Sketchbook to Style: Discover Your Art Style Through Drawing

1. Introduction: Art is really important to me and my personal life because I use it as a way to process my emotions. I can't really remember a time that I wasn't drawing. I'm Christine. Nisha, I'm artist and founder of Mike Cook Studios. Originally, I wanted to go to art school myself, but they focused more on technique and how to do something the correct way. And through being self taught, I was able to kind of skip over all those rules and learn how to draw in my own way. And I think that there's a lot of other people out there too that want to explore their art and make their own art, but they don't have the time or money to go through four years of art school. I struggled for years to find my own style, but eventually I figured it out and I put it all together into this one course. So for anyone out there who may have seen themselves in my story, my good is here to help, and we would love to have you join our community. 2. Drawing Assignments: Drawing assignments. Hey guys. Before we jump into the class modules, I want to quickly go over the class downloads with you. On the project and resources page of this skill Shart class. You'll see three PDF downloads. First we have the assignment checklist. This lists all the drawing assignments from this class together on one page with little checkboxes next to each. This is an in depth class that will take you some time to go through, so you can use this checklist to keep track of your progress and where you left off. Next, we have the drawing assignments. As you're watching the videos in this class, you will occasionally see this screen. When you do, it's time to complete a drawing assignment, open your drawing assignments PDF and find that assignment number to read the instructions and complete that sketchbook exercise. Also included after each assignment is a Why We Did It section that explains the purpose of the assignment and what it teaches us about our artistic style. The final download is a PDF of coloring pages. This includes five coloring pages I designed that are used for Assignment 2.1 Sharing our work. There are over 60 assignments in this course, and sharing our journey. Completing a sketchbook is so much more enjoyable than going at it alone. I've gone through all these assignments too, and we'll be sharing some of my sketchbook pages in our project gallery as well. Please share any of your completed assignments that you'd like in the project gallery to Maybe you'd like to share one or a few you're proud of or maybe you'd like to share all of them. It's fun to see how we each interpret the assignments differently. Be sure to peek in every now and then and give the people posting positive vibes and encouragement. We can learn together and grow together. A note on the assignments. I've written the assignment instructions purposefully, a bit vague. They're clear enough to follow, but I don't want to tell you exactly what to do. This course is not about teaching you how to draw in the way I draw, it's about teaching you how to draw in the way you draw. We have to leave things a little open ended to allow that to happen. I don't give you completely specific rules to follow because I don't want to influence your choices too much. I'm setting up the guidelines and giving you the freedom to explore, Take it and let loose. Please remember, there is no wrong way to complete the assignments. They can and should be interpreted in different ways. Yours will look different than others, and that's perfect. Try not to worry about whether you're doing it right, following instructions, or doing what other people are doing. As long as you're doing the assignments, you're doing it right. If you really get stuck on one assignment, don't let it stop you from continuing the class. Feel free to skip a few. If you're just not into it, you can always come back later and give it another go. With that said, feel free to ask any questions on the discussions page if you're really not sure of what to do or struggling with a specific assignment. 3. The 5 Rules: Hello and welcome to discover your artistic style in a sketch book. I'm going to jump right in and tell you the most important thing I'll tell you this entire course and the most important thing you will ever hear in your entire life, okay? That's a slight exaggeration, but it is really important and it's had a big impact on me once I finally accepted it. Are you ready? The most important thing to remember is that there's no right way to draw. That's it. We can all get stuck in this mindset of drawing things right, but there's really no right way to draw anything. Everyone draws in their own way, in their own style and with their own process. Artists use different tools, different routines, different quirks. We're all different people and we interpret the world differently. We're going to draw that world differently too. That's good. This is a really important takeaway from the course. However you draw is the right way. Just keep practicing and refining your own thing, and don't worry about how other people draw the rules of this course. Rule number one, there are no rules in art. Rule number two draw every day. I know it's hard to keep up drawing every day, and we're going to talk about this later, but we've all got a lot going on and lots of responsibilities. But if you can at least draw every day while you're completing this class, it will make a big difference. At least shoot for every other day. Drawing is a lot like running and that you can tell a difference if you haven't done it in a while. It's easier to get started the more often you do it and see how it becomes an integral part of your day. Just five to 10 minutes, if that's all you have is fine. Consistent practice is what we're going for. Rule number three, go through the course in order and do the assignments. This class will be most effective if you watch the videos in order and do the assignments right after you watch the video. I recommend just watching one video a day and completing the assignments for that video. Rule number four, don't overexert yourself. As I said before, we're aiming for regular pectus in this course. If while drawing an assignment, you find yourself tensing up, getting agitated and getting frustrated, no worries, take a break, step away, or just stop for the day. You already do something today and that's the goal you can always pick up tomorrow where you left off rule number five. No pencil, okay? Sometimes we will use pencil in the assignments, but very rarely, and not for sketching or under drawing. I know you really want to sketch out your idea before you commit it to ink, but pencil is too hesitant. You'll end up drawing and erasing for hours, thinking and rethinking every mark you make, trying to find the right one. That's not the drawing process we're looking for in our sketchbook. You're welcome to pick up a pencil after this course, but for this course I ask that you stick to pin. We're looking for a more instinctual way of drawing. The way of drawing that comes natural and original to you. We're looking to make mistakes. See those mistakes, learn from them, and not erase them. If you mess something up, either accept it or start over. Your way of drawing is inside of you. We just have to stop overthinking long enough to be able to let it seep out and shine. No pencil. 4. Tools + Materials: Tools and materials, choosing your ideal sketchbook. Before we start actually drawing, let's talk shop. Your first assignment is going to be to go buy a sketchbook and maybe a few drawing tools if you don't already have some. But walking into the art store and staring at all those options can be overwhelming in the future. I recommend trying out different brands, binding sizes, and paper weights for your sketchbooks and tools. But which one should we choose right now for this course? It's really up to you, and any sketchbook will work for this class. But let's go through a few things that you might want to consider. The most important thing to remember while buying supplies is that this is a sketch book class, not a final artwork class. Having good paper and good tools can make drawing more fun. But the tools don't make the art you do. We want to be able to keep a sense of play and experimenting in this class. It's actually best if we don't buy super expensive stuff. I don't want you to be afraid to lay down a lot of ink because you paid $12 for that pen. We're here to draw, not save ink. Just remember, you can totally go cheap. The first thing you should decide is what type of binding you want. There are three basic options, hard bound, soft bound, and wire bound. For hard bound, the pros are that it's sturdy, it won't get smushed in your bag. It looks nice and some lay flat. The cons of a hard bound or that it's usually more expensive than other options, more heavy, and some won't lay flat. The pros of a soft bound sketchbook are that it's light cheap, usually lays flat, and you can fold the cover back. The cons of a soft bound are that the paper is sometimes too thin and the ink might bleed through because of the soft cover, it can get smushed in your bag. The pros of a wire bound sketchbook or that it's sturdy, it won't get smushed in your bag, it lays flat and you can remove pages easily. The cons of a wire bound that it's bulky. The wire can get in the way if you're trying to scan and it's not as pretty or bookish. The next thing you should decide on is size. This will be personal preference, just like the binding. And you should choose something that you think you'll like best. You want something big enough that you'll have room to move around on the page, but small enough that it'll fit in your bag when we go out drawing later. The last thing we should talk about is paper type. There are all kinds of different options, from smooth then paper to thick, watercolor paper. Your choice will depend on what type of tools you're going to be using. For this class, we're going to be using color, pencil, pen and marker. We need something that can work with those three mediums. I suggest maybe buying something that says mixed media. Really, any sketchbook will be fine. Whatever you do, just don't buy super fancy $100 sketchbook. You'll just be afraid of using up all that paper and we'll freeze up when you go to draw on it. Just grab a book and go, it'll all work out. Now let's talk about drawing tools. The tools you choose to use matter because they affect the way you draw. However, because a tool is more expensive doesn't necessarily mean it's better, especially for sketchbook drawing. This course involves a lot of experimenting with different ways of drawing. I'd like you to have the following tools before you begin. You may already have some of these tools which is great. Don't feel like you have to go out and buy super fancy stuff for your sketchbook. Remember what I said before? One box of cheap crayons or colored pencils. One pencil. Wait, wasn't row number five. No pencil. Yes it was. But there are a few assignments where we'll be using a pencil. Any type will do at least two different drawing pens, often called fine liners. Fine liner pins have higher quality ink than your typical pin, and we'll draw a lot smoother. They have a hard nib and come in different pin widths. I'd like for you to have at least two different pin widths. One extra small or 0.1 size and one medium, or 0.7 size. I use a few different brands. I have a Copic multi liner, a few pit artist pins, and a few microns. One brush pin. This pin has a more flexible brush style nib and will give us really bold and expressive drawings. I use a Tombow dual brush pin, one set of basic markers. I like to use copic markers primarily, but they're pretty expensive and not necessary for this course or sketch booking. Feel free to just get a cheap set of markers with a small variety of colors bonus. This isn't necessary for the course, but if you'd like to experiment even more, having a white pin is fun for adding extra details on top of ink. I like to use a Uniball Signo pin. 5. The Sketchbook Manifesto: Book Manifesto. Throughout this course, we're going to be trying to get in a certain mindset that will allow us to explore, experiment, and discover. We're trying to get out of the self doubting technique, focused mindset, and into the flow mindset. To do that, we have to forget some things so we can pay attention to other things. Here are a few of the things we should all remember while drawing in our Sketchbooks. I'm calling this our Sketchbook Manifesto. Slow down and be present. Give up control and stay open. Make mistakes and accept failure. Don't think, and don't worry. Be bad sometimes and be true. Always listen to and grow yourself. Make time for art and creativity. Play around and try new things. Share your work and encourage others. Finally, keep your hand moving and just draw. 6. Building Up Creative Muscle: Okay, let's start already. Most of these modules will have some talking and information at the beginning. But for this one we're going to jump right into the assignment and then talk about it after you've done it. 7. Your Hand + Your Tool: Okay, you did the assignment, right? Good. Why did we just coloring pages? This assignment is used by the cartoonist Linda Barry in her creativity courses. Coloring pages, trying to get as much crayon on the page as possible, introduces us to the frustrations of drawing. Your hand probably started cramping or hurting while you colored. You probably ripped or wrinkled a page. Maybe you messed up a part while you were coloring or didn't turn out the way you thought it would. By going through these frustrations, we begin to develop a relationship with the page, the drawing tools, and our hands. We're learning how the tool and the paper interact, how we leave marks on the page, how we choose colors, and how we think. While we move our hands across the page, we experience the transition of thoughts and moods as we coat the page in wax. We might be hesitant, then happy, then frustrated, then happy, then focused, then half focused, and on and on through the cycle, all without ever thinking like we might while we're drawing. 8. Training Hand-Eye Coordination: A big part of drawing is improving our hand eye coordination. Generally, in our sketch books, we're aiming not to think too much while we draw. That's how we'll start drawing in our own original way. But to be able to do that, we have to be able to allow our hands and eyes to communicate clearly, giving us the ability to draw confident lines. Let's do a couple quick exercises to brush up and practice drawing confident lines. 9. Here's a Secret: Okay, By now you know that I don't believe in talent. Sure, people can have proclivities or tendencies to do certain things, but in the end, I think a person's skills, including drawing, come from how much work and effort they put into practicing and improving. If we buy the idea that there's no talent and we buy the idea that whether you're successful at drawing or not is all a matter of hard work. That's good news, right? That means it's all up to us. That means it isn't just a gift that some people are born with or not. All we have to do is draw and we'll be able to draw. But then the doubt and fear pour in. We think to ourselves, so many other people can draw better than I do. I'm not good enough at drawing to spend time practicing. I'm not a real artist. I don't know what to draw. I'm afraid my work will be misunderstood. There's no market from my work. My art won't be taken seriously. Merit isn't important enough. I don't have an art degree. I'm too old, I'm too young. Please understand that the only reason I can list so many of these doubts is that I have them every day, everyone does. I'm doubting this entire course right now, and I have been the whole time, I've been making it. I'm scared that people won't like the course. I'm scared that other people are better teaching than I am. I'm scared that people won't understand what I'm teaching. I'm afraid my art isn't good enough for people to want to learn from me. And I'm afraid I'm both too young and too old. My point is that fear is normal, ongoing, and a healthy part of art making. You just have to accept that you'll always doubt your work and it's okay, you're going to keep having them here. The question isn't how we stop having fear, but instead what do we do with that fear? Let's go through some specific common fears and art making and draw a little bit to break through those fears and doubts. 10. Fear of the Blank Page: First up is the fear of the blank page. This is the fear of starting a new project. As fear tends to do, it often spirals out into larger insecurities from there. Where do I start? What marks do I draw first? I don't have any good ideas of what to draw. Let's get this out of the way. You usually won't have a good idea before you begin. If I waited until I had a good idea to start drawing, I wouldn't never end up drawing anything. Don't worry about what to draw. Just decide to draw and then do it. The ideas will flow as soon as you begin. 11. Imposter Syndrome: There's this thing called Impostor syndrome, which is basically feeling like you have no idea what you're doing. And that one day everyone is going to find out that you don't know what you're doing and reveal you as one big fake. Well, I have some important news for you. No one knows what they're doing. No one knows how to be an adult, even adults. No one knows how to fold a fitted even maids. And no one knows how to make even artists. The trick, however frustrating it might sound, is to just do it. Just pay your bills and you're being an adult, just ball that fitted sheet into a ball and throw it in the closet. And you're organizing, just draw something and you've made art. You'll learn whatever you need to know along the way. But to do that, you have to start. 12. I Can't Draw What's in My Head!: Whatever I draw never looks as good as I wanted it to. That is no excuse not to draw. In fact, it's the biggest reason you should draw. Drawing is the only way you will ever get better at drawing, and you'll never find the art you are meant to create if you don't keep making it. Here's another important note from reality that I have to remind myself all the time. You'll never feel like your skills are as good as you want them to be, but that's a good thing. You should always be striving to improve. If anybody felt like they had truly mastered something, they'd probably stop doing it so much. But we all keep making stuff because we want the next thing to be better. Yes, I promise even the masters feel like their skill aren't good enough sometimes. David Bales, a photographer and co author of the amazing book, Art and Fear, told this story after months of practice with his musical teacher. He complained to his teacher, but I can hear the music so much better in my head than I can get it out of my fingers. And his teacher replied, What makes you think that ever changes? The expectation for your work will always be better than what turns up on the page, and that's okay. It gives you something to strive for with the next piece and a reason to keep drawing. 13. Relaxing + Slowing Down: The moods of creativity. This is a theory on modes of operation developed by the comedian and actor John Cleese. According to his theory, closed mode is an anxious tense state where we feel we have so much to do and will never get it all done. We are stressed, judgmental, and hard on ourselves. This is where our inner critic lives and thrives. Open mode is a more relaxed state where we are introspective and playful, allowing curiosity to bubble up and pressure to lift. We are original, creative, and self aware. This is where we draw. Like us, we all spend a whole lot of time in closed mode, but original drawing can't happen in closed mode. How do we move from closed mode to open mode? One way is through practicing mindfulness. Drawing and being creative in general is very similar to meditation mindfulness. We have to quiet our thoughts before we can hear our inner voice. Mindfulness is basically just being able to pay attention to our present moment and recognize your thoughts without judging them. Being mindful makes us more self aware, more focused, and able to see more clearly. It also allows us to be less judgmental of ourselves and others. Improve our memory, regulate emotions, and reduce stress. All of these benefits are extremely conducive to getting in the flow state and finding our inner voice. Being able to draw without worrying and overthinking. Mindfulness is often practiced through mindful meditation, which often involves being mindful of your breath, concentration, and being aware of your body. The cool thing about mindfulness and drawing is that it's a cycle. We can explore mindfulness by drawing and we can explore drawing through mindfulness. 14. Getting Into the Flow State: Another way of looking at this creative mindset we're trying to achieve is called the flow. Being in the flow state is when you are completely absorbed in your work, So totally concentrated and devoted to what you're doing, that you lose track of time in the flow state. You are so involved with what you're doing that everything else drops out of focus. What you do and what you think converge, your thoughts, worries and inner critic fall away and you just do. Some people also call this getting into the zone. But no matter what you call it, it's a complete absorption in what you're doing. It feels transcendent meditative and makes you feel it one with the world. It is where you will find your voice and do what comes naturally to you. When you're in the flow, yourself expands and falls away. You become both more aware of yourself and more aware of a sense of unity with the world. When we're in our flow, we do our best work. Again, this all sounds great, but how do we get there? Internal verse, external rewards as artists often become too oriented on external rewards like money, fame, or praise from others. But if we can instead focus on internal rewards, we can enter the state of flow much easier when you're in the flow state. External factors just don't matter because we are so focused on the task at hand. When we're in the flow state, we are both action oriented and awareness oriented. This gives us confidence and a sense of control. We are immersed in our task and this immersion releases us from our inner critic and worries to get in the flow. Try doing these things. Try to let go of your needs, wants, and goals. Second, trust in your ability to draw and be creative. Third, be mindful and aware of the world around you. Finally, fourth, don't give up. 15. Keeping Your Hand Moving: Perhaps you've gotten into the zone, You're in the flow state and you're feeling mindful and at peace. But then your pen stops. Your line stops. The drawing stops. Now, what if we don't quite feel we're done drawing yet? How do we keep drawing at this point? You just need to keep your hand moving to know what to draw next or where to go next. You just need to keep making marks. But what if you're feeling totally lost while drawing? It can be good to have a mark making exercise to fall back on. These exercises give you something you can automatically draw without having to stop and think. It keeps your hand moving until we get a spark there that will carry us over into the flow state again. 16. Accepting Uncertainty: I don't know about you, but I love having a plan. I love certainty, and I love stability. I love knowing what's going to happen, at what time, who's going to be there, how long we're going to do it, and most importantly, when and what we're going to eat. In daily life, this habit of planning could be a strength. But in art making, drawing freely, drawing in our own way, being creative and original. This is a weakness of mine when I'm drawing my craving for certainty and a solid plan is a flaw that I have to compensate for and actively try to push down. This is because art making, and creativity and making anything original is at its core, full of uncertainty. Doing something original means it hasn't been done before. And that means you don't know ahead of time what exactly it's going to be or how it will turn out. You can't plan it and you can't know if you ever do things you know the ending to, if you only ever draw things where you know exactly what it will look like in the end and you don't allow for any changes along the way. You'll always end up with average artwork that isn't original, isn't true to you, and isn't pushing yourself. If you always stick with certainty and stick with your plans, you'll always go down the same paths and get the same predictable outcomes. It's only when we embrace uncertainty. Accept our mistakes as lessons to learn, and are willing to change our path and deviate from our plan that we can actually be creative and draw in our own artistic style with our own original voice. When I begin drawing in my sketchbook, I usually don't have a set idea in my head. I just start drawing and the lines begin to take shape and turn into interesting things. You've got to free your mind and just start making marks on the page. You draw happy little accidents will occur and you have to seize upon those accidents, notice what works and what doesn't. As you draw what flows and what seems forced, eventually the picture will evolve into something you never could have imagined at the beginning of the project. They'll grow into something original and new. In my opinion, it's this ability to experiment, make mistakes, and know which mistakes to keep that makes someone an artist, I believe anyone can draw. You just have to not overthink and put in the time to learn how the pencil moves in your hand. And be constantly observing and interpreting the world around you. These observations and interpretations are what seep into your work and make your drawings personal. 17. Enjoying the Process: I've talked a lot about how I think love is the basis of good drawing. I believe that in order to become a master of a skill, no matter what skill, you have to love doing that thing. Otherwise, you'll never have the motivation or passion to be able to commit to doing that thing consistently enough and putting enough effort to get good at it. If you're ever drawing and you find yourself unhappy, think about why that may be. So what are your motivations for drawing the way you're drawing right now that are making you unhappy? Are you drawing in the way that someone else told you to draw? Are you drawing in the way you think? We'll get your work recognized. Are you drawing based on other people's expectations? Are you drawing what you think is the correct or best way to draw something? You have to learn how to draw for yourself and to love the process of drawing itself, or why else would we do it? The quickest way to block creativity is to be impatient to expect to draw. Amazingly, as soon as you pick up the pen, to expect to be able to rush the process of drawing, to expect to find something amazingly original and new without having to struggle for it. If you really want to improve your drawing skills, find your voice and be able to draw in your own original style, then just get to work. Start drawing right now. Focus on drawing something you love that makes you come alive and start working. To become great at anything. You have to feel a drive for that thing. You have to want to do it, to crave it, to feel it. You have to love it. But the thing is, love isn't something that just happens to love. Something is not a feeling. Love is not an emotion. Love is an action, a decision, a commitment. Learning to love, drawing to really love it is a huge part of finding your voice. You can have that with drawing. I know you can. Let's just keep drawing and we'll get there together. 18. Playing While Drawing: Play is extremely important to finding our voice and artistic style. If we're thinking too much, being too serious, or trying too hard, our voice won't come out. It'll be smothered by our thoughts, expectations, and plans. That's why a sketchbook is so essential to an artist's practice. Our sketchbook is where we play. It's where we experiment with new ideas. It's where we explore our thoughts. It's where we make our ugly work. It's where we stumble onto new things. No matter what, even if we didn't learn something while playing, we still had fun, we still enjoyed it, and cultivated a deeper love for drawing that enjoyment. That love is what will make us creative, and open, and able to hear our voice and discover our style. 19. Accepting Mistakes: Striving for perfection in your artwork is a waste of time. Perfection does not exist. Someone, including you, will always be able to find something wrong with everything you make, no matter how long you spend working on it. We might as well just give in to the imperfection and try to be more comfortable making mistakes. I could go through every piece of work in my portfolio and show you tons of things. I would change if I were to go back and do it again. But at some point, you just have to let it go, call it done, and move on to the next piece. Each piece of art won't be perfect, but you'll be a better artist than you were before. With each one, there's a story I love about perfection from the book Art and Fear. Basically, a ceramics teacher split his class into two groups to test the theory he told. The first group they would be based only on the quantity of work made, while the second group would be graded on the work's quality. The first group would have everything they made simply weighed to determine their grade, while the second group had to create a single perfect piece to get an A. When it came time to grade, a surprising thing happened. The highest quality work came from the group being graded for quantity. While the quantity group making piece after piece, learning from their mistakes each time and trying new things. The quality group just sat there thinking about what makes the best piece, and in the end, didn't have much to show for their thoughts. This is a great example of how imperfections and mistakes are not just common in art making, but are actually an important part of the art making process. You have to make a whole lot of bad drawings before you can make those really good drawings. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, they just mean you're on the right track. 20. Iterating to Originality: We've accepted that mistakes and lots of bad drawings are what lead us to good drawings. But how do we keep making all those bad drawings? By iterating. Each time you draw something you don't like, take a quick look at it before you dismiss it. Why did you label it a bad drawing? Is it really so bad? There must be something good about it. What about that one line there, or the way you drew that? Or what about that straight mark over there? That's cool, right? If we take something and draw it over and over, looking at each one, quickly choosing the things we like, mixing the things we don't like, and continue to draw it over and over, iterating each time. Drawing each one just a little bit different. That's when we can make gold. That's why we're drawing and pen in this class. If you just erase all those mistakes, all those bad drawings, you'll never see them and learn from them. And you'll never spot the mistakes that actually work and that you actually like. 21. Looking At Our Memories: Our self is like a sponge. We soak up everything we see and everything we experience, the choices, we make thoughts, we think feelings, we feel stories, we write drawings, we draw, all of this comes from the sponge of ourself. The more we experience, the more we let our sponge soak up, the more we have to work with, the more we get out into the world and expand our mind with new ideas, new points of views and experiences. The more our sponge expands. Traveling the world, of course, would do this drastically. But you can also expand your sponge no matter where you are, by just being aware of the immense world in our own backyard. Our sponge is filled with everything. We know, everything we learn, everything we've thought, and everything we've ever experienced, every book we've read, every film we've watched, every laugh and every kiss, every sigh and every tear, And not just yours, but everyone else's that you've seen or shared as well. These are all the things that make us who we are. We have all had completely different experiences and we are all completely unique and different people. We each have our own voice. And to find it, we have to listen, we have to squeeze that sponge and really look at what comes out. What have we stored in there? What have we held onto all these years? What memories do we still have? When you begin thinking introspectively, becoming more aware and exploring yourself, you'll be amazed at what you might discover. Our sponge is a treasure chest of originality and creativity, just waiting to be explored. We've been practicing paying attention to the world around us, examining the world and noticing the things we notice. But we also need to examine ourselves. What goes on inside us, where we came from, and what we remember from a long time ago. It's my belief that your childhood experiences have a big impact on who you are and who you've become. You are very impressionable at a young age. The things you heard, saw, and did in those years, we'll stick with you for a long time. I think it's helpful to reflect back on our childhood memories and interests, to discover new things about ourselves. Ideas and inspiration don't just come from nowhere, they come from inside us. Things we notice or remember. Let's look back at some of the things we remember. To find your voice, you have to be honest. Many childhoods are filled with lots of emotion. Perhaps there was a traumatic event early in your life, or a messy divorce, or incessant teasing and bullying. Childhoods can be rough and raw in our memories, but the only way for us to discover our inner voice is to be honest about our memories and feelings. The hardest memories and emotions are often the ones that hold the deepest truths we've hidden. Try not to ignore them. We need to face our feelings, both good and bad, and accept them for what they are. The only way you can develop your voice is by being honest and true with your feelings. How do we accept our feelings? We have to feel them and be present with them. If while remembering something, we feel an emotion from that time. Again, whether happy or sad, excited or mad. Be aware of how you felt in that original moment and how you feel about it. Now remind yourself that all these experiences and emotions made you who you are today. Here with our memories ourselves. And we should feel comfortable being ourselves and accepting ourselves in this space. If we can do this, honestly reflect back on our memories, thoughts, hopes, dreams, loves, hates, and passions. We'll be on the right path to finding our voice. 22. Pondering Our Passions: We've looked at what we sponge up and what our childhoods were like. Our last stop is to take a look at our current interests, passions, influences, and obsessions. 23. Paying Attention: Drawing is a great way to be present and pay attention to everything around us. We need to learn to see, hear, and reflect on the world around us. But we also need to learn to pay attention to what we pay attention to. We need to keep track of the things we notice when we are present. Our sketch book can be a great way to do just that. We can think of our sketch book as a place to collect pieces of our day to day life. Sometimes these pieces will begin to repeat and form patterns. These patterns can give us the key to unlock what goes on in our subconscious. If we pay attention, we see, hear, and reflect on the world around us, keeping track of those pieces from our days and notice the patterns that emerge in what we remember and what we subconsciously paid attention to. Our sketch book will become a chaser map. A map full of clues on what we gravitate towards naturally, which can inform and inspire our art, voice and style. Ray Bradbury talks about this idea of paying attention to what you keep remembering. In his book, Zen and the Art of Writing, he says it much better than I can. I'd really like to read you this passage from the book. I thought about all the wild ideas scrambling for my attention, waiting under the attic lid, confident at last, that I would soon let them out. There are 100 stories from almost 40 years of my life contained in my collected stories. They contain half the damning truths I suspected at midnight and half of the saving truths I refound next noon. If anything is taught here, it is simply the charting of the life of someone who started out to somewhere and went. I have not so much thought my way through life as done things and found what it was and who I was after the doing each tale was a way of finding selves. Each self found each day. Slightly different from the one found 24 hours earlier. I was gathering images all my life, storing them away and forgetting them somehow. I had to send myself back with words as catalysts to open the memories out and see what they had to offer again and again. My stories and my plays teach me remind me that I must never doubt myself. My, my ganglion or my Ugas subconscious again from now on, I hope always to stay alert to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this in future, I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed. When I thought I was sitting this one out, we never sit anything out. We are cups constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out. Ray Bradbury 24. Ideas Come From Actions: Where do ideas come from? We've talked about them coming from our interests, our passions, the things we notice, our daily life and our childhood memories. But we can't always go around noticing all the ideas around us. How do we find ideas? Where do the ideas come from? The answer is that ideas come from action. They come from drawing. Creating a drawing and creating an idea are intertwined. It's often hard to separate them. Sometimes you'll start a drawing already with an idea. The idea will lead you to the drawing, but we can't wait or depend on that to happen. We have to be creating more regularly than that to grow and improve and keep up our creative and drawing muscles. Even when we don't have an idea, we should still draw. The act of drawing will bring ideas to us. It will cause new ideas, new thoughts, and new connections to be made in your brain that you wouldn't have thought about otherwise if you hadn't just started drawing. Remember what Picasso said, Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. 25. Drawing is About Seeing: Most people assume learning to draw well is about learning to physically draw well. They believe if they can just learn how to move the pencil correctly in their hands, how to make the pen do what they want it to do. That that is the most important part of drawing well, but I actually think that drawing something you're proud of and something you feel is drawn in your own style. I think the key to that is much deeper than just how you move your hands. It's instead about how you see the world. What do you notice? What do you recognize as important? Can you see the essence of something? The thing as a whole, not just its parts? Then can you choose what to keep from what you see, what to leave out from what you see when you draw that thing so that the essence is clear. That is what makes someone good at drawing or not. Again, here I've heard from so many people, oh, I can't draw. When I reply, actually I think you can. Their reasoning is usually that artists just see the world differently than other people. Yes, I agree, that's totally true. But that in no way means that you can't also see the world the way that artists do. You can learn to see the world for what it is. You can see the beauty that others overlook. You can recognize the wonderful uniqueness and depth of everything around you. You can observe the world around you, break it down and then make art from it. Yourself is not set in stone the way you think is not set in stone. And your skills are not set in stone. You are an individual person and you can change, grow, and improve to be and do whatever it is you want to do, just so long as you do the work. 26. Drawing From the Heart + Brain: Many people begin drawing by trying to draw things correctly. By trying to represent things in their drawings. To draw things exactly how they seem. But this is only one way to draw, Not the only way or the best way, in my opinion. I think it's more helpful to not worry about drawing things correctly and instead, draw from your heart. Draw how you feel, Draw your interpretation of that thing you see, not the representation. Don't worry about what's good or bad, right or wrong. Just draw what comes to you. Draw because you enjoy drawing. Draw what you like. And draw what sparks your curiosity. Okay? Okay, I get it. You hear me on drawing feeling, but you also want a few guidelines. Here are a few things to keep in mind while drawing that might help you improve the readability of your drawings. But please remember, these are not rules, just guidelines. Don't let them trip you up. Ignore them, and forget them if you like. With that said, learning these things did help me feel more comfortable and confident in my drawing abilities. Draw this, not that there's a wonderful book on drawing called Drawn to Life, 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Volume One, the Walt Stansfield lectures. If you've taken any of my other classes, you've probably heard me talk your ear off about this book. I really recommend it. If you've become comfortable drawing from your heart and you're now looking to level up your skills, You can find this book listed with the others in the bonus download section of this class. Stansfield was an animator at Walt Disney Studios and worked on films including The Jungle Book and the Aristocrats. He led an animator training class series at Disney Studios where he taught our current animator celebrities like Brad Byrd and John Lassiter. A bunch of his lectures were written down and compiled into this book along with hundreds of his sketches. My favorite and most helpful tip from Stanchfield is something he states over and over in the book, Draw gesture, not anatomy. He repeats this concept in many different ways. Draw the whole pose, not body parts, draw verbs or actions, not nouns or things. Draw ideas or story, not drawings or things. Basically, when you're sketching an action, you want to focus on the overall concept and not how to draw the buttons on a person's shirt or the hair or their fingers. You want to keep your drawing simple when you're first beginning a drawing and get down the overall pose and action before diving into all the fun details. If the base of your drawing isn't successful, all the amazing and unique details in the world won't be able to save it. Focusing on the gesture and action helps bring vitality and life into your drawing. In the beginning stages of drawing, try to focus on drawing the energy of the action happening rather than the individual body parts attached to the body. 27. Worrying What Others Think: We often worry about what other people will think about what we make. We worry that they won't like it. We worry they'll think it's bad. But you can't let that stop you from making art. There are a few reasons why someone might not understand or like your work. Reason one, it's just not their thing. Which, if that's true, then who cares that they don't like it? Reason number two, they saw the art too early in the process and it's not communicating well enough or hasn't worked through all its kinks yet. This just means that you need to keep working on it. Finally, reason number three, that person just ain't ready for you. Which group of artists are the ones? History remembers most the artists who followed the rules and did what the masses liked. Or the artist who did what felt right to them and broke all the rules, making their own rules. How many artists work was ridiculed and mocked at first, but then celebrated as revolutionary and innovative later. No matter what, the reason is that someone doesn't like your work, it doesn't matter. Don't let the power of your art making fall to other people's approval. Your art is your art, and only you know how to make it. All that matters is that you keep making your art. Keep drawing, keep learning, and keep improving. 28. Representation vs. Interpretation: When I'm drawing something that actually exists in front of me, meaning I'm not drawing something made up or imaginary. I often begin sketching semi realistically. I don't ever drawn in a photo realistic style, but if I'm drawing, say, a bug on my kitchen floor, I'll start out trying to draw it as I see it. The drawings at this stage are a great way to learn about the thing, how it looks, how it moves. Even how it sounds can be important. We're observing and recording it by drawing it. Drawing the representation of reality is called memesis. Realism and photorealism are examples of styles of mimesis. You're certainly welcome to draw and appreciate photo realistic art, but in my opinion, your art could be so much stronger if you didn't stop there and instead went a little deeper than just representing the reality you see. The technical skill in photo realistic art is impressive, but where is the vitality and life, the uniqueness and personality? It's my belief that the idea, the interpretation of reality, the expression of self and the communication of feeling, those are the things that elevate a drawing to a piece of art with unique style and voice. When we're drawing from life, once we've drawn a thing a few times and we feel like we have a good understanding of it, we can then start to step a bit away from reality. This is where you'll be able to inject your personality by interpreting what you've learned about the thing by drawing it and observing it. We can now start to embellish our drawings, not drawing directly from the thing, trying to represent it as it physically is, but instead drawing our interpretation of it, trying to draw the essence of the thing the way we feel that it is. 29. Injecting Personality: How do you begin to step away from reality and start drawing reality with a little bit of uniqueness and your personal spin on it. Trying a few of these techniques avoid evenness when drawing lines don't have to be straight, even if they are in real life. Repeated parts don't need to be perfectly aligned or perfectly the same. It may seem counter intuitive, but the imperfections will make it feel more real. Physiognomy. This is a term which the animator Walt Stage Field defines as the art of discovering temperament and character from outward appearance. Hence, inner character as revealed outwardly. This is what we're trying to achieve in observational drawings. Now you understand the subject, you've drawn it pretty accurately. Now you need to start pulling out its character and emphasizing its personality by embellishing the drawing a bit and stepping away from actuality. Push your drawing farther than reality. Draw that bug bigger than it actually is. Make its eyes huge to add some humanity and maybe cuteness. You could even make it smile if you wanted to, or take it the other way. If the bug gives you a different feeling, give the bug tiny, menacing eyes. Long spindly legs and matted wet hair. Focus on your interpretation of the thing and it's temperament that you feel rather than just the general category of bug that your brain applies to all insects. Your brain only sees the bug as an animal with six legs and antenna, but you see the bug for more than that and you know how it makes you feel. One thing to keep in mind at this stage is to consider keeping 1 Ft in reality. You want to push your drawing beyond reality, but still have it somewhat based on the thing itself. Push your drawings as far as you can. But realize that you may have to scale them back again to maintain successful communication or to avoid going overboard. We're not trying to draw over the top ron's caricatures here, but instead, find the true essence of the thing we're drawing. So, take a step back every now and then and make sure you haven't gotten too far. 30. Abstract to Emphasize: Another good way to step away from reality is to abstract the subject. To abstract something is to reduce it down to only its essential elements. You want to drop a majority of the detail out, leaving only the necessary and most indispensable parts. If you have a hard time thinking visually, try describing your concept and words and write it down in your sketchbook. For example, say I'm going to draw a bug crawling across my desk. I would write down there's a bug crawling across my desk. Then add some adverbs to your sentence. Now there is a bug hurriedly running across my desk. Now we've got a little something extra to inspire some personality in our drawing. Drawing tells us how the action is happening and hints at why it's happening. This creates a story and remember we're aiming to draw actions, stories and feelings. Not just dull, exact replicas of things. We've got cameras for that, we're here to draw. 31. Basic Drawing Techniques: You guys are getting pretty advanced in your drawing skills. I know I think you're ready to handle a few more drawing guidelines to restate what I said before. Remember, these are not rules. Break them if you want, Ignore them if you want. These are just tips that have helped me and that may help you do with it as you wish. Avoid tangent lines. Tangent lines are when two lines come together to make an unintended relationship. In this example of a pie sitting on a table, you can see a line detail on the counter behind the table runs into the line of the back of the table. Tangents like this are awkward because they destroy depth. This problem could be fixed by just moving the table up a bit so the two lines don't meet. Use straights against curves. Contrasting straight lines against curve lines helps create depth overlap elements overlapping one thing in front of another creates depth by adding layers to your work. Avoid stark repetitions. Repeating things exactly is boring. Try to vary shapes, size, and direction to add interest to your work. Okay, that's it. No more. Now go draw. 32. Combining Words + Pictures: Comics is a great way of looking at how to combine words and pictures. And drawing comics has multiple different uses for words. And they're written differently in a comic than they would be in a novel or any other text only story. Here are the different ways comics can be used to tell a graphic story. Dialogue, which is text shown in speech bubbles. Narration, which are like captions and are often a third person omniscient point of view, narrator, speaking, and sound effects. These are Amanopia, like bang, ding, and Pao. If we're open to using words with our drawings, how should we decide when to include them? When should we just draw something and when should we draw something and include words? Here are some tips for deciding whether to use words or not in your drawing show. Don't tell if you can show something using pictures rather than words. It's generally best in comics to use pictures. Instead of having your characters say, I feel sad, you can show them feeling sad. Are they crying? Is their head hung down? Are they wallowing on the couch? The fewer words, the better. If a word isn't necessary, take it out. You don't need description words when you have pictures, keep your word count in speech bubbles below 30 words. Again, this is a guideline, not a rule. And it can certainly be broken, but it's a good max count to keep in mind. And it'll force you to edit yourself down a bit. After 30 words, your bubble will start to take over the whole panel, most likely. Now let's look at how the words and pictures can work together to communicate one message in Scott Mccleod's book, Making Comics, which you can find listed in the extra bonuses page, and I highly recommend reading. He lays out five ways that words and pictures can be combined. The first is word specific. In this combo, the words tell you everything you need to know while the picture highlights part of what's being said. Then in picture specific, the pictures tell you everything you need to know while the words highlight part of what's being said. In duo specific, the words and pictures pretty much say the same thing in intersecting the words. And pictures help to communicate the same message. But each one also says something new that the other didn't say. Finally, in interdependent, the words and pictures work together to say something that neither could say alone. There necessarily a certain combo that's better than the others. They all have their place for certain uses. But generally your comic or drawing will be stronger if you use combos that allow the words and pictures to work together to tell the story, rather than one telling the story and the other just repeating what was said. It's also a good idea to mix it up and use different combos throughout your drawings. 33. Your Mini-Me: Okay, you're ready for this. Now we're going to draw our self portrait character, something I like to call your mini. But we're not breaking out the mirror and going photo realistic here. We're trying to capture the essence of ourselves, our interpretation of ourselves, not the actual representation of ourselves. This assignment may feel a little daunting at first, but just try to keep an open mind. Have fun and explore. You don't have to completely finalize your mini me right now. We'll be working with and developing this character over the next series of assignments. Don't worry, this is just the start of your mini drawing. Ourself is simple in theory, but difficult in practice. Immediately, when people get these instructions to draw a self portrait, drawing rules come to mind. You may feel the urge to draw accurate human anatomy. And worrying about how you'll draw your nose, your legs, and definitely those dreaded hands. What's happening is simple, too much thinking. In that frustrating scenario, we began our process of drawing. Not by drawing, but by thinking. We think a human has to look a certain way and we try to draw it in that predetermined way. Instead of allowing ourselves to explore the infinite possibilities of how it could look. By beginning with too much thinking, we immediately limit our options and potential. We shut off our experimental playful side and we fall back into our perfectionist beliefs and traditional drawing rules. But that's not what this assignment or this course is about. I don't want you to create a photo realistic recreation of yourself drawing in that way. Allowing our thinking to dictate how we draw leads to stiff art, hesitant lines, and generic people that don't look like anyone and much less like you. What I want you to do is turn off your brain. I want you to explore and play. I want you to find the character that feels like you. I want you to let perfectionist thinking and comparison thinking and begin to uncover the minimi that's hidden deep inside you. This isn't just about drawing a one off character. This whole class is about finding yourself as an artist. This assignment is a direct and literal stab at that idea. It's hard, but I know you can do it. Remember that you're not going to immediately sit down and draw your finalized minimi. This is a process, many students move on from this assignment, not totally in love with their character, but over future assignments, they keep drawing the character in different ways. Expanding what works, removing what doesn't, making changes as they go along. No pressure exploration. You'll discover which features feel right and make those bigger, bolder, and more important. With patience and experimentation, your character will morph into something real. You'll begin to find yourself on the page. Keep drawing, keep trying. Keep opening your eyes and exploring the possibilities, and slowly everything will fall into place. Trust in yourself. Trust in the process. And just draw. Now go give your mini me a chance you can do it. 34. The 7 Elements of Style: All right, as we keep developing our minimi, we're going to add in some visual elements of style. We can explore those too. An artistic style is made up of many things, but there are some visual art features that make a style look distinctive. I've condensed all this down to seven visual elements of style. I'm going to introduce you to the elements here and then we'll explore them more in the upcoming assignments. Let's kick off with line work. There are two main features of linework. Line width, which is how thick or thin a line is. Line quality, which is how the line is drawn. Line work is often determined by the tool you're using. Be it a brush pin, multi liner pin, or paint pin. Next we have color. A consistent color pilot is a core feature of a strong artistic style, but there are more possibilities within that consistency than you might think. Let's focus on two features. Lightness, how much white or black is in a color, saturation. The purity or intensity of a color. Don't forget about gray scale or black and white as options to. Did you know that shapes and forms inside every piece of art are defined by other art elements? It's true there are four main ways to define form, line, color, texture, and value. Graphic work often uses line to define forms where more realistic work tends to use value. These techniques can definitely be used in combination with each other. To every piece of art also has a pictorial plane. The artwork either embraces the fact that it's two D or it aims to give the illusion of being three D. The forms in a two D pictorial plane live on the same plane with a minimal depth. The forms in a three D pictorial plane live on different planes, often with a foreground, middle ground, and background, and have more realistic depth. Texture is another very noticeable and distinctive feature of a style. An artworks texture is often determined based on the tool used or mimicked in digital art. A pencil, alcohol marker, paint pin, or brush pin will each create unique textures. A consistent use of texture is an important part of a strong artistic style. Just like people, artworks go through different moods, But when viewed as a whole, a strong style has a pretty consistent mood. Think of it as the personality of your art. Let's look at two ways to convey mood and art. Color schemes and color. Warmth can create moods and evoke emotions. We can also use narrative to create moods two, by telling a story with dialogue. Expression poses storytelling. Finally, the level of realism you aim for is one of the most defining aspects of your artistic style. This one choice decides or narrows down many other stylistic options. Keep in mind that there is no best level of realism, just like there is no best color palette. It's all just a matter of personal taste and what you enjoy drawing. Every level has its own merit, from the most realistic to the most abstract. 35. Mini-Me Help + Inspiration: If you're feeling a little frustrated, that's totally normal and okay. Sometimes the creative process is frustrating. But you're here putting in the work and that's what counts. Try to think about what makes you look like you and play around with emphasizing those things in your drawing explorations. For example, I am quite short, at five foot tall and I have a ton of thick wavy hair. That's what I exaggerate with my mini me simplifying or ignoring most other features. Are there other characteristics that make you look like you? Do you have big ears, big hair? Are you tall, short, lanky, curvy? We're trying to capture the real you in all your glory. Keep drawing more versions of your mini me, filling up as many pages as you need. You can add some accessories if you think they're essential in representing you. Maybe you wear glasses or maybe you always wear the same pair of earrings. Or maybe like me, clothes are just not that important to you. And you'd prefer to draw yourself free with no clothes at all. To help you keep exploring your mini me, I've put together some mini me inspirations. These are illustrators I love who have developed their own little character for themselves. Take a look at these examples and see if it sparks anything new for you to try with your own minimi. You'll even see some characters that are made up of basic shapes that vary pretty widely, and some that even have animal alter egos. The possibilities are endless. So let's take a look. 36. Style is Always Evolving: Even after you've found your minim, it will shift and evolve over time as you change. Sometimes it'll change in obvious ways, like when I shaved 13 " off my hair one time. Sometimes it'll change in more subtle ways that you may not even notice as you draw your character again and again. And as you grow and evolve as an artist, this goes for your whole style, not just your mini, just as you develop and become more like you. As you grow up, your artistic style is doing the same thing with every experience you have. You change and grow. With every piece of art you make, your style changes and grows. You don't have to stick with one static, unchanging artistic style for the rest of your life. Your style can and should change and evolve as you change and evolve. Because I don't know about you, but I'm a very different person than I was 105 or even one year ago. My art is too. You're still you. Even when you change your style is still your style. Even when it changes, your style is just how you create your art. Everything you ever make will always be in your style as long as you let it flow out naturally. 37. Developing a Creative Habit: There's only one thing you need to do to make something a habit. Start doing it. You've already started drawing. You're well on your way to making it a habit. Now we just seem to be able to stick with it and keep that habit going. Drawing daily, or at least every other day, is the best way to build a drawing habit. But all this is easier said than done. Let's take a look at a couple of obstacles you might encounter and how we can prioritize drawing. I don't have time to draw, we're all busy to do lists are all overflowing and we all say we don't have time for all the things we want to do. But drawing can fit into any schedule. No matter how busy you are. You don't have to draw for hours every day. Just ten or 15 minutes each day will help you make drawing a habit. And your skills will improve immensely. Even 5 minutes is better than none. Just like with any habit, the beginning is the hardest. But once you make the time and commit, drawing will become a habit. And you won't have to make yourself do it anymore. You'll want to do it and you just will, you have to choose to make time for drawing. I don't feel inspired, this is a big one. A lot of people have trouble beginning to draw if they don't feel inspired. But if we only draw when we feel inspired, we won't draw very much at all. To make drawing a habit and to really improve, we have to draw regularly, even when we don't come to the page with tons of ideas and inspiration off the bat. This is really the difference between someone who takes drawing seriously and someone who just draws every now and then. But it is hard to start drawing without that boost. If you're having a hard time drawing with zero inspiration, why not try making yourself inspired. Inspiration usually comes from something outside ourselves. Try getting out of the house regularly and experiencing life. Try a new restaurant, walk down the street, talk to a new person. All these things can lead to new ideas and inspiration, or for an extra artistic boost. Attend an art event, go to an art show, an art museum, or even just browse your local art store. Even watching a thought provoking or visually beautiful movie can spark the inner muse. The point is you need to pour stuff into yourself, absorbing the world around you, and experiencing new things. If you expect to have consistent inspiration and ideas, get out there and see some new stuff. I don't feel like drawing. Don't feel bad if some days you just don't feel like drawing this does not mean you're not a real artist. Artists feel this way all the time and I feel this way all the time. Some days you just don't feel like it. But it's important that we draw anyway. You need to draw even when you don't feel like it. Consistent practice is the only way to improve and grow. One way you can start drawing, even when you don't feel like it, is to remind yourself why you draw. Why are we doing this in the first place? Why is it so important? Remember that drawing can make you feel more calm. It can make you feel more present. It will make you feel more creative, and it will strengthen your skills. It will give you new ideas. It will wake you up and energize you. It will help you find yourself. So do you feel more like drying now? 38. Your Drawing Space: Having a space to draw can make a big difference in how often you draw. If you have to log out all your pens and markers every time you want to draw, and then put up everything when you're done, it makes drawing more of a chore and more difficult to start. If you can set up a space that is your drawing space only, I have a separate desk apart from my computer work desk that I only use for drawing. I leave my sketch books out in the open. Drawings are strewn around and my markers and pins are scattered all over the desk. I've realized that having this desk A makes it easier and quicker for me to start drawing. Inspires and reminds me to draw each day just by seeing all the drawings and pins laying there. This is my current studio. I'm lucky enough to have my own little room where I even have a door that I can shut. But I didn't always have a nice studio like this, and I've had many different dedicated drawing spaces that work just as well. It's nice to have your own room, but it's certainly not necessary. You may not have the option of having a full room or even a desk for just drawing, and that's okay. But maybe there's a small space you could claim for your creativity, even if it's just the corner of a room or the kitchen table after everyone's done with dinner. If you can't have a dedicated space, you may need to be a little bit more involved with dealing with distractions and intruders. I mean helpers while you draw. One thing I like to do when I sit down to draw is put my phone on, do not disturb you could also put on headphones so your family knows that you're busy. And to leave you alone for a bit, you may have to remind your babies or fur babies that you're going to have some me time for a bit. Having as little distraction as you can will allow you to focus and get in the flow state much easier and quicker. 39. Establishing a Routine: Try to figure out what times you feel most creative and energetic and draw during those times. Are you a morning person? Try waking up 30 minutes early and use that time to draw in your sketchbook more of a night owl. Try shutting down your phone and drawing in bed before you go to sleep. Instead of checking Facebook when last time, or maybe drawing on your lunch break would give you a calming moment and creative boost during your work day at the office. Try out different times and see when it's easier for you to start drawing. For me, I have the most energy in the mornings, but I also really like to draw in the late afternoon and evening when I'm a little groggy. I found that during those times, I'm most likely to procrastinate other things I should be doing. So drawing is more like a reprieve from those tasks. 40. Perfection Does Not Exist: I hope by now you realize that doing the work, doing the drawing is the most important thing. But often we get down on ourselves feeling like we aren't good enough, aren't improving, and aren't reaching that level of drawing we so desperately want. But this mindset can be debilitating. It can stop us from starting, stop us from doing the work, and stop us from drawing. Please, don't let yourself fall into this trap. Don't let your thoughts or wish for perfection stop you from drawing. Forget about everything your inner critic tells you. Forget about all the bad drawings you think you've made. Forget about the mistakes you've made. Forget about that artist you love who's so good and makes you feel like you'll never be that good. Forget about everything except drawing. All you have to do is draw. Just do the work, and the rest will come. 41. You Did It!: Thank you so much for taking this class and I'm so grateful for you choosing to take this journey with me. Please reach out to me on the discussions page with any questions you have, anytime you get stuck or any time you have something you'd like to share. I love love, love seeing all your work in the project gallery. And I'm so excited to see your sketchbook pages 1. Last thing. Did you know this class exists in book form two? If you'd like to read all the content from this class and have it on your bookshelf for future studying, check out the book here. All information and drawing assignments are inside the book with extra bonuses and resources as well. Get your copy today. Well, this wraps up the course and I really hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for being here. And best of luck, I hope to see some of your sketchbook pages.