretty exciting for me. All right. So that's going to be it for day three of contour drawings. Now, you can keep going with these. I actually encourage you to keep going with these. Don't just try three. So like, of I started with the neoclor. I tried luminous pencil, and then I did the marker. I actually like the marker the best. It just felt really nice to draw with, you know, they're just so soft. Um, so it felt really nice, and then I don't know. I just there's something satisfying about this whole layout here, so I love this. As always, I just want to remind you to take a few minutes to do your writing exercise about your experience today. Make some notes of what you like and then make some notes of what you'd like to explore in the future, as well. Spend at least 10 minutes on this. So you can actually do quite a few contour drawings in a ten minute period. So that's very exciting for you. So, hey, I'll see you tomorrow. For Day four, we're going to be working with some blobs and lines, which is going to be really fun. 14. Day 4: Blobs & Lines: Hello, friends, and welcome to our Day four Sketchbook Seeds Exercise. Today, we're going to be drawing some blobs and lines in our sketchbook. This is going to be a really fun way to get to know some of the flowers that are in our reference photos and some of the things that, you know, we think we might be inspired by. Now, you actually don't have to draw the same things that I'm drawing. I hope that you don't. I hope that you explore things in this reference packet that are really interesting to you, or if you don't find anything interesting in these flowers. I hope that you dig up your own reference and explore the things that feel exciting and curious to you. So we are going to do an exercise that I call blobs and lines. Um, you remember when we started this, I mentioned that we are not going to be doing any sketching, so, which I know was weird for a sketchbook course. What I basically mean is that we're not going to be doing any, like, pre drawing. So we're not using any graphite pencils to sketch anything in. We're actually just kind of like free wheel in here. And this is going to be an exercise that you're either going to think is really fun or it's going to drive you batty. So I think that you're going to think it's really fun, though. So I'm actually going to focus on this flower, first of all. I'm going to show you a couple of examples of this. It's just a really fun exercise. So I'm going to start by laying down some blobs of color. And I'm going to be doing that with my neo coolor markers because, you know, they're really juicy and fun. So I'm going to start with a deep orange, and my intention is to capture these shapes right here. So what I'm going to do is I am looking at this right now. Thinking about what this looks like, thinking about how these connect to the stems. And yes. I'm doing as much as I can to remember that. And now I am setting my reference photo off to the side, and I'm not looking at them. I want to. I really want to, but I'm not going to. So I'm going to use my marker here. And I'm just imagining there's a stem right here. So I'm going to use my marker to draw in some blobby shapes. I think. There were three stems of these. I'm going to make three stems cause I like, like, odd numbers of things in art. And I actually don't think this is right shape wise to have them going down both sides, but I also don't care because it's my sketch book, and I can do whatever I want. And if I want them to look like this, that's fine. I try to do a little bit of lighter. Yeah, that was not lighter. All right. So that's cool. Oops, made a little smudge there. That's okay. We'll survive it. Let's grab our reference again. Oops. So yeah, that's fine. That's my interpretation. So, down here, these little guys are just kind of like standing straight up, like a little row of like Cyprus trees. So I'm going to draw these in now using my I'm actually going to use the dark green or deep green because I love it. Reference photos off to the side. Not looking at it, really want to. And now I'm just going to draw in these shapes. Oh, that's nice. Just going to kind of draw them in in a way that feels possible. Yeah. We're going to do a couple of different versions of this exercise. So you get to explore with it a little bit more because we don't always have to be drawing these single line shapes like this. We can draw some different shapes. This one's really satisfying, though. I feel like the line that it makes is really nice. We'll run that one off the page. And now this guy is going to need one kind of hat intended to make this a double page spread, but this is where we're at. I like those shapes a lot. So I'm making note of that. All right. Now Let's bring these babies all together. We've drawn some blobs, and now we're going to bring it all together with some lines. So I'm actually going to stick with my neo Color two crayons because I know that I will get a less perfect line. So I'm going to start right here and run a stem to connect these petals. Alright, I think that these have, like a stem on the bottom. Hm. Um, It's pretty nice. Let's connect all that. We'll connect this one. Now this guy. Let's run a stem here, skip there. Then we'll connect this stem over here. That's cool. Now we'll just run a line down the middle. Again, we'll skip there. Run this down, and then we'll connect this guy over here. All right. So I I want to at this point, I can actually go in and just give this a little more depth, why not? Let's do that while we're here. I'm actually going to grab a yellow pen or marker. And since we've already started with this idea of these shapes, let's stick with it. And let's just fill this in. We'll do maybe three or four of the yellow ones. Fit in here. Then for the yellow ones, let's go ahead and connect these. Let's pretend those connect to the orange stems. Cool. And this one is on its own. All right. And now let's go in with a different green. Let's pick this bronze green, my favorite, and let's add in some more of these cool little leaf shapes here. Let's layer this while we're doing this. Let's layer our colors and our neo coolors let's just see what happens. Those are a little close together. I'm not actually a huge fan of that, but I tried it. So now I can go back to having them not connect. Maybe add one out here. Drapes off the end of the page. All right. And then let's connect these as well with our Karen. I'll just connect them to their stems. Alright, so that's kind of fun. I really find these shapes to be really satisfying these little sort of leaf shapes. And I actually I don't love the shapes of the orange ones, but I really kind of like the yellow, which were very similar to the leaf shapes. All right, so this is the reference photo that we started with. And this is what we ended up with in our sketchbook. And this is because we're not drawing directly from these photos. We're really just trying to pick up some information when we look at the references and then impart that on our sketchbook in our own way instead of just trying to draw from reference photos. So let's do one more of these really quickly. And I think let's go back to the tansy. I love this one. So Yeah, I'm just going to draw this set of circles. We're going to set that off to the side. This time, I'm going to start with this number 20 Karen and I'm just going to use the same spread here and let's just draw some circles for tans, leave the centers a little empty. Let's draw some blobs. These are fun. This is like a fun little bouquet of flowers. Let's add some color variation in here. I'm picking up my what I think is a flame red. And let's add some dots in the middle here. Kind of remembering that color combination that I did on day two with the yellow and the orange. They look like eggs right now. Let's also. Let's draw in some circle shapes. Well over here. Vals. Let's go and fill those in. L et's make some blobby circle shapes. Okay. Now, the tansy is, I remember, have kind of like a stiff sort of stem that come down, and then they have almost like a ferni leaf. So let's try to do that leaf first, and then we'll draw the stems in. So it's actually kind of similar to this. I think we can kind of do it in a similar way. Maybe show another side of it. Again, we're 100% not trying to be realistic here. We're just trying to explore some shapes and some colors and some textures and some lines, and just have some fun with it. All right. So I do like that. So I think also the tansis kind of have a little bottom part to each flower. I mean, if they don't, they do know. Or these do because they're not actually tanss. These are whatever I want them to be. And whatever flower you're drawing in your sketchbook or whatever thing you're drawing in your sketchbook, you can draw it in whatever way you want to. No rules. All right. And now let's connect the stem to the leaves. And I think maybe these connect to a main stem. Again, I actually don't really care what's supposed to happen. I'm 100% just drawing this and whatever way feels intuitive to me. And sometimes that is not going to work. Sometimes it is going to work. I actually find this to be really satisfying. So, you know, again, the practice here is to draw in shapes without looking at your reference photo for too long. So you can take a look at your reference photo when you start. So in this case, we've got our tansy here. I was just really kind of looking at the shapes of the flowers and the stems. You can see that I didn't really get it quote, right. But you can see that this is definitely sort of inspired by this for sure. And these leaves are inspired by these leaves. So when I look at the reference photo, I actually see, I don't know if you can see there's some really cool little, color variation in the stem there. So I actually want to do that real quick. I'm just going to take my orange neo coolor and just kind of layer it over. Just as a visual reminder to myself of, like, Oh, hey, I saw this and I liked this. I'll just run a little stripe down there. That's pretty cool. I don't want to go too crazy with it. Again, I love this color combination. I'm very happy with it. Very excited by it. So for today's drawing exercise, I hope that you are having lots of fun with the blobs. I hope that you are going to give yourself at least 15 minutes on this exercise if you're going on the step by step method of building your sketchbook practice. So give yourself at least 15 minutes, if not more, because I think that as with most of these exercises, like, you're just going to have a lot of fun. You're going to want to go for longer than 15 minutes. I know that I definitely do. So don't forget your writing exercise. Pick out some things that you enjoyed about this process, pick out some things that you would like to explore a little further in the future. Again, I hope you're doing these exercises like one day at a time, so you have time to marinate on everything that you've done so far and sort of collect your thoughts and learn what you like and what you don't like. Um and come back to these with fresh eyes each day, because I could come back to this tomorrow and see something that, like, I absolutely love and want to check out further, or I can come back and see something, like, Oh, like, that definitely did not work. And that's fine, too. That's good information to have. So I will see you tomorrow for day five of Sketchbook sets. We're going to be talking about negative space, which is if you remember, from my polar bear Sketchbook tour, negative space is one of my favorites. I'm really excited to share it with you, so I'll see you tomorrow for our negative space exercises. 15. Day 5: Negative Space: Hello. Hello, artists. Welcome to Day five of Sketchbook Sets. Today is one of my favorite exercises. One of my favorite sketchbook exercises. I talked about it 47 times so far, especially during the sketchbook. And that exercise is negative space. So, let's take a look at our reference real quick. So I'm actually going to pick this clover as my reference photo this time. And what I'm going to be doing because I'm drawing the negative space, I'm not going to be drawing the flower. I'm going to be drawing the shapes around the flower. And then after I filled that in, I can go back in and draw the flower itself. Now, the reason that I love to do this is just really because you've heard this over and over again in this course, working in negative space just helps me make it a little weird. Just It helps me come up with designs and layouts that have little bit more zing than what I would just normally naturally draw, which, again, you know, I've said it 1 million times. I'm kind of, you know, like, tightly wound as a person. And that feeds over into my art. It has for years. So it's really important for me to find ways to loosen up, and I don't want to say force to encourage myself to try things in a different way that I wouldn't necessarily kind of, like, lean towards on my own. So, I am going to be looking at the reference photo. It's off to the right here. Let me ski it over a little bit. I think you might be able to see it this way. It's the clover design that's in your reference photo, PDF. And again, I'm going to be focusing on negative space, so I'm just going to be drawing everything that's outside of the flower first. And then I'm going to fill it in. Again, no sketching. We're just going to trust in the process and really just embrace the knowing that we're going to get more interesting results by not sketching first. So for this one, I do recommend choosing a single flower or, you know, something like this clover, one of the flowers on an isolated background, so you can really see the shapes of the outside of the things. Now, this is going to be a should be at least a 20 minute exercise for you. If you get it done faster than that, go through it again, for sure. Alright, so I am going to be looking at my reference photo as I go this time. And I'm going to start with my I'm going to start with ego line brush pens, and then I think we're going to layer on some neo coolor after that. So I'm going to start with my bronze green, and The hard thing for me when doing things like this is remembering the stems of the flowers. That's always tough for me. So we'll see how this goes. All right. So we've actually got three flower heads here. Just kind of do the outside of those. Get in there. And let's go ahead and get the other one. And I'm just focusing on what's outside of the flower. So you can see my shapes are already gone a little bit weird. That's okay. And I'm not going to draw all of the leaves that are in the reference photo. I'm just going to do my best to get as many as I can. So I'm going to start with this one, just kind of getting a stem on it. Yeah. And then as we get down here, we're going to have some leaves as well. So this one, let's draw the stem. First. Okay. Now I'm going to start drawing some leaves on these two. So if I draw a leaf here, I'm actually going to switch. I'm going to switch up my color as I go here. So I don't actually know if this is going to work at all. But let's see. All right. So I'm going to start blending my collars together. I hope that it's reassuring to you to see me kind of fly by the seat of my pants. As I go through these exercises. Just know that they're not actually planned in advance because I really I mean, the exercises were planned, but I didn't really have any practice or anything like that. So I'm really, very much just kind of, like, again, flying by the seat of my pants at this point. I have a general idea of what I'm doing. But as far as, like, you know, having tested out collars beforehand or anything like that, p. Absolutely not. Just a Just seeing what happens here. So this and let's do a leaf here. See, this is a tricky part, and look, I just messed up. That's okay. I just messed up a little bit because I close this off, and that's okay. We're going to live with this. It's going to be fine, guys. It's going to be fine. We're just going to pick it up down here. A little bit. You know, we'll just pick up the stem shape down here. There we go. And then we'll start bringing in some more leaf shapes. And I've kind of blended my markers together now. I actually think that I might go through here and add a little bit of water to these here in a second. I think that sounds fun. Outside of that leaf shape there. I still got this guy up here that we actually haven't done anything to, so that's going to be fun to get to. And I want to do one more leaf. On more leaf right here. Okay. And now let's go back in. You know what I was going to add a through color, but I just I I'm not convinced that's a great idea. At this point. Just not convinced it's going to work. And this, I think is going to be enough color for the background. I don't want to forget that I also am going to be adding colors to the flowers themselves. So I'm trying to keep that in mind as I go along. So I'm just using the bronze green. And this is deep green. And like I said, here in a second, I'm going to start adding a little bit of water to this page just enough to kind of blim these edges because I think they're a little rough right now. All right. So I've also closed this stem off accidentally, so it can't meet up with its friends over here. Which is fine. You know, I I kind of like that you're seeing an exercise that maybe hasn't gone perfectly, and we can fill in the blanks as we go through here. Alright. So this is my negative space. Done. So again, this is my flower that I'm working with. And I'm just sort of picking, you know, my own colors because I don't I don't have any of these colors in my palette, which is absolutely fine, and I love it. Now, this might be a little bit too much water on this brand of Sketchbook. But the worst that's going to happen, is the color is going to bleed through the back of this page a little bit. And that just means that when we flip over to the next spread, just we just won't use the back of this page. So it's actually really not a big deal. Now, I'm just dipping my brush in water and then tapping it off on a paper towel, so it's not like, you know, fully the wettest brush on earth. And I'm kind of doing a little bit of, like, a scrubbing motion. I'm really mean to my brush, all, so I just know that and accept it, especially for my sketchbook practice. I'm kind of mean to them. Not mean to them. I just, you know, I like dose. I don't like to fuss over whether or not I'm treating material correctly. We're doing the right thing. I just kind of like to get in here and make a mess. And see what happens. Times what happens, does that make a mess? And I say, Okay, I learned. You know, what I don't want to do or I learned what I need to pay more attention to. And that's kind of what's happened here is I've learned that I do need to pay a little bit more attention. W I'm working on this, but we're going to save it. It's gonna look amazing. It's going to look really good. All right, so I'm going to go ahead and add a little bit more color to the background. So I'm going to grab my neo colors. And this is actually still pretty wet, but I think that's going to be nice now. I don't want to press too hard again, because this paper is wet. I don't want to tear the paper. I'm just being mindful of that. I'm just adding some yellow into some of these green spaces here. Just to really almost burnish it. If I hadn't been so irresponsible with my water, I could go in and add some more water over this neo coolor layer that I'm doing. But because I've already added quite a bit of water to this page, I don't think it's safe to add more. If you're using a skatch book that is, you know, a little sturdier, Then, by all means, go in and add another layer of water over this and kind of see what you get. Isn't this an awesome texture, though? I love this texture. Let's go ahead and use this light olive on some of. Do we love that? I'm not really sure that I love that, but I've started it, so I'm going to add just a couple of little spots of it. And then I'm going to go back in with a different color. Sketchbook practice, y'all. This is what we do. We try things. We see that they don't work, and then we commit to trying different things instead. All right. So this is Jade Green. This is one of my favorites. And you'll see that layered over this deep green eco line. It actually kind of looks blue. I'd actually kind of like this. This kind of looks like reminds me of a map of the earth, you know, with all the blues and greens. That's really satisfying. Just keep filling in this space here. Just to give it a nice cohesive look. Now, once this is dry, we might go back in and add some extra layers. But we'll see what it looks like when it's dry. Honestly. That's the real test. What it looks like when it's dry. Alright. So gosh, isn't that pretty? I think that's so pretty. Now. Alright, so now we're going to go in and start adding in some of our flower details. So I think one of the first things I want to do is just fill in the flower shapes. So I've got an act. No color two, I'm actually going to leave some of the white halo around my flower shapes because I think it's going to provide a nice level of contrast between the flower shapes and the background. I like that. You don't have to. You can fill in all the way to the edge if you want to, but I just really like that contrast. Let's go ahead and add a little bit of water to these. Now, you might remember with neocor the only way that you can layer pencil or marker over them is if they've been, you know, wet like this. It takes away some of the waxins and spreads out the pigment. So that's why I want to go ahead and give those just a little bit of go over with The water. All right. For the leaf color, I'm actually going to pick up this jade. This jade green again, or am I? Hm. I don't know what I'm going to do here. Again, this is not planned. So I'm actually grabbing this cobalt green. So I do this a lot. I'll draw something on this page, and then on this page, I will scribble and test colors and all that fun stuff. So that's kind of what I'm doing here. And yeah, let's just color in our leaf shapes here. Again, just leaving that little bit of a white Halo. And this is still drying. So we'll come back to the flowers in a minute. I'm not trying to make this perfect at all. This is just a learning exercise. Actually, it's kind of a relaxing exercise because to me, when I'm doing a negative space drawing, there is a lot less pressure to make things look or feel a certain way. I really lets me just sort of get into the shapes and the textures and not really worry about the whats or the house. So that's nice. I am going to go ahead and start drawing in the stems. I'm going to give a little base to the flowers here, even though the real clover doesn't look like that. That's fine. I don't care. I'm just going to draw through here this area where I messed up. I'm just going to go ahead and draw through its. Then same thing here. I'm going to go ahead and connect these stems. This one. Let's go ahead and connect that too. We'll just run it under there. And then let's add a little bit of a pattern to these leaves. We'll do a center stem on each one of these. This is still kind of wet. So I'm trying not to put my hand in it. Yeah, we'll just do a little center stem here. And clovers have actually got this sort of, like, V shaped pattern in their leaves. It's like, I love these. This is is one of my favorite things about clovers. Obviously, the little flower heads are adorable. So that's a plus about being a clover. But I also just love. I think that this leaf is really interesting. It's got really interesting markings on it. That's really cool. I also need to do, I think a little bit more marking detail on the leaf, but I'm going to change it up. I'm going to bring in this dark cadmium orange. Our leaves actually orange? They're not in this case, but we don't care. We're going to do whatever we want, and I think that bringing in a pop of color is what I want. If I don't like this, not a big deal because it's my sketchbook, and I can get away with doing whatever I wanted my sketch book. Actually do kind of like this. But as we have established, I'm a sucker for an orange blue color palette. And these greens are kind of blue greens. So this is obviously right in my wheelhouse. All right. So let's those are kind of dry. I think we're going to get away with it. I think they're dry enough because we're actually just going to use another ops. We're actually just going to use another neo coolor I want to get kind of the shapes of a clover without being too too fussy about it. So I'm just going to do these lines, which you think back to day one, we already practiced. The different kinds of marks that we could make with these neocolors. And this is where that practice is coming into play because I already know that I like making marks like this, and I love how this flower looks. So good. I just Yeah. I love the style of sort of deconstructing nature so that you're not trying to be too realistic with it. You're just trying to say, here's a cool thing. Like this, you may not recognize that this is a clover. Immediately. But you might also look at it and say, Hey, it looks like this person had a lot of fun. And that's actually what I'm here for. I'm here in my sketchbook practice to have fun, and I'm here hoping to impart a little bit of this upon you as well. Because it's fun. I love it. All right. So let's do. What else can we do here? Let's do a couple of buds. These are these aren't real flowers, so we can We can fudge it a little bit, friends. Alright, so let's do five. A good rule of thumb when you're drawing things is to have an odd number of them. So like, these leaves here, there are six of them. I really should have had seven of them. The flowers, I've got three of those, and then these little flower buds. I'm going to do five of them. So having that sort of odd number gives you a really pleasing visual. If you have even numbers of everything, it's actually less balanced to the eye. Isn't that weird, that you would think that It would make more sense to your eyeballs to have things be even numbers because that's equal amounts, basically. But it turns out, Oop, your eyeballs really like to see odd numbers of things. Alright, I love that. Let's go in and let's add some more leaves. Let's do it. Let's fix it. So I'm actually just going to draw some line leaves in here. All right. And that puts us. I'm going to try to do a better job of keeping these even. So that's three. Let's do two more and offset this. I like it when a line art shape crosses another piece of line. It doesn't really seem like it should work, but it does. I'm a liar. Let's put two more in here and it feels better. I'll do one here, and then maybe one up here. So we'll lead the eye all the way up. Now, let's go ahead and put our little V shape in here. So the leaves are married together. And I think this might be it for this one. I don't want to go too much further because I don't want to damage the paper. Yeah, I actually love this. I think a hindsight, I may not have gone as crazy with the background as I did. And actually, This is a step green. Yeah. Let's just color over this a little bit. I was going to leave it. Now, a caution about coloring over spaces where you have used neo coolor twos. It will clog your marker a little bit. So when I'm doing this, I will have a scrap piece of paper or I'll just use the side of my sketchbook over here so that when I'm done, I can scribble my marker a little bit and make sure that it doesn't have any waxy build up on the marker tip. So you don't want to ruin it. And of course, like, now that I started covering up the lighter colors, I'm like, Oh, did I like it? Did I like the lighter colors? All right, so I'm going to take this marker and just kind of scribble over here. I just want to make sure that I don't have any waxy build up from picking up these crayons. And I actually like this a lot better now that I added more of a solid color background. But I don't regret going in with the lighter colors first just because I think it was just a really nice base for this, and I think it gives me an added layer of tee and interest. So let's do a little side by side. Comparison of the inspiration and the sketches. So I've actually learned a lot here that I will carry forward maybe into our Day seven sketch book illustration. So I love these leaves and this color combination, and I actually really love these flower shapes right here, too. So that's something for me to keep in mind. I do love this background, but I'm not really sure that I will do that for the final, like, full sketch at the end of this session. I'm just not sure. Or the day seven session. I mean, So, that's it for today. I hope that you again, spend at least 20 minutes working on this exercise, if not more. And then don't forget to do your writing exercise. Don't forget to take a few minutes to look at what you've done and make note of what you like, what you maybe don't like, what you can do better, if you come back to this again. And then I will see you tomorrow, and we're going to be actually sketching a little bit for the first time in this course. 16. Day 6: Sketchy: All right artist. Welcome to Day six of Sketchbook seeds. So today, we're actually going to be sketching. Now, remember I said no pencils, no erasers, and we're sticking with that. So we are actually going to be sketching with, like markers with pencils and with crayons instead. But we are actually going to be looking at our references and drawing things directly from those references. We're going to be thinking about the work that we've done over the last previous five days. So we're going to be keeping in mind things like how we which shapes we enjoyed as we were working through these exercises, what kind of textures we want to bring in. We're going to think about our line details, our compositions that we liked in the last few exercises. And what we really want to do, though, is keep it loose here. So this is going to be an exercise that I hope you'll spend 25 minutes on. And you'll probably use several pages of your sketchbook. So I'm going to take a quick flip back through my exercises. Just to kind of pay attention to, like, anything of interest to me. I know that I loved these flowers as I went through, and I actually loved this tansy shape, so this is something I might use in my piece tomorrow. I really loved these contour drawings a lot because they looked a little wonky. So that's something that I'm kind of keeping in mind. Like, I kind of like how these look a little off kilter. Actually, like how this one sort of runs up the side of the page, and then I like this action right here. So that's something to keep in mind. That one's fun, too. Of course, I love these leaf shapes and, you know, back to the Tanses again, which I really like. And then from yesterday's session, I love these clover shapes as well. And you'll also see from yesterday's session that the the paint marker blood through the page a little bit. I'm not super fussed about it. I don't think it's the end of the world, honestly. So let's choose some reference photos, first of all. I know I've kind of been living on this page, but obviously, I put my favorite reference photos first. I definitely think that's what happened here. So I'm going to have a quick look at this flower shape right here. I really liked these flower shapes, and I think I want to draw them just a little bit. So I'm just going to use my marker. And Again, I'm actually just treating this like I would treat a pencil if I was actually sketching something to kind of learn a little bit about it. I'm actually just loosely sketching the petal shapes. And I'm sort of, I would say roughly following the photo. Let's be honest, I'm never really following the photo. I really like these little like feathery leaf situations here. This one has feathery, not really feathery. Reminds me of dill. I like the leaf on a dill plant. It's cool. Now, you might want to switch. Oh, this is a good page. Should have started with this page. Yeah, you might want to switch up your materials as you go or you can stick with the same thing if that feels better. Let's do this cosmo here real quick. Give it a yellow center. And then let's grab my trusty deep cadmium orange pencil, and let's start drawing the petals in. So this has got eight petals. I do one. It's kind of got these little, like, uneven edges on it, which is weirdly satisfying. So 'cause it's eight petals. I'm gonna draw four on each side. And then I'll fill in the extra spaces. Now, that's not as crowded as an actual cosmo. Cosmo. Is it the single of cosmos when it comes to flowers? I know. It doesn't really matter, does it? All right. I'm going to grab a marker and just give this guy stem as well. This is just a good chance to get to explore, see what's up. These have very similar. Oh, those were actually cosmos that we drew in the last. This is also a cosmo. Just seen from a different angle. Which I don't know. What does that say for what we're going to be drawing tomorrow or what I'm going to be drawing tomorrow? You know, I give you all this reference material because I want to make sure that you can find things that feel interesting to you. Again, you know, if at any point, you get through here and you're like, I'm just not really I'm not really into any of the stuff that you're having draw stuff. Feel Freda, get in there with your own reference photos, look up some stuff that you like. Oh, okay. Well, I don't like that that's not in line, but that's fun. I'm just dipping my neo coolor in water and rubbing it on the side here. I'm getting a pretty cool effect. I'm getting a pretty cool texture here. Cool texture warning for anyone who knows my work. You know, I love textures in my digital art and my sketchbook practice. Oh, that's fun. That's really nice. That's an exciting little discovery, friends. I love this. Now, if this dries a little bit before we're done, I might go in with the dark orange cadmium pencil and add some lines through here. I think that actually might be kind of nice as well. All right. So let's sketch one more flower. I'm going to do one more right here. I think yeah. Let's stick with the blues in the green. So I'm going to draw this black eyed Susan. I think it is. Yeah, it's a black eyed season. So I'm just going to add the little center shape here. Just sort of roughly block it in. You can do as many of these as you want to. If you want to draw through the entire the whole reference thing thing? The whole reference PDF. Feel free to do that. I'm going to dip this in the water as well. Let's see if we can get some cool cool effects. Dipping neo coolors and water is equal parts satisfying and cracking because what are you going to get? What's going to wind up on the paper? We'll see. You'll see here that it's like smushed in with that green leaf next to it. That is absolutely fine. I actually really love that. That's really pretty. I love that. Let's go a little off Kelter here, and let's pick up our deep orange marker to do this stem, which I'll go down here. Let's carve it around so we stay on this one page here. If I want to do more flowers, I'll continue with three or four more over on this page. Been through any of my other courses or heard me talk about my sketchbook practice, that I call these getting to know you sketches. So in all of our other exercises, we're really exploring the materials more than anything else and how they work together. But in this one, we're really getting to know the flowers and starting to maybe ponder what we're going to be drawing in tomorrow's exercise, which is going to be to draw an entire spread of flowers. So we'll talk a little bit more about that tomorrow. I have thoughts about it already, but I want to let this marinate a little bit and come back to it later. All right. So again, this is day six. So hopefully you're up to spending about 25 minutes in your sketchbook. And don't forget to take a few minutes to let this, you know, settle on your eyeballs and think about what you like from this exercise and what you might like to carry forward into your art practice and into your sketchbook practice as well. So I will see you tomorrow for the final day, our final Sketchbook exploration exercise. 17. Day 7: Wildflower Meadow: Hello, artists. Welcome to Day seven of Sketchbook SDs. This is going to be your final exercise in this course. Today, I hope you'll commit at least 30 minutes to working on this drawing. So what we're actually going to be doing today is filling up a double page spread in our sketchbook. With a wildflower meadow. You are welcome to flip through the reference photos for inspiration. If you just want to have another glance through and think about the things that you liked. There are some, wildflower meadow landscapes in here as well. So you can get some inspiration of how things might look if you're going to lay them out. I'm actually thinking that I'm going to have something sort of like this with just a mix of flowers kind of going across both pages, and I think I'm going to do a white background. I'm very tempted to do that sort of, like, dark, greeny background from J five. But I'm not sure if that's what I want to do. So we'll think on it. We will think on it. But yeah, have a flip through the PDF and kind of get an idea of what you want to focus on as you work on this wildflower meadow. Before I get started, I'm just going to flip through my sketchbook and take a look at some things I liked. So one thing that I know that I liked, I think I got a little crazy with color as I went through here. So, I actually really love these specific colors right here. I think that they are amazing. These sort of, like, really pretty, like, blue green colors. Big fans of those. Always and forever. And forever. The blues and greens. So, I'm kind of keeping this in mind. Like this paired with this dark sap green. I kind of want that to be like a main color combination situation. And then I just want to, I think, bring in some oranges and maybe a little bit of yellow. So basically, I want to stick with the color palette that have kicked. That's it. That's the note. And also, just kind of thinking of things that I liked, like, layering some of these markers and some different textures. Really thinking about this spread a lot, because it has a lot of things that I like. It has these flowers that I like, these little leaf shapes that I enjoyed. I actually really like all of these. I think that this is going to figure heavily into my last piece. Now, that may not be the case for you. You may have done this exercise and not have found anything. You may have done all of these exercises and not really found anything yet. So if that's the case, flip through the reference materials again, take a look at them and see what you're inspired by. Those are our contour drawings. Isn't this satisfying to look through just like a few days of drawings and just kind of seeing, like What is interesting and what isn't? Like, what kind of sticks with you? I just think it's fascinating. It It'll never get old to me, flipping through a sketchbook and seeing all the things that I've worked on over days and weeks and months. Like, it's just It's so cozy somehow. All right. So in terms of composition, I think I'm actually going to start up here and sweep down to shorter flowers. That's my plan. We will see how that goes because I would say that I historically have a tendency to start with ideas for how things are going to go in my sketchbook. And then they do way, which is absolutely fine, and it is the fun of doing a sketch book. So I am just starting to block in some of these flowers that I really liked from the day to exercise. I had to think back on what day it is. Okay. So again, I'm going to keep in mind that I always want to have odd numbers of things. So I think that I'm going to do three of these. And let's just stick with these colors. I'm going to do my best to not go too crazy on the colors. Even when I have a limited color palette like this, I mean, this is technically just three colors that I've chosen. I still manage to work in a lot of color variation by choosing different greens and different oranges, different yellows, which is actually a good thing, most of the time. But every now and then, I just find that I let color overwhelm me. Especially in my sketchbook, I kind of let it be in charge instead of making sure that I'm in charge. All right. And then let's do the last one right here when we make it a little bit smaller. And if you remember from day two, I actually really liked adding a little bit of water to these. I kind of like the way that it kind of smushes the colors together. So we're going to do that. Now, you can get this, you know, the cool thing about the eco line brush pens is that they are, you know, very watery, so you get a lot of cool effects. You can really get these effects with any water based marker. But I've actually found that eco line just a little bit better with it. It's just a little more flowy. You just almost get that sort of watercolor esque feeling. If you can get enough water without your pages buckling. It's really satisfying for me. And you might like other markers. Just absolutely fine. I'm just here to, like, guide you along in starting a sketchbook practice, or restarting a sketchbook practice, whatever your case is, I'm not here to judge your choices in materials. Oh, gosh, that's really nice, though, isn't it? Heck. Just kind of softening those edges a little bit, just really really makes a difference for me. Just kind of given this a little bit of a shape. No. Alright, those are looking really fantastic. Now, I remember from D two, I actually added some line art to them that I did not like. So I think I'm just going to be layering on some more marker colors there instead. I think that sounds like a good plan. Now, I am going to go ahead and add the stems, even though they're a little wet, it's fine. I'm just going to use my eco line brush pen here to add in some stems. And let's add in. Let's add in a little leaf shape here. Is this a correct leaf shape for this type of plant? Who knows? I don't know. But it's a leaf shape I like to draw, so we're going on with it. It's what we do in sketchbook practice. We just go with it. We just see what'll happen. Now you might notice that I've switched from using a binder clip over here to just using the elastic from my sketchbook. I just prefer that sometimes. But it does kind of leave like a white border on the edge of your sketchbook on the edge of your page. So if that's something that bothers you, be mindful of it otherwise. Go forth and have fun. Alright. So let's draw some more flower shapes. I really want to bring in, I really liked that cosmo shape that we did yesterday. So let's go ahead and let's add a little flower center right here. And then we'll do another one down here. We'll do two down here. Then let's take let's take our Pach color and dip it in water. Then let's start drawing petals this way. Instead of yesterday, we drew in the petals with a pencil, and then we went in and did this to add some texture. But I thought it might be nice to do this first. And then go in and draw in our details when it dries in a few minutes. It's actually kind of dry already. Oh, yeah, there we go. That's nice. That's fun. And then down here, I think maybe we'll just go a little bit smaller on the petals or not. Or we'll just do whatever the neo color says we're doing, which is making them a little bit bigger. You'll see here it's going a little sideways across the gutter. That's on me for drawing it like that. No big deal. No big deal. Sketch books are all about learning. None of this has to be anything other than a delightful learning experience. All right. So again, I'm grabbing a marker, and I'm just going to add a stem. So we'll take this guy do this way, who go behind this otherther flower. Isn't this cute already? Really? Next to birds and maybe sometimes insects weirdly enough. I just love drawing flowers in my sketchbook. It's just really relaxing. And like I've said, all along, I think it's really fun to just, like, deconstruct shapes, and just kind of see what happens. So I really like this leaf shape. This is like a cross between maybe like a dill plant and then the leaf shape that we did from the vetch the other day. I'm going to add an extra stem here going off the side of the page. Feels like a feels like a thing I want to do. Because I want to add some more of these little leaves. That's why that's the whole reason that we're drawing this stem off the side of the page here. Then let's go over here and add some little boop. Let's row one that goes across here. Then let's do one that goes up. Isn't that fun so far? All right. So we've got a little bit more space that I'm going to want to take up here, but let's check. These are dry. So again, I do remember that I did not like drawing in the details, the shapes here. So I thought instead what I might do is use my little brush as almost like a stamp here and just kind of stamp in some co variation. An We'll do some more here. Fun. And now let's switch to our darker color. I actually, you can't see this because of my camera angle, but I'm really cont myself rather than rotating my sketchbook, which would make a lot more sense. But we're in it now. Just keep. Now, on my practice exercises, so the previous six exercises. I really have a tendency to sort of push it a little bit, like really layer everything, try everything. And that's because it's, you know, all about exploration. This, at this point, I'm actually I don't really want to say, tone it down, but ale bit. I'm trying to just be a little bit more thoughtful about what I chose for each little flower section. Instead of doing everything. Just trying to be a little bit more intentional with things. That's not dry. It's a good way to discover that is not dry. Alright, I'm actually going to leave these flowers for now because as my hands will tell you, they are not dry. So instead, let's go ahead and Alright, I really kind of want to add in some of those, like, circle flowers, but Hm. I'm actually not 100% sure how it's going to sit with this layout. You know what? Let's do it anyway. Let's do it anyway. So I'm actually just going to go in with my marker and start drawing in circles. Let's fill in the extra space with these circle flowers that I made on my second day's exercise. They were just really satisfying, I felt. And I just have a good feeling about adding them here. Or maybe I just have a good feeling about wanting to add them here. I really want to add them here, so I'm going to do it. It's my sketchbook, and there are no rules in my sketchbook except that I'm here to sketch, and I'm here to follow the what if. So, again, if you take nothing else from this course, I hope that you take the what if along with you. Just be a little bit curious. Alright, so let's go ahead and I'm going to add some stems to these now. I'm just going on real light with my eco line brush pen. It's one of my favorite things about a brush marker is you can really it's a little weird tangent there, but we're going to let that go. Yeah, I just love that you can get all different effects with a brush marker depending on how hard you press down, how you hold it. Of course, I guess that's actually true of a lot of the materials I've showed you over the last few days. I guess I like materials that kind of do like, you know, the heavy lifting that you can do a lot of things with. I think that seems to be the theme. All right. So that's nice. I kind of want to add in some of those cute little, like, heart shaped leaves that we did at first, but I'm not 100% sold that it's a super idea, so just not going to do that yet. These are dry enough to draw on, so I'm going to go ahead and start adding centers to these. And I'm just doing a series of, like, open circles for these centers. I'm also trying to not mess these up because they are definitely still wet. But it's our sketch books. I was fine. If I was going to make this into an a illustration or a painting, oops that's very wet. I would definitely be more mindful. But very often when it's in my sketchbook, that's a time for me to let go and not worry about getting things just right, and instead just worry about showing up and having this fun experience. All right. So my neocor has dried. So I'm just going in with my colored pencil and just drawing in these cosmo shapes. And obviously, when I use the names of actual flowers, I'm using them very loosely. We are not drawing realistically at all. Rather than drawing more details with the pencil, I'm taking this number 50. I'm just going to add a little bit of texture. I'm actually going to go in. I want a little bit more contrast with this green here. I'm actually going to go in and add some dark green to the center of the I just want to balance out this darker green a little bit better. See that looks better already. Right now we only had it in these couple of leaves and stems here. I wasn't very well balanced. I wasn't working for me. A, I do like that. And I think I think I'm going to add in some of these heart shaped leaves that I liked so much from the first day. But I'm trying to think of a way to do it where it's not going to overpower everything. So we'll do Let's do some trios of them. As like little accents, pieces. Yeah, that's good. Then let's add one down here, I think. Let's see what that looks like. If we get our dark sap green pencil, we want to do that? Yeah, let's do that. We'll connect these into one little section's see we'll go over here. This one will go over here. Probably could have ought that out a little bit better right there, but I think that's okay. I actually do still want to put some over here too just so it's got a better flow, I think. So let's All right. So I'm going to add a few more of these. Now that I started adding them in, I actually want to add in some different colors, I think. I think they just do a really good job of filling in some space. P. Who doesn't love he shaped flowers every I think that might be it. We're going to add on some stems for those. Hi, I'm just having one final look and seeing if there's anything else that I really want to add. I will be honest. I'm very tempted to add something else to these flowers. I just I really feel like they want some more cont. I know I really didn't like the sap green on the last one. So I'm gonna go rogue here on my color palette, and I'm going to use this Holbein colored pencil in luminous opera, which is, like, a bright pink. So, I'm gonna go a little rogue here. I'm gonna break my own rules. But I love this luminous pink pencil. Oh, Well, it just broke on me. So obviously, I'm not meant to use it since this lead just snapped. Alright, so I'm gonna take that as a sign from the universe that I am not go to use the luminous pink pencil right now. Absolutely fine. I accept that. However, I'm still going to go in and add some more to these flowers. So instead of the pink, I'm going to go with my cobalt green pencil, and I'm just going to go in and fill in some ovals just to bring in some more contrast, I think. I really think that's what these flowers are missing. I really wish that they were pink. I really wish the universe hadn't conspired against my beautiful pink pencil, but that's okay. That's okay. This is what we do on our sketch book practice. We embrace the art of the pivot. So I intended to use that pink pencil. It didn't work. And instead, I'm using this cobalt green, which is honestly absolutely fine. And I'm just adding a little extra layer of pattern here. And this is one of those learning moments for my illustrations, you know, So I work on kids books, and I also make art for products, like creating cards, T towels, stuff like that, that I license through various companies. So, you know, even though my sketchbook practice is just for showing up and exploring, I'm always learning things that I will inevitably take into book illustration or creating an art print collection or, you know, anything for any of my clients. So drawing this pattern, on this flower shape is really just like one of those moments where I'm just like, Okay, like, I'm making note of this because I know that I like it. And I know that I want to come back to it. So I'm actually going to finish off by just adding a few more of these random random little circle shapes, I think, to fill in some of the blanks. All right, so I'm actually going to call it quits on this. I feel like it's in a good spot. I feel like if I take it any further, I'm going to overdo something. This is I don't know. I'm really trusting my gut on this. So I hope that you get to the point where you can also trust your instincts on something and not stop because you're fearful that you're going to mess something up, but stop because what you have right now feels good. And that's awesome. All right. So let's do a quick flip back. Through our seven dies. So we started here doing experiments with layering and textures and mark making. You'll see that I carried these marks through to the final art. I carried a lot of the neo color wet techniques over. And yeah, also carried, like the sort of, like, water on eco lines forward. This from the second day, actually really ended up inspiring my final piece, because exploring these shapes and patterns and lines really helped me uncover some different flower shapes that I really liked. Like these ended up in my final art today. This heart shaped thing. I'm actually kind of sad. I didn't include these orange flowers, but it's okay. There wasn't room for them. But I did include this flower, which I really liked. We learned a lot on contour drawing day. This is such a fun way. Contour drawing is such a fun way to loosen up when you're feeling like, you can't draw anything or you're feeling really uptight about your drawings, do some contour drawings. Will not look good. So it'll just make you really comfortable with the fact that, you can show up and make messy, playful art, and it's still really fun. It doesn't have to be disappointing. So contour drawings are fun just to do pages of. Let's see. What else? These leaf shapes, I really loved and kind of carried forwards. I'm actually kind of disappointed in myself for not doing this background in the Day seven piece, but I also think that if I had done it, it would have really kind of distracted from the delicacy of these flowers. But I love doing backgrounds like these, and I will definitely do them again. Sketch day. We learned a lot on this day, this flower. We carried forward into the final illustration and these leaf shapes as well. Again, I wish I'd kind of brought that into the final day, but I think that overall our final illustration, sketch, painting, drawing, whatever. It's really satisfying, and I can actually see taking this and letting it be the basis of S Lake. A collection of greeting cards or a design for a t towel or something like that. I feel inspired by looking at this to take it even further. And that's what I hope a sketchbook practice does for you. I hope that it will just take you along a path as you follow the tiny seeds of your art practice, and I hope that you won't just you know, I hope you'll have fun, obviously. I hope that sketch booking will be an enjoyable experience, but I hope that it will also give you the courage and the confidence to try things in your regular art practice, you're working for book clients or art licensing, or you have your own art shop, I hope that the things that you learn here make you a better artist in the rest of your art life. All right. So head on over to the final lesson, and we're going to do a little wrap up of sketchbook sets. 18. Keep On Keeping On: Hey, there's Sketchbook artist. Congratulations on your first seven days of sketchbook drawings. I hope that you had fun and learned some things along the way, even if the things that you learned were things that you don't want to do again. I hope that you've learned to enjoy the process, let go of any expectations and outcomes. Just kind of follow the what if of making the art, because that's what your sketchbook practice is really all about. And following that what if is how you're going to get to being a more competent and courageous artist. So I hope that the seven days of sketchbook practice is the first of many days, months and years of sketchbook practice for you, and that eventually, you've got, a big stack of sketchbooks, too, so you can look back at them and see the progress that you've made as an artist and all things that you have learned along the way. So I hope you keep sketching. I hope you keep making art, and I hope you keep having fun.