Start Your Art Habit in 7 Days: A Week of Guided Sketchbook Drawings

1. What This Class Is About: Hello, I'm Mimi, and a few years ago, I built a habit of drawing every weekday that turned into a career as a professional illustrator. And I've talked about the business side of that journey before, but now I want to use what I've learned to help you build a consistent creative habit of your own. Sometimes just getting started is the hardest part. So over the next seven days, I'm going to guide you through the first week of your art habit to help you build up momentum and confidence and show you how much creative potential you have. We're going to focus our time together on creating. So we'll fill one sketchbook page together each day for seven days. And while the drawings are the physical project of this class, the main outcome is investing time in yourself each day to be creative. There's a project section below this class, and if you feel comfortable, take a photo of each sketchbook page and upload it there to help inspire other artists and so that we can admire your lovely work. It's totally up to you whether you upload one page at a time, all of them in one post, or you could just pick your favorite of the seven. I've also made an art habit workbook exclusively for this class to give you some extra ideas for each exercise, and at the end, there's a plan for what to draw after the first seven days, so be sure to download that below. The tools you'll need for this class are simply a sketchbook that isn't precious to you and your preferred art supplies. I'll be using mostly colored pencils, but I also have some watercolor paints, a couple of brush markers, and a regular graphite pencil and eraser. You can use any traditional medium to do the activities in this class, though. Just use whatever you have available. Any size sketchbook that you have will be fine. But if the pages are really big, it can be hard to fill a page. So you might want to break large pages down into smaller sizes or get a smaller sketchbook around a five size or even less. A small sketchbook means that you can fill a page with your art quite easily and feel a real sense of progress and accomplishment. I say a sketchbook that isn't precious to you because you need to have a safe space where you can make art without pressure or expectation. So if you have a fancy sketchbook that you're scared to draw in, save that for another time and find yourself something more relaxed instead. So first, let's chat about how to set yourself up for building an art habit, and then I'll guide you through seven sketchbook drawings one day at a time. 2. Art Habit Foundations: Building an art habit is challenging because there are lots of things that stop us from creating more often. And some of them are external, like life responsibilities and busy schedules, and some of them are internal, like a lack of belief in ourselves or having high expectations. If you want to create more often, then you need to make it easier to create by reducing some of your barriers. So have a think about what barriers you have that have held you back from starting an art habit. Write them down so you can see what you're up against. I've left a space for this in the workbook, if that's helpful to you, and then start to think about what you could do to relieve some of those barriers. Some of them might be totally out of your control, but others probably have a bit of wiggle room. If they're external hurdles, things like not having enough time in your schedule or not having a nice space to draw in, is there anything you can do to make more space for your art habit within those restrictions? Can you spend 30 minutes drawing on your lunch break or designate a small space in your house for art once a day? If they're internal hurdles, things like pressures and self limiting beliefs, then those are definitely things you can overcome with practice. Because when we practice making art, we're giving proof to ourselves that we're creative people, that we can make nice things and come up with nice ideas, and you might need a bit of support in that in the beginning, but that's why I'm here to help you show yourself that you have so much creative potential. So I have a few reminders to share with you that really helped me a lot whenever I'm trying to be more consistent in making art. First, the outcome of building an art habit is doing the art. It doesn't matter what you make. If you've made something today, then you've successfully been consistent in your art practice, and that is something to be celebrated. Secondly, make a safe space to be creative in. Not just in a physical environment, but I mean designate a sketchbook to be messy in and make bad art in because perfection is the enemy of creativity. And if you have any expectation that the art you put in a sketchbook should turn out a certain way, then that leaves room for doubt. Remove any pressure you have on yourself, and I really mean any pressure or expectations. Third, there are no right or wrong art techniques. There are just techniques. I'm going to be sharing some of my techniques and why I'm doing certain things throughout these lessons. But that's not because they're the right way to make art. They're just the techniques that I'm using at the moment, and you might want to use them as well. If you don't, that's cool, too. The aim of the game is to put marks down on paper, and there is no right or wrong way to do that. Number four, make it easy for yourself. You don't need to draw anything hard because just consistently showing up for your creativity is hard enough in the beginning. Take time to draw simple things and don't be afraid to repeat similar subjects if you like drawing them. Your focus in the beginning is just showing up to make something. So make all of the other stuff as easy as possible. They don't give out medals for diving in the deep end and making things hard for yourself. And lastly, on a practical note, I have a small technique for making it easier to fill a sketchbook page, and we're going to be using that throughout these seven lessons. To make a blank page less intimidating, I like to break it up into frames to put artwork into. Really, a blank page is a frame in itself. It's something you're putting your art into. But the problem is that it can literally be anything, and that's kind of overwhelming. So for each of our sketchbook pages, we're going to first create a new frame within the page to help us see the space in a new way and then use that as a starting point for our art. A frame can be as simple as a basic shape or as prescriptive as a mug to decorate. Then to help guide us more, we can add a theme to the artwork on each page. A theme can be something like a garden or fish or spring colors, and it helps narrow down the scope of ideas when it comes to thinking of exactly what to draw. Themes don't have to be followed strictly, and you might not need one for every page, but we're going to use them throughout these lessons just to help with creative ideas. So get your sketchbook and your art supplies ready, and let's start building your art habit. 3. Day 1: Patchwork Page: Today is day one of our week of sketchbook drawing and the start of a new creative habit. So let's make something colorful today. In the last video, I was saying that turning your blank page into frames and giving a theme to the art you'll put in them is a great way to make an empty space feel less intimidating. So in today's session, we're going to make a patchwork by turning the page into an uneven grid, which will be our new frames. And then within each mole frame, we'll draw a really simple illustration on our theme for today, which will be garden. So basically anything we can think of that might fit in a garden scene. I'll guide you through the whole session. You're very welcome to draw exactly what I'm drawing in your own sketchbook, if you like. Or if you're feeling creative, you can make your own variation on this page or just use a totally different theme. Use this exercise in any way that inspires you. Let's get started. So I quite like to choose a simple color palette from my art supplies for each sketchbook page before I begin, mostly to prevent me from getting frazzled, trying to choose colors later on, but also just to help everything feel cohesive. I know I'm going to be drawing garden related things, so I'm choosing a few colors that I know will be useful for my theme, like pinks for flowers, some greens for plants, and then some other flower friendly colors with a mix of lighter tones and darker ones. It can always add to these later if I need another color. So it's not set in stone or anything. I just find it helpful to have these colors set aside to be able to pull from easily. So start with a light to medium color, something that you could go over in a darker color. So I'm choosing this lilac, and you want to draw two or three lines vertically down your sketchbook page, depending on how big your sketchbook is, spacing them quite unevenly so that all of the columns aren't exact same width. Then do the same thing horizontally. I think I could comfortably fit three lines on this page. And again, I'm going to space them quite unevenly. So some of them have a big gap and some have a much smaller gap. This has given us lots of boxes of different sizes, and now we're going to fill each one with a small drawing using the theme we've chosen to help us with ideas. The theme today is garden. So think of something you might find in a garden. I first think of a flower, and we can just draw these really simply. I like to roughly match the shape of the box. It's up to you how much you feel each frame. I don't really go all the way to the edges, but I will put rounder shapes in the squares and long skinny things in the tool boxes. And to begin with, I'm just going to draw them all in one color, kind of as a sketch that I can color in later. There's no particular order to doing this. I just tend to think of something that belongs in a garden and pick a box that would be a nice fit for that thing. Or for some of them, I'll look at the shape of the box and try to think of something in a garden that is roughly the same shape. If you're a more methodical person, you might like to fill them in from top to bottom and left to right, but I'm too scattered to do that for this exercise. And you can definitely choose a different theme if you like. I've included some ideas in the workbook to give you some inspiration, but just choose something that you're interested in drawing and that feels comfortable for you. You could draw lots of the same thing in different shapes and colors like lots of flowers or stars or rainbows, or you could draw lots of different things on a broad theme like outer space, the beach, jungle critters, really anything you can think of. I like drawing garden things because they're comfortable to me and generally quite beginner friendly, as well. Now, this short white box feels like the shape of a ladybug to me, so let's draw her in here. Because I draw this sort of thing a lot, it's not too hard for me to come up with ideas, but that's just because I've practiced a lot. If you're just getting started with growing your creative muscle, it might be a bit harder to think of ideas, and that's okay. You could look up inspiration online. I like going to Pinterest and typing in something related to my theme like Garden ideas, Garden clipart or Garden aesthetic. And that will give me lots of visual inspiration if I'm stuck. And the one next to it has a similar shape, so I think a wide summer hat would fit nicely. I'm keeping these sketches really simple. I'm going to add color and some details to them afterwards, but you can also get away with simple things when you have lots of them. If I just drew one of these simple things on a page, it would feel a bit lonely, but put lots of things on a theme together, and suddenly they form a pattern and tell a bit of a story. So you can draw them simply like this, but the overall page will still feel full and lively. Now, it can be fun to draw sideways, as well. Not everything has to be the same orientation. So a long bug fits nicely in this box, even if it doesn't quite match the same orientation as the others. This guy is sort of like a worm. Or maybe they're actually a caterpillar, and I can do tiny little legs down the side. Another way to get ideas if you're running out is to ask yourself questions about the art. Like, what would I see if I looked around my garden right now? Maybe a bumblebee buzzing around. Or you could ask, What critters live in my garden? Or if I sat in the grass at the park, what would I see? If you're having trouble coming up with visual ideas, sometimes asking questions in words can help lead you to that inspiration. And if you're really at a loss, you can just fill in a space with a super simple symbol like a star or a heart or something like that, because they go with everything. So we just have two more boxes to fill in down the bottom. I think in this one, we should draw a very happy sunshine shining brightly in this garden, bringing these sunbeams to the edge of the frame to match that space. And then lastly, let's just fill this final frame with another flower because you can never have too many of those in a garden, and we shouldn't be afraid to repeat things. There's no rule that says we can't if we're just starting a new art habit. Now that we've drawn a small image in each of these boxes, we can go back and colour them in. Let's start with yellow, which is always a lovely color for a star. And I'm just going to fill in the whole shape nice and simple. I think I'll actually just color in all of the yellow bits at once rather than color the full illustrations one by one. But of course, you can colour in as you prefer. The benefit of doing one color at a time is that I can spread out where this color goes across the page. So rather than ending up with lots of yellow things all in one place, I can make sure that I have a few yellow things up here and a few yellow things further down. It helps create some balance, and it's not totally necessary or anything. It just helps your art feel nice. If you think of an artwork like a balance board or a seesaw, having a lot of one color on one side can put it off balance a little bit until you add some more of that color on the other side. So doing it this way, I just find it easier to spread colors out by layering them up one at a time. Some colors might be obvious like there's sunshine, but for anything you're not sure of, you can always come back to later. Next, I'll colour in green because I'm sure I'll have lots of green things in this garden patchwork. And let's start with the caterpillar because although it could be any color, really, we get lots of these bright green caterpillars back home, and I think adding a bit of green up here will help balance out the greens that I'm likely going to have on the leaves and stems on other parts of the page. This flower stem, I definitely want to be green. I selected a few greens for my palette, but generally, I like to start with lighter colors and then build up to darker colors later for shading and details. But also, this green is just my favorite from my pencils, as you can tell by how short it's gotten from overuse. It's probably less than 2 " long, so I think I'll need to get a new one pretty soon when I can't sharpen it or hold it anymore. Let's next do this leaf at the bottom. Leaves can be lots of different colours from green through to yellow, orange, brown, red, and even deep purple sometimes. I'm going for a spring vibe with this pastel color palete though, so this is a springtime leaf. I think that's all the green I need for now. Let's take the next color, and I want to use this pink for a few things like flowers. But I'll start with this butterfly. And as I'm coloring, I'm just leaving some gaps to create a bit of a pattern on the wings. I'll also use this pink for the ladybug, even though ladybugs are typically kind of a bright red color. I'm gonna colour this one in pink because it's a bit softer, and it still shows us what it is. Plus, I don't really want to use a bright red in my pastel palette. And ladybugs can be a few different colours like yellow or orange. So I don't think it's too much of a stretch to draw this one pink. I'll color in the shovel handle pink as well for a bit of palance. It could be any color, really, so why not have a pink one? Now, I'll colour in a few things in this lilac color that I started with. I thought about leaving this flower up the top white like a daisy, but actually, I think it would be nice for it to be purple because I want lots of colour on this sketchbook page. And let's add a bit of lilac to this hat broom down here, too, because it'll just go nicely with the yellow. So, now we've got these drawings colored in. Let's do the backgrounds. And I want to colour in all of these backgrounds in different colors to give us that patchwork effect. I have a really light pink from my palette, and I want to use this as a background for a few of these frames, but only things that aren't already colored in this pink like the caterpillar. And I'm just going to fill the full frame around the illustration that I've drawn. I want these background colors to be different to the colors of the illustrations that are in them so that the colors pop more and don't get totally lost. Now to make this a true patchwork, I'm going to use a few different colors for these background panels, and I'm going to try not to have any of the same colored backgrounds touching each other, though I think matching diagonally would be fine. So basically, not having two pink backgrounds next to each other or two green ones touching. Now we've got three pink backgrounds. Let's do a few in another color. Again, I'm going to try not to have any of these yellow frames next to each other, so I'll spread them out. It's actually a little bit of a puzzle, so you might want to plan out before you start coloring, but really, it doesn't matter too much. I find my coloring in style is quite sketchy when I'm coloring large areas. I quite like a scribbly look almost like a cross hatch effect where the strokes go in different directions. I think it's because I like the texture of it. I really like texture in my art. So coloring in like this gives a little bit of that extra texture to the illustration. You might be much neater than I am, though. That's fine, too. Color, however you like. There's definitely no proper technique here. Now we need a different color again. So let's do this teeny diny light green pencil. Choosing my color palette in advance means that I've now got this nice mix and match effect where there are only a handful of colors, so they feature as backgrounds on some frames and in the actual illustrations of others. You don't have to choose a color palette in advance, and even if you do, you can always add to it. But I really like the simplicity of choosing from a smaller selection of pencils. And then if I do really need or want a color that isn't in there, I can go and find it from my bigger pencil dash. It's just one less thing to think of and a little less overwhelm. Okay, let's do these last few in the lilac from the beginning. So I'll just go ahead and color in these final backgrounds. No. So now I have the whole page colored in and nicely filled. The thing that's lacking for me now is a bit of contrast. So I'm going to go over things in some of the darker colors that I have. That doesn't necessarily mean just going over the outlines. It could mean darkening some parts of the backgrounds like this. And having a darker edge next to the light yellow will give it more contrast and make it pop. I can also use this darker color to add some extra details like some petal features on this flower. I often like to add some little details to shapes that are simple. It's usually either some line details, a tiny bit of shading, or sometimes you'll see me adding little spots to things. It's really to break up large spaces and add a tiny bit of depth or sometimes some texture. Art feels a bit flat when all of the colors have a similar value or darkness to them. So far, I've used a lot of quiet light colors, lots of pastels, which are lovely, but can wash each other out a bit unless I then add some darker bits to balance out those really light bits. If you ever feel like your drawing is a bit flat or a bit lack luster, it might be because there isn't enough contrast. So you might need a bigger difference between the lightest colors you have and the darkest colors. If you have two colors next to each other that have a really big difference in how light or dark they are, you'll have lots of contrast and they'll really pop like this white flower and the purple outline around it. Or if you have two colors next to each other that have a small difference in how light or dark they are, like the yellow background here and the green stem, they won't have much contrast and will blend together a bit. And sometimes that might be what you want. But if it isn't can introduce more contrast like I am here by giving a bit of an outline in dark purple or just darkening one of those colors. I left the middle bit of this butterfly blank because I knew I wanted it in a darker color. And then I'll just add a bit of outline to the edges. I usually don't draw an even outline. I make some places a bit thicker and maybe blend them into shading and leave some of them quite thin or maybe even leave some gaps. I think that quite often variety is what makes art more interesting, maybe because things in nature aren't usually uniform. So although sometimes we talk about balance and being cohesive, it's also nice not to be too strict and perfect and leave a bit of room for imperfection, and that makes your art feel more natural. But at the same time, if you really like a very uniform, a very neat style, then go for it. There aren't any rules in art, and anything I say or anyone else says is just a guide or a starting point. Art advice never has to be followed if it doesn't work for you. The main thing is that you enjoy making this art. So do whatever is fun for you. Let yourself play with different techniques and different styles, and you'll learn over time what you like. I'll keep sharing throughout this class my own techniques or general art tips, but feel free to ignore all of it and go your own way if it brings you more joy in your creative practice. So I'm just going to go through and finish adding this darker layer to the rest of the boxes. So there we have it. Our first sketchbook page is completed, and if you've drawn along with me, then you've officially started your art habit, which is a wonderful step, and there'll be lots more art to come. I'll see you tomorrow for the next illustration. 4. Day 2: Butterfly Pattern: It's day two of our week of sketchbook drawings, and yesterday we did this lovely patchwork page by making grids to frame lots of little drawings. Today, I thought it would be nice to do kind of the opposite and draw one large frame to fill this full page. We'll start by drawing the outline of a butterfly as our frame, trying to fill the whole space with it, and then use the wings as an area to play with our theme for today, which is flowers. I know we drew a few flowers yesterday, so you can choose a different theme if you prefer, but it's okay to repeat imagery, especially if you're just focusing on becoming comfortable as an artist right now. Butterflies might feel a bit childish, but a really lovely way to play with some symmetry and patterns, and grown ups can draw butterflies, too. So, let's get started. So I've got the same color palette of pencils from yesterday. I think I'll just keep them for today as well, because I like the palette, and it will help keep this spread of two pages looking cohesive without any effort on my part. So to start with, we're going to draw a simple butterfly shape to roughly fill the shape of this whole page. Let's start by drawing the middle body part of the butterfly just roughly in the center as a long sort of oval shape. Next, we'll draw the first big wing on one side, trying to reach right up into the corner of the page. Maybe I can give it a bit of a curved shape to the side of the wing here as I bring it back down and then join it back to the body. Then let's do the same thing on the other side to be symmetrical. Don't worry if you've drawn your butterfly a bit wonky or off center like I have. One side will just have to be a bit bigger than the other. Then we need two big wings on the bottom half. So again, I'm going to shape them based on my sketchbook shape so that the wings can reach right towards the edge of the page and fills the space nicely. Not perfectly or anything because then we'd have a very rectangular butterfly, but just so that we have a nice big frame to draw in. And then we can draw two long antenna coming from the top of the head, which helps use a bit of the space in the middle here. So there's our frame drawn for this exercise today. Now I want to make some creative patterns on the wings because butterflies always have lovely intricate patterns. We have flowers as our theme today. So let's start filling these spaces with some really simple flower shapes, just big round petals joining together, really, and see if we can make some patterns from them. For this exercise, anything that I do on one side, I'm going to match to the wing on the other side, not necessarily perfectly, especially because I drew the wonky and one side of my butterfly is definitely bigger than the other, but just so that it feels mirred. Now, this is where having a theme for your page comes in really handy because without a theme, I'd probably be a bit lost as to what to draw within this frame and what patterns to make on the wings. But knowing that I have the theme of flowers makes it much easier because now I just need to decide how I can creatively fit flowers into this shape. And also this combo is quite classic. People have been drawing flower patterns on butterflies for a very long time. If you need some inspiration, you can go on Google or Pinterest and search for folk art flower butterflies or something similar, and you'll see lots of results. Now, if you want to, you can follow exactly what I'm doing in your sketchbook. Or if you're feeling creative, see if you can make up your own flower patterns. It's totally up to you. The main thing is that you're here today and you're making art with me, and that's what's most important for building your art habit. The way I'm building up these patterns is starting with some big elements first, like the flowers that I started with and then their stems. And then I kind of fill in spaces around that with shapes that fit that area. So now let's do the bottom wings. I think this time, I'll separate them into two sections, so I'll draw some curves towards the bottom to break the wing into two spaces, and that way I can have them different colors later on. So maybe for these wings, I can have a big flower in the middle as the main part. But let's do a different shape this time. Sort of like a bell shaped flower. Then some little dangly bits. And a stem as well that I can draw. We have some nice big leaves. Now, I'll try and match that on the other side, which is definitely a smaller wing, but I think we can squeeze it in. And then we can fill in some of these smaller spaces around the main flower. I'm going to do some tiny cute flowers in this space here, as many as I need to to fill in the big gaps, but at the same time, I don't want it to feel too crowded. There's lots of space on this other side, though, so these ones can be a bit bigger. Now, in this gap below the flowers, I think I'll just draw a circle and then maybe the same on the other side of the flower. I don't have too much space on the opposite wing. I really didn't draw them very evenly, but that's fine. Nobody's going to mind. I'll just draw a tinier circle, and you won't even really notice. And let's just fill these final few spots with some long organic shapes. Then we're just left with this separate section down the bottom. And this time, let's draw some leafy shapes rather than flowers. So really, it's just a long stem with some small leaves coming off either side. And then, again, let's just fill in these final few spaces with small shapes. So we have the base of our drawing here. The pattern is all laid out. We just need to color it all in. I have a nice light pink color in my palette so I'm going to start with that and color in the background of these top wings to give us a base to work up from, coloring in everything around the shapes we just drew. Yesterday, we colored in the illustrations first and then colored the backgrounds after. Today we're doing the opposite, but really, you can do either. I don't have a specific technical reason why I decided to colour the background first today. It's just what came to mind as the next step. I do really like coloring in like this. It feels relaxing, especially with these colors. You might choose to use a different art medium, but I enjoy the feeling of pencils and the control you get with them. Now that the top wings are colored in, I'm going to do the bottom two in a different color. So let's try the yellow. I think the yellow will look extra nice when I color in these flowers on top, and you could do the wings all the same color or in similar colors, but it feels more fun to me to have multi colored patterns. I'd be really curious to know what your sketchbook pages look like and whether you choose the same colors and shapes or do something totally different. There is a project space below the class where you can share your sketchbook pages with us if you like, and I would really love to see them. Maybe you also like soft colors like me or maybe you prefer bolder colors or cool colors. Or maybe you're not sure yet, and if that's the case, these exercises are a great place to try different palettes. And when you build a regular art habit, it doesn't matter if you don't love the colors you use one day because you're going to be making another piece of art really soon and we have another opportunity to try something else. And lastly, let's color in these bottom bits that I had separated so that I could do them in a different color. So I'm going to use the medium pink from my palette to color these in. Now, because I'm using the same color that I use for the sketch, I do lose some of the shapes a little bit, but I think I can still see the original. I just have to be careful not to go over all of it completely. So we've got our backgrounds all colored in. Now, I'm going to come back to the middle body part later because the wings are the main focus for me in this exercise. So next we can colour in the lovely floral pattern details we sketched out before. I want these to stand out, so I'm going to use a stronger green to colour in the stem and leaves of this main flower element at the top of the wings. I've always loved drawing flowers and plants, I think because they come in all sorts of shapes and colors, and you can make them up as you go along. You don't need to know any anatomy or have any special skills. As long as you have some petals in a pretty color and some leafy shapes in some kind of green, you've got yourself something that's instantly recognizable as some kind of flower, even if you've completely made it up like I often do. And they're so flexible. You can form them to fit pretty much any space like we have with these wings. So since I have a pink background, I think it would be nice to use a different color for the flowers. We could just use a stronger pink than the background, but it just seems like a nice opportunity to use something different like this orange that I haven't used yet. I'm still mirroring everything that I do on one side onto the other side so that our butterfly is symmetrical or at least near enough. If you wanted to get playful with this, you could definitely have a symmetrical pattern, but different colors on the two sides, or maybe you could try some asymmetry and bring in some differences. But I'm going to keep it simple and symmetrical today. Just like with the drawing we did yesterday, I'd like to have a little bit of balance with these colors spread out across the illustration. So I'm choosing a few other sections in the pattern to color in orange as well. Now, for the other big flower, I'm coloring it a bright purple because we have yellow in the background, and purple is a complimentary color to yellow, so it'll contrast nicely. If you've never heard of complimentary colors before, in basic color theory, there are a few color combinations called harmonies that kind of act like a formula for colors that look nice together. And one of those harmonies is called complimentary colors, which says that colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel contrast nicely and feel good together. If you look at the color wheel, yellow is opposite purple, so they often look good together. Another combo is orange and blue or red and green. So you'll often see those combinations a lot as well. It's not a hard rule, but the harmonies can be useful starting points for building color palettes. So if you have a yellow and have no idea what to put with it, then purple is an easy bit. So like before, I'll spread this purple around other parts of our pattern because I'm going to fill these spots in with something, so why not color them in with a color that I've used elsewhere in the illustration? Let's now fill in these other stems. I'll use the medium green from my palette for this so that it isn't too light and fighting with the yellow background, but also a bit varied from the dark green that I just used before. This green actually is fairly similar to the yellow. So let's go over it with a darker green just a little bit to strengthen and separate it from the background. I won't outline it perfectly, but I'll just go over some of these edges to make them a bit darker. I do still want some of the original green poking through, so I can just softly layer up this green to blend them so that we get a bit of both. There aren't too many empty sections left now. Let's just fill in these flower centers with yellow because I'm not really a fan of the plain white. I think I'll fill in these bottom spots as well. We definitely can leave some areas in this pattern white, though. Let's leave the little flowers white, but outline them just a bit so that we don't lose them in the background. I was saying yesterday as well that I don't always outline things evenly. I usually just suggest an outline, but leave a few soft bits or gaps to help it feel more natural, and it's just not so harsh that way. And finally, we have these circles, and I think a green would be nice here. So now things are really starting to come together and we have these lovely wings. Let's just make sure that everything is as bold as we want it to be by going over any areas that are getting a bit lost and strengthening them a little bit with some stronger colours. The great thing about pencils and a lot of art mediums is that you can layer them up. So if you start light and soft, you can always layer up to get those darker colors, and you can put different colors on top of one another so you can kind of mix colors together that way. The tricky thing with pencils is that you can't really go lighter unless maybe you have a really good white pencil. With paint, you can add white and go lighter, but with pencils and markers, it's more of a layering up from light to dark process. So I've totally neglected the body in the center. Let's give that a bit of color, but it's not the style of the show, so I won't draw a detailed pattern on it. It would be fun to see what some simple stripes look like, though, so let's try that. Mm, I don't love the stripes. Maybe they're just a bit strong, so I can fill in these bits in between with a little bit of purple as well to soften them. Then we can go over these antenna at the top, coloring them in nice and simple. And there is our second full sketchbook page all finished. What a lovely thing to draw. I hope you enjoy drawing along with this one, and I'll see you tomorrow for day three. Think 5. Day 3: Mug Cabinet: It's day three of our week of sketchbook drawing, and we have a brand new page to make some art on. Yesterday, we filled the page with one big butterfly. But today, we're going to be drawing several frames across the page to fill in with different ideas. We're going to start by drawing different mug shapes to act as our frames and then draw onto them any mug designs you can think of. I'm going to very loosely use the theme springtime today, but having a theme for this is optional. You can just enjoy doodling on them or you could even use your own real mugs for reference. As always, you're very welcome to follow exactly what I do or go your own way with these ideas. So let's get started. I'm using colored pencils again for this exercise. This time, I want to choose a different color to draw my frames with those. So let's go with this nice dark green. Now, we're drawing mugs today, and an easy way to draw them is by starting with an oval shape at the top. Then draw a line down from one end, a curve along the bottom to match the curve at the top, then a line back up to the other end of the oval. Then, of course, we need a little handle on the side, but that's it. That is how you draw a simple mug. So I'm aiming to have about five or six mugs on this page, I think. I don't want them to be too small, really, so I'm just going to draw a few different shapes and styles of mugs until I fill this page with them. Some can be short and wide like this one, which is kind of more like a teacup. And maybe even with a saucer at the bottom. We're not aiming for perfection with these shapes and they don't need to have the correct perspective. I think variety is more important and much more fun. So play around with making different shapes, some with curved sides, some really tall, really anything you can think of. You could even look in your kitchen cabinets and use your own marks for inspiration if you start running low on shape ideas. So now this page is filled with lovely mug shapes for us to decorate, however we want. I'm using springtime as my theme today, but I'm going to be using it quite loosely, really, starting with a simple rainbow as an excuse to use some pretty spring colors. I'm not going to do sketches on everything first this time like we did with the last two activities. I'm just going to draw one mug at a time in full. Rainbows are lovely to draw because you can draw them in all sorts of colors. You really don't need to follow the classic idea of a rainbow that goes through all of the colors in order. As long as you have some stacked curves of color, it'll be recognizable as a rainbow. That means that you can really have fun with different color combinations and use it as a way to play with color. Now, I won't do too much shading with these mugs, but just adding a darker bit where the handle meets the body of the mug makes a big difference and is really all I need for these today. Then let's add some coffee or tea inside. I don't really have a lot of brown options in my colored pencils. This one is a little bit purply, but it'll work for today. It'll just have to be a black coffee rather than a milky drink. And finally, I think this love heart could be a bit stronger, so I'll go over that some more. So there's one mug finished. Let's do something different for the second one. And it's kind of teacup shaped, so we could try a classic teacup floral design. Because it'll be quite detailed, we can fill in the background first this time so that we don't have to try and fill in a background around lots of dainty flowers and leaves. As long as the background is a light color, you can always colour it in first and add your darker colors on top. So let's start with some little flower shape scattered along the front. I want it to sort of look like this pattern wraps all the way around the cup, so I'll go right up to the edges with it. Then I'll draw on some simple stems coming from the base of these flowers and add a few leafy details as well. I'm a big tea drinker, so I have a lot of mugs at home, and they're all different shapes and sizes and colors, which is just the way I like them. And I've always loved dainty little teacups with pretty designs on them, so this activity is right up my alley. Let's add a bit of shading to the inside handle. And actually, let's do a bit around the edge of the saucer, as well. And a bit at the bottom of the cup while we're here. We should draw some tea in here. So let's just fill in the bottom half of this oval opening at the top of the cup. Now, for the next mug, what should we do? Maybe we can do something really basic in contrast to the more detailed design of the teacup. So let's start by just giving the whole thing a solid color. Now I think we simply pick another color that's nice and bold, like this orange and draw a couple of stripes along the front simple as that. I like this activity because it's so simple but just challenging enough to come up with different ideas for these different mugs, but it can be as creative as you want it to be. You could just draw different striped patterns on all of them if you don't have a lot of creative energy today, but still want it to show up in your sketchbook for your art habit. And that would still make for a lovely activity with a cute outcome. Or you could go the other way if you are feeling really creative and do intricate designs on all of them, or maybe a seasonal collection of mugs like autumn ones or Christmas ones. It's super flexible, so make these activities work for where you're at today and how you're feeling rather than the other way around. Now let's pick another color again for this next mug, like this purple that we haven't used yet. And this time, I want to draw a chicken for spring. And sometimes you get mugs and teapots with sort of a circular frame around a subject. So I'm going to try and replicate that working to the shape of the mug that I've drawn. I haven't drawn a chicken in a while, but they sort of have a round body and a wing on the side like this, then a head and beak. This is a really tiny drawing. Maybe I've gone a bit too detailed. And I think as long as I have these red bits that chickens have coming out of their heads, it'll look like a chicken and not like a regular bird. So let's color this in now, I'll fill in the cute little purple frame around the chicken first. It's not a perfect chicken, but it doesn't need to be to look really cute. If you'd rather draw something else in this space, then please do. Or if you give it a go in a light color first and you really don't like it, then you can always colour over it knowing that you practiced. Maybe I can make it a bit more of a scene with some grassy green around the bottom. Like it's a hen painted mug. And my chicken is a bit light, so I'll go over them a little bit darker. I think what would make it even cuter is putting a little love heart above them in this space. Really, I'm just using this activity to design mugs that I would personally really like to own. Now, I don't have too many light colours, so I'll use the yellow again to fill in the rest of this mug. I hope these activities are starting to give you some confidence with your art because whether you love what you've drawn or not, you're proving to yourself with each of these pages that you're able to do what all artists do. And that's sit and spend time making art regularly. With time, you'll improve your technical skills, your understanding of color, your creative ideas. But right now, just showing up to make anything creative on this page is such a huge wind to your art habit. The technical stuff can wait. To me, it feels like the least important part of being an artist. The main thing is creation, and that's why I'm happy to be here creating lovely things with you. We just have two mugs left now, and I'd like to do a pretty pink border around the top of this one. So I'm drawing a scalloped pattern with a few little circles in the middle of these curves. If you want anything to be white when you're drawing with colored pencils, you really need to think about it ahead of time so that you can leave it blank because otherwise, once it has color, it's kind of too late unless you have a white pencil or pen to go over it, but I don't have one of those, so I need to leave it blank. Since we're doing a spring theme, let's colour the rest of the mug in this lime green color, and we can draw a flower on top of it afterwards. I actually had my bedroom painted in this exact color palette when I was a kid. I was allowed to choose my own wall color when I was about 9-years-old, and I went for bright pink and lime green, and I just thought it was fantastic. We moved a couple of years later, and I can't remember if we painted over it or not. So, for all I know, it could still be like that now. Let's now do that flower in the middle. And I'm gonna do mine super simple with just a straight stem. Then a couple of leaves off to the sides. And let's have a simple orange flower at the top. I'd like the saucer to be a different color to the mug this time. So I think pink would be lovely to match the border at the top. So I'll just colour the whole thing in. Like I was saying in the other activity, I'm not usually very neat with my coloring in. I prefer a scribbly effect most of the time because I think the texture of it is fun. Lastly, this mug just needs a little bit of shading like the others, nothing too difficult. And rather than shading this top bit, I'll just fill it with tea or coffee instead. I want some of these mugs to have drinks in them and some of them to be without or at least look like they're already half drunk. You could definitely play with having different drinks in them, like some could be hot chocolate with whipped cream or a pumpkin spice latte, or you could have a tea bag hanging over the side of one of them. You can follow as much of what I'm doing as you like, but feel free to spice it up with your own creative ideas, too, if you want to add to any of these drawings. So we're on to the last mug now, and I think we could do another really simple one. So let's fill in this background first. And we did stripes before, so let's try some spots for this one in cute colors. To make it multi colored, we can just add a handful in each color one at a time. And if we leave lots of space in between them, then we can fill those spaces with the next color until we run out of space. I probably have room for about three colors. So we have orange as the first one, then there's purple as the second one. And then I'm pretty sure we'll have room for one more if I leave a bit of space. Now let's go with green for the third color and just fill in a few of the final spaces. These spots can go right up to the edges. They don't need to be all neatly inside the front of the mug, because then it looks like they're wrapped around. And maybe it would be fun for this one, for the whole handle to be a different color because that's fairly common with mugs, and it gives a slight difference to the others. Now we just need something to drink in there. I'm using the same color again, but maybe you have more browns than I do. So that's all of our lovely mugs colored in and looking very cute. We could leave it like this, but sometimes when I have a lot of white space, I like to use the opportunity to put some sparkly bits in the background. I'm using yellow because I don't want these sparkles to distract too much attention away from the actual mugs, and I'm just going to draw little stars and circles in some of these bigger gaps. I do have a habit of drawing a few too many sparkles because I can get carried away, but I think it's a crime that I'm quite happy to commit. And don't worry about drawing perfect stars. They can be wonky, and they can have as many points as you like. So I'll just keep drawing these until I fairly evenly filled the background. Not fully, with a few sparkly bits spread out in each big gap. And then I think I'd actually prefer if these stars were filled in, so I'm gonna fully color them all in. And that's it. Our third sketchbook page is finished and full of cute mugs. I hope you had fun. Feel free to share your mugs with us in the project section down below, and I'll see you again tomorrow. The 6. Day 4: Outfit Ideas: Stay four of our week of sketchbook drawings, and this time, we're going to do something new and use a character as a frame. First, I'll show you how to draw just a really simple human shape, and then we can use them as our frame to design an outfit onto. I'm going to draw a fun outfit that I would really like to wear, but you could draw an outfit that you own or something on a more specific theme like going to the beach, being on holiday or something wintry. The main thing is that we have a simple person, and we use them as a base for some fun clothes. So let's start drawing. Today, I'm going to start with a regular graphite pencil because I want to be able to erase some lines. So let's start by drawing a really basic character. And we're gonna draw them quite large because they're the feature of this page, and we want them to take up a lot of space. First, we're just going to draw a rectangle for the torso, so it needs to sit mostly on the top half of the page. Then for the legs, you can simply draw straight down from the bottom corner until your line is about the same height as the torso. Then from the middle of the rectangle, draw another line, but this time at a bit of an angle to form one leg. And a foot can really be as simple as a point at the bottom of the leg because we're definitely not doing proper anatomy today. And then the same thing gets mirrored for the other side to do the other leg. Now for the head, leave a gap at the top of the torso and draw an oval shape or kind of an upside down egg, really, and join it to the torso with a couple of curved lines for shoulders. You don't need to match the rectangular shape exactly for shoulders. I'm actually cutting through the corners a little bit on mine. Then from those shoulders, draw a line down at a diagonal to about the bottom of the torso and then back up. I'm drawing the arms like this because, A, it's a super simple way to draw them. B, so that their arms don't get in the way of the outfit we draw and C so that it looks like they're showing off what they're wearing. Human characters can feel a bit intimidating, but you can draw them really crudely and simply, and they will still look super cute. Now, this character is obviously very boxy because they are just a pox at the moment. But if you want, you can add a waist by just bringing the sides in a little bit. And I've drawn this leg, probably a bit too thick, so let's just thin that out a tiny bit. Now I can grab my eraser and erase the parts that I don't need so that we can see the full body a bit better. So there we have a simple human. Now let's give them a nice outfit to wear. So I'm switching over to my colored pencils to do the final lines of this illustration. Now, I want my character to wear a vest. So using the mannequin as a guide, I can draw over it to outline where a vest would sit. I'm making it quite cropped because I have a short torso, so I'm always wearing cropped things. Then they need something underneath it. So let's do it just a really simple shirt collar. And then some short sleeves out at an angle, kind of like an oversized T. And I think I'll crop it at the waist so that it looks tucked into the pants. So then I want this outfit to have big boxy pants, so I can use the mannequin to guide where to draw them. And I'm not really a shoe person, so let's just do simple flat slippers. Cute. So now we have an outfit in the making. I think we can erase these other pencil lines now because ideally, we don't want to be able to see through the clothes. I think I'm actually also going to erase the parts of the mannequin without clothes that we haven't drawn over yet. But if I just rub them out lightly, I should still be able to see them enough to colour in the skin. If you're not confident, you'll be able to see these lines strongly enough, then you can leave them there for longer. The only colored pencil that I have that could pass as a skin tone is probably this one. So let's go with that and color in the body where we haven't drawn any clothes yet. I don't think it really needs an outline. I'm just going to color it all in this one color. And can't forget the ankles because I haven't given them any socks. And then let's colour in the head. And since it's such a light skin tone, I can just draw the hair on afterwards. I can fill in this whole space with skin tone. I Faces can be really simple, too. Just take a darker color and start with a nose in the middle. If you keep the top of the nose around the middle of the face, then you'll have room for the hair still. Then the eyes can just be a circle about halfway to the edge of the face on each side, and a little smile underneath. The hairline usually starts about three quarters of the way up the head, but I want to give this character a fun fringe, so it'll hang a little bit lower than that. And, of course, we aren't going for realism, so their fringe can just be a few lumps. Now we can just roughly trace around the top of the head and style their hair however you like. I'm going to do a really straight bob, but with a bumpy bottom to make it more interesting. You could give them ears here, but I'll just draw their hair as if it's in front of their ears by coloring this whole area in around the face. And my characters are never complete without some rosy cheeks. It makes them feel more alive, and I think it just makes characters so much sweeter. We can add a little bit of simple shadow below the neck line while we're here, as well, which just separates the head from the neck. And I find it looks a bit odd otherwise. Now, let's finish designing this outfit. I feel like the colors and patterns are the most important part, and I want it to be a really vibrant, creative outfit. So let's start with the green I use for everything. I haven't planned this activity out in advance, but my vision in my head is to have a sort of detailed vest like those embroidered or quilted ones maybe you've seen online. And so that's why I feel like this shirt should be quite plain. Otherwise, the two might clash. It's still cute to have a bright fun color, though. I don't want anything in this outfit to be too plain because where's the fun in that? So let's colour the vest in a different color like this yellow, just as a base to begin with so we can come up with some kind of design on top. Now, I know I draw a lot of flowers, but they fit so well with everything, and I see these vests with floral patterns a lot. And that's definitely the style I'm going for. So I'm just drawing a few flower shapes and maybe a few extra embellishments in the gaps as well. Now, let's try adding a thicker green border. Like I said, I haven't made a plan for this or any of these activities really beyond the basic concept. So we're making this up as we go along, and that's half the fun of a sketchbook. You don't know how it'll turn out exactly, and it's okay if it's not perfect because it's just a private sketchbook to play in. You don't even have to show anybody these drawings if you don't want to. A sketchbook should be a totally safe space to be created without pressure or expectation. It doesn't matter what you draw in it. The important thing is that you drew. It's doing the art that's more important than the outcome. It's the practicing and giving yourself time to be creative for a little while, to let that be a priority for half an hour or for however long you have. That is always so much more important than how well you think you drew something. I quite like this vest now. Let's move on to the pants, and for some reason, I have a real thing for drawing striped pants, like, vertically striped. So that's what I'm gonna do here. I've never owned striped pants. I just like drawing them, but if I ever see a pair of pants like this, you can bet that I'll be buying them. They feel fun and festive somehow. Or maybe I could learn to sew and make myself a pair of striped pants. But for now, this illustrated pair will have to do. I'm really happy with how this outfit is looking. I just need a color of the shoes, but I think we should keep them simple and just fill them in green. So now I'll add a bit of shading, just to add a little more depth and definition. Nothing crazy, just a couple of layers of darkening the areas underneath the clothes, like under the vest where it meets the other clothes below it, if that makes sense. And I'll do the same with the rest of the body as well, using this darker color to add a bit of darkness under the chin and also where the arms poke out of the sleeves. And then maybe a tiny bit of outlining around the arms, too, because they are very light. The same goes for the ankles. I just want a bit of shadow under the pants where they hang over the leg. So I really like this character. She's very simple, but I think she's sweet, and we could leave her floating like this, but it would be really nice to frame her on a background a little bit. I have a couple of brush markers here, and this yellow one is nice and bright and chunky, so it fills in big areas really quickly and evenly. Now, I don't think I want to just put a border around her. I think it would be much more interesting visually if she kind of pokes out the edges of the background. So I just need to shrink the background a bit, so that it goes through some of her extremities, and that leaves us with her head and feet poking out. Then I can fill in all of this yellow background space, which is quite quick if I use the brush marker on an angle so that I get more of the broad side of it. I'm actually going to leave a little gap around my character. You don't have to, but it helps him stand out a bit, and it's just a style choice, really. So I'll finish filling this in and then we'll see what she looks like. So I'm really happy with this character. I think she looks cute in her fun outfit and the background fills the page nicely. Once the yellow ink dries, I can put her away. I'm curious to know if you drew the same outfit or came up with something totally different. If you're comfortable with sharing, you can upload your art to the project section of this class. I'll see you tomorrow for day five. 7. Day 5: Pattern Garden: It is day five of our week of sketchbook drawing. I'm having a lot of fun with these sketchbook pages, so I hope you are, as well. Today, we're doing something a bit different. I'm getting out the watercolor paints, but you can, of course, use any medium you like, and we'll start by filling the page with organic shapes made from different colored paints to act as our frames for today. And then we can use those as frames to fill with patterns. It's fun because you kind of end up with a garden of patterns, even if you don't draw as many leafy shapes as I do. So get your paints ready if you're using them, and let's get started. So I'm using watercolour paints. They're actually in the form of these ink tense blocks that are just what I have with me for paints. You can use them in lots of different ways, but really I just use them as watercolour. I should probably clean them because they're getting a bit grubby with different colours, but it'll wash off with some water. Let's start by getting a bit of paint on the brush with lots of water. And I'm going to make a big blobby shape in the corner of the page. I don't really want it to touch the edges for some reason, but you can fill your page right to the corners if you prefer. I also don't want these shapes to be too dark because I want to add darker details on top later. Then let's mix another color. I'm going to add some green to the yellow. And then next to the first blob, I'm going to do another one with a slightly different shape. I'm not waiting for the paint to dry between doing these shapes because I don't mind if they mix together a little bit. I think the really nice thing about watercolour is having less control over them than something like pencils. Sometimes paint should just do their own thing. Let's do an orange one next, and I'm just going to keep layering up these shapes vertically, doing them in different colours and making them all a bit unique until I filled the page with them. There's not an exact science to it, so have fun making unique shapes, however you want them. So I've got a yellow, green and orange blob. Let's mix yellow and orange together and do a taller shape over to the side. I love doing mixed media art where you layer up different mediums together. So I'm starting with these painted blobs to have a nice colorful page. But then I'm going to go back once it's dry and do my details in pencil because I have more control of them and they have a different texture as well. Something I am being mindful of is not making these blob shapes too dark because I'm going to be adding colored pencil on top. If you're using an opaque art medium like acrylic paints or paint pens or oil pastels, then you could add light details on top. But with watercolour and pencils, it's about layering from light to dark because it's really hard to make them lighter after you've drawn something. I've still got room for a few more blobs. I've done quite a few smooth ones, so let's make this one more bumpy for variety. I really like how easy it is to make different colours with paints, even if you only have a few paint blocks. I have maybe a dozen blocks here, and only a few of them are vibrant colors that I want, and I can still make lots of different color variations with them. There's also something so satisfying about mixing paints and putting them on paper. How the paint goes down will depend on the type of paper you're using. If the paper is really thin, it'll definitely buckle. Even if it isn't thin, it usually will still buckle a little bit, which is fine. I find that it often smooths out a bit after it dries, and the book has been closed for a while. Traditional art is a really tactile experience compared to digital art, and that's why it's so nice to work in sketchbook sometimes even if you're a digital artist. Both are great, but physical art just feels nice. So now I'm going to let this paint dry completely before I come back and draw some patterns on top with colored pencils. This is all totally dry now, so let's start making some patterns. And for that, I'm using colored pencils again so that I can draw details easily. You can keep using paints if you want. I just know that I want fine lines and I don't have a very fine brush. I'm filling this first blob with short lines in little groups going in different directions to sort of go for a grassy effect. Like most things I do, there's no exact science. I'm just roughly filling the space. For the second shape, I'll change greens for a bit of variety, and this time, maybe I'll just repeat the same shape. So let's do these little leafy bundles and just keep doing them until the whole space is full. You can make a pattern out of anything, really. It doesn't have to be the classics like spots and stripes. Just repeat anything enough, and you've got yourself a pattern. And we can go over the edge of the shape, too, if we want some of these bits at the top to be poking out. Now we can do the third one. And for this one, I'll go with orange to match the shape color. And let's do something really simple like lines, but I'll curve them a little bit, and it'll feel like the lines are curving around the shape. That was a quick and easy one. Let's do the yellow next, and to get some contrast, I'll use purple for the pattern details. And this time, let's do flowers. I probably draw on flowers somewhere on all of these sketchbook pages. They're just so versatile and sweet, and you don't need to know how to draw them accurately to make them look nice. I like that the effect of this page is that it sort of turns into a vertical garden, even though we haven't set out to draw a realistic garden and we're not using any references. Instead, we're just getting something more vibrant and organic. So we have a larger shape over here in the green. Maybe we can make a pattern of bigger objects this time, like full flowers with their stems to make this really feel like a garden. So let's draw a few stems. They don't need to be the same shape or size or anything. I'll just draw a few along the bottom to start with. And this time, we should chose a different color for the flowers. I don't think I've used this navy blue for anything yet, so let's give it a try. I really like it against the light green background. It's a nice change to the pink and orange flowers we've been doing. We still have some space above them, so let's see if we can fit in a few more of the same shapes, starting again with the stems, and then once I've done those, I'll add the flowers to the top. Once I get in the groove of a drawing like this, I find it really relaxing, especially when the stakes are low. Nothing matters too much. Once I know what it is that I'm drawing, I can just go with the flow and enjoy the process. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes drawing can be frustrating, too, but usually only if I'm trying to draw something challenging. So if you're new to art and want to enjoy the process more, focus on things that are simple, remove your expectations of already being able to draw and try to enjoy the process. Okay, so what other patterns can we do in these other shapes? Maybe this one can have some bumpy lines running across it nice and simple. If I curve them to roughly match the shape, then it feels a bit more like it's three D. This green one over to the side can have something simple, as well. This time, let's do some spots. I'm mixing up the sizes of these spots and trying to draw some closer together and some further apart. It can be quite difficult to spread things out randomly. As humans, we tend to spread things out evenly, but if you look at the stars in the sky, they're often clustered together rather than being evenly spread out. We just have two left. Let's do something different in this yellow one. Maybe some leafy shapes, sort of long and pointy shapes. And if I overlap some of them, maybe it'll feel sort of like a bush. I love having these painted colored shapes as frames because it gives me just a tiny bit of structure without being rigid. If I had to come up with these patterns without these colored backgrounds, it would be hard to know where to start and when to stop. But just having that base of colour to draw over means that I don't need to think about that. I'm free to focus on the patterns. I like how organic that one is. Let's now do this last one and follow on the leaf idea with a different leafy shape to fill this space with. These shapes are really classic. It's just a long stem, one leaf at the end, and then symmetrical leaves coming off the base all the way down, and then repeat. I'm curving them in slightly different directions, making them different lengths, and just introducing some variety to make it feel more organic. And just like with the others, I'm going to let some of them stick out the top at. So now we finish filling in all of these lovely painted shapes, and we have a lovely vertical garden. You could definitely leave it here, but I'm just going to go over some of these sections and add just a little bit of shading and some extra outlines and contrast like I have on the other illustrations we've done. I'm sure that some artists like to fully finish each area of their art as they go, but I prefer to build everything up in layers, and I just always have, really. Like I said earlier, there are no right or wrong techniques. There are just techniques. And mine is to start with some kind of sketch or very light version of my drawing, then color it in and then layer up from there any extra contrast or shading that I want. Maybe that's because I don't usually have much of a plan before I start. It just comes to life slowly as I build it up piece by piece. I think it would be nice to add a little more detail to some of these simple ones. Nothing too crazy, really just a few lines here and there to give it some more texture. It's hard to know when an illustration is done. I try not to overthink it too much. My only strategy here is to look over everything, and if I think I like this part less now, it feels a bit sparse, then I add a bit more. If I feel satisfied and there's nothing I really desperately want to add, then I'll leave it and goal it a day. Besides, there's nothing that says that you can't add more to your art later, even after it's finished. You might come back tomorrow or in a month from now and see something you want to change, and you can change it. It doesn't have to be finished forever. So I'll just go through and finalize these little details, and then we can see what it looks like. O So I think that's finished for me now. We've built a lovely, unique patent garden full of lots of colour, and I love the texture of it with a painted base layer. I hope you had fun with this one, and I'll see you again tomorrow. So 8. Day 6: Spotty Aquarium: It's day six of our week of sketchbook drawing. We're so close to completing a full week of art, so you should be really pleased with yourself for making it this far. Today we're going to start by filling our page with big multi colored spots to use as our frames. And the theme we're using is fish. So we're going to turn those organic shapes into fish to make ourselves a quirky aquarium. I'm going back to just colored pencils today. As always, you can follow along and draw the same thing I am or use different art mediums and themes. Whatever gets you inspired. So let's start drawing. I think it's time I chose a new color palette with these pencils. I still only have a limited amount of pencils to choose from. It's just what I have right now. So a lot of the colors will be similar, but I just want a few new ones. I've made sure to include a blue because I think after drawing the fish, I should colour in the background like the ocean. Okay, so let's start by drawing lots of circles and round organic shapes on this page in different colors, filling them in as we go. The reason we're doing this and not just drawing fish shapes from the get go is because this will force us to think outside of the box a bit. I guarantee you if I fill this page with shapes that I thought looked fishy, data will be really similar and probably in profile with long bodies and some fins. Was doing this separates these shapes from being fish initially. So I'm not concerned right now with does this look like a fish? I'm just drawing round shapes which will give me more variety in the long run. I also think it's a much more fun exercise doing it this way. I'll probably aim for about a dozen shapes on the page, a few in each color. So I'll spread them out and slowly start to fill in the gaps as I go. Some can be bigger, some can be smaller, some can be long or curved. Variety is my main mission for this part of the process. As long as they're all quite round and blobby, I think we'll be able to turn them into fish. And just like the previous activities, I'm doing this first step in quite light colors to act as the base so that I can add the darker colors on top. If I started with the stronger darker colors, I wouldn't be able to see the details I add on top later. So with pencils, we go from light to dark. So I'll go ahead and finish making these blob shapes, using all of the space on my page and using the gaps that are left to determine what shape I draw in that gap. Now we have lots of lovely, colorful shapes that we're gonna turn into fish or really anything you might find in an aquarium. Let's start at the top, and with a dark color, we can make this first shape into a fish. I want to keep the main shape as it is, but I'll add fins and tails where I need to. I think a fish this round could definitely be a puffer fish, so maybe it has all these spiky bits around it, then some fishy lips and an eye. And I'll sort of trace around the shape, adding any elements as I go. You can probably tell I didn't look up a pufferfish reference before drawing this, but I think as long as it has a fishy tail and a fin and some spikes, you'll be able to recognize it. This neck shape feels to me a lot like a sea slug. So let's have one of those in our aquarium with a couple of antenna at the front of the head for the eyes. And I'm pretty sure they have sort of wiggily sides to them, which I guess helps them move through the water. And the rest of them I can outline around the purple shape. Maybe they can have a nice smile. And I'll give them a few sluggy spots, too. I like this activity because if you had asked me to draw lots of fish on a page, I would never have thought of drawing a sea slug, so it's already helping me with fresh creative ideas. Let's move on to this neck shape, and it feels a bit to me like one of those tropical fish that are sort of diamond shaped like an angel fish. So let's outline this, but add a tall fin on the back. They can have a little smile at the front and an eye, maybe some gills and a side fin. This is definitely not going to look like an angelfish. You can tell I don't draw or think about fish very often. But that's fine. I don't mind if my fish all look a little bit silly and not quite right. It gives them character. And like I was saying the other day, these drawings are just for you. Even if they turn out a bit silly or you think they're bad, you should never feel embarrassed about any of the art you make because the fact that you're sitting at your sketchbook and making any kind of art is what makes you an artist and is part of your journey to learning to come up with creative ideas and develop the art skills that you want. So try not to be afraid of drawing bad things. It's a really important part of the process. Now, this neck shape is quite pointy, so I think it would make a good shell rather than a fish. So let's turn it into one of those really typical shells you find at a beach with the ridges along the top and the hinge at the bottom. I guess it's a clamshell. This little shape next to it could be a cute tiny fish. This time, I want to try drawing them facing us. So let's do the face first. Big fishy lips are a must. And then some fins on the side. Oh, I think I might have made them look like a sweet wrapper. Maybe if I keep adding fish features, it'll get better, like a top and bottom fin. I don't think that helped too much, but never mind. The context of all the other fish around it will help tell us what it is. This neck shape is really big. It could probably be a fish swimming towards us, but at more of an angle than the last one. So let's start with the face again and then outline the body shape with a smoother tail this time. That might have made it a bit weird, but we'll soldier on. So at this angle, the side fin would be about here. And this one over here. And let's give them a fin on top. I think I've accidentally drawn a fish at some other stage of evolution. They're quite funny, but I actually really like them. Again, I would never have drawn the shape or character without having drawn the colored spots first. They have a lot of skin showing, so let's give them a nice, spotty pattern down their sides. Okay, on to the next, maybe we could make this one different by changing the orientation and drawing them rotated 90 degrees. So their top and bottom fins are actually at the sides like this and their face is up here. This one probably looks the most like a normal fish so far. Maybe they can just have a nice, scaly sort of pattern along the side. Next, let's do this purple one. It's really long and the curve makes me think of eels. So let's outline the whole thing first. And then I guess instead of fins, they just have stripes down the side. I've just realized that I don't really know what an eel looks like. Maybe having an extra bit at the top, like a mohawk will be better. Actually, that does look a bit like an eel now. I'm quite happy with that, especially with adding a few spots. We'll give them a bit more texture. I haven't done a shell for a while, so let's do another one of those. It can be similar to the first one, but because the orange part is a different shape, it'll naturally be a bit different to the other one we did. The only shell shapes I can really think of are these clam style ones and the long spiral cone ones that you sometimes see crabs in. Actually, maybe we can make this yellow shape into a spiral shell, which means that we'll need some curves to make it look like spirals going around. So let's do a few of those and join them up. And then a rounded bit for the top. And if I have an opening here, I could draw a couple of eyes inside so that we know something's living in it. So let's keep a couple of circles blank and put eyeballs in them. Okay, we just have a couple left now. Let's do another fish. And this orange one is a blockier shape, so they might be quite a funny fish shape. But like with the others, as long as they have fishy features like the tail, fins, and a fishy face, they'll look like they belong in our aquarium. And let's give them some nice big stripes to make them unique. Lastly, we have this pink shape. I'm not really sure what to do with this one. Maybe they can be facing to the top of the page and can have little fins out the side. I'll follow the rest of the shape around. Let's do a different tail shape this time. Actually, maybe I've made them look a bit like a shrimp now, so maybe I should have gone in that direction. I think we might be inventing some new fish today. There are all sorts of weird and wonderful things living in the ocean, though. So for all we know this guy could be living out there somewhere. So now we have a beautifully unique selection of fish. The next step is to finish filling in the shapes where we've extended the outlines beyond the original spots. So anywhere like this tail and these spikes where they're outlined, but blank inside. While I'm here, I can add new colors as well, because lots of fish are multi colored, so I can add a bit of orange to make them more interesting. Then we can do that to all of our fish, filling in any blank spaces, giving them a bit of extra colour and character, doing any shading we want. And because all of these fish are made up, they can be any color you like. This little guy would look cute with a different colour tail, I think. This is where having a smaller selection of pre chosen colors comes in really handy for me. It takes out a lot of the overwhelm when I'm wanting to choose a new color for something. And because I've already selected colors that I thought looked quite nice together, I don't have to stop and think about what will go with the rest of this page. If it feels a bit limiting to you, then you can add more colors than I have or just not do that at all, but I personally find it really helpful. If you have no idea where to start with colors, you could find some palettes online or I have some color palette resources available that I can share in the description of this class, and you could try to match your art supplies with color palettes that someone else has made for you, at least while you focus on building your art habit. There are so many resources available out there. You don't have to come up with everything on your own, especially if that's what's holding you back from making art. Take all of the support and guidance you need. This yellow fish is so funny to me for some reason. Let's give them some nice pink fins. And I think even fish can have rosy cheeks, so I'm adding them to all of these fishies. This one has a few blank spots, so let's give them different colored fins, too. I'm having a lot of fun designing new fish, mixing and matching colors and patterns. This sort of activity reminds me of being a kid when we were encouraged to play creative games and come up with monsters and stories. But then, at some point, that stopped being encouraged and it all became essays and exams, and then eventually work and jobs. So I don't know about you, but doing this feels like a nice return to the creativity we had when we were younger. So I'm just gonna finish coloring in these final few fish, and we can see what it all looks like at the end. Well, I'm very pleased with how this aquarium is coming together. The only thing missing for me now is some water for these guys to live in. So I'm just going to scribble in a nice blue background in all of this white space in between them. I definitely wouldn't have come up with half of these characters without drawing the shapes first. So I find this to be a really nice activity to practice creative ideas, but with just a little bit of structure. And the stakes are so low, it doesn't matter if these fish look silly. Your sketchbook should be a place where you can draw silly things, bad things, good things altogether. If you want a bit more support, you could definitely look up some fish references while you draw to give you a bit more confidence. Don't feel like you have to know how to draw things off the top of your head. Even though a lot of my fish aren't quite right, I have drawn fish before, so I'm not starting from zero and then being able to draw like this. I've been practicing drawing for years. So if you're doing this activity and thinking, Well, I don't even know how to draw a fish at all, look up some pictures for reference to help. Or you can just follow the shapes that I'm doing. You can copy them exactly if you want to, but your fish will then look as cute and silly as mine do. Okay, this aquarium is finished. What a lovely, colorful addition to our sketchbook. I hope you enjoy this creative challenge, and I'll see you tomorrow for the final illustration of the week. O. 9. Day 7: Window Views: It's the seventh and final day of our week of sketchbook drawings. I'm so happy that we've been drawing together for a whole week. We've made so many lovely things already. And even though this is the last day of this class, it's just the first week of your art habit. Today we're going to draw a new type of frame, and this one is maybe one of the most obvious. We're going to draw windows. We'll start by drawing a few different window frames onto our page, and then inside each of those, we're going to draw a small landscape or setting that you might see out of a window. I'm going to be using colored pencils again, but as always, you can use any medium you like to follow along. So let's start drawing. So let's start with a fairly light color like always, and first, we'll draw a really simple rectangle or square up in the corner of the page. Then draw that same thing, but inset a little bit, so you have two rectangles inside one another like a window frame. I'd really like to fit about three window frames on this page. So I want to leave room next to it for a smaller one. If you want to, though, you could fill the whole page with one big window instead and just draw a larger scene inside. Then right down the middle, we want two vertical lines close together, or it's okay if they overlap completely. And the same thing horizontally will give us the cross bar of the window. So that's our first one. Let's do a smaller window next to it, and I really love arched windows, so I want to draw one of those. It takes a surprising amount of concentration to draw neat curved lines in one go and even more concentration drawing long straight lines. So I think I'll need to focus quite a lot today. This window follows the same format as the first one with a smaller version of the shape sitting inside the bigger one to make a frame. I think this time, I won't do a crossbar, though. I want these windows to feel a bit different to one another. And for the third one, let's have it fill the rest of this space down the bottom. So just a big rectangle on the bottom half of the page. I find it easier to draw long straight lines if you keep your hand in one position and move your arm from the shoulder or elbow rather than moving the pencil in your hand. It's still tricky, so don't worry if your lines are wonky. You can always use a ruler to help you. So for the cross bars for this third window, let's do one horizontal bar in the top third. And then two vertical lines evenly spaced. I used to have a window that was split like this, and I like the shape of it and the way it frames the outside world. Now we have three nice window frames. We just need to decide what we can see out of them. I think it would be nice to start simple with some rolling hills. So I'm using my lightest green to draw a few curbs across the window, one quite high, one quite low. And maybe a half one in the middle so that it looks like these hills overlap. Then let's draw half a sunshine so that it looks like it's either rising or setting and color that in. So I'm going to color these hills in slightly different colors, starting with lightest at the back or the top from our perspective, and getting darker with each hill as we go down. Our landscape drawing can really be as simple as this. We can add a few little details as we go, but just some layers of rolling hills and the sky is a great starting point for a simple countryside setting. This small middle hill, I'll draw in another green. It's fairly similar in color, so I might go over it later with a darker green pencil to help them stand out from one another. You could also outline these hills if you wanted, then you wouldn't need to make them different colors if that feels easier to you. But I like the way they look when they each have their own color. These hills also don't need to be green. It feels like the most obvious color, but you could play around with having colorful fields of flowers, fields of sheep or cows or brown or orange hills for autumn. Landscapes come in lots of different colors. I know that we're starting to lose the crossbars of the window frame that I drew before in pink, but that's fine because I'm going to draw over it later in a darker color. I just wanted to do a light version of it first, and then color in the landscape, and then I'll draw a darker frame. You could draw a dark frame first, but sometimes with pencils, if you draw over something dark with a light pencil, like if we were coloring in these heels here, sometimes it smudges the dark color a bit, so generally, I try to avoid that. So now let's color the sky. I'm going to use blue because I like this color, and first, I'm going to use it to outline some puffy cloud shapes on the horizon that I'll keep white and just color the area above it. The sun is setting in this scene, so we could also use sunset colors if we want. I just like how bright this blue is. Now, let's add a few details to these hills. Just simple things like some lines is enough. It kind of gives the effect of farm fields. And on this middle one, I'd like to draw some little blades of grass. And what detail could we give this bottom hill? Maybe just some bushy shapes, and we'll draw them all over the hill. I'm quite happy with this sweet little landscape. Let's move on to the next one. For this arch window, I'd love to see the night sky, so it might not be super realistic, but let's draw a big crescent moon in the middle. And then let's have a few stars in the rest of the space. Some of them can have six points. Some of them can have five points. I think I comfortably have room for about four. So I'll do them all at slightly different angles and sizes around the moon. And then we can do a few circle stars dotted around as well. Then we can just color in the sky. I'm using this nice navy blue that I have. And as I come across the yellow elements, I'll just carefully draw around them so that they maintain their color. I love drawing stars. There's something so nice and sparkly about them, and sometimes I make them multi colored so some can be pink or orange or blue instead of yellow. For today, I'll keep it simple, but think about what color of star you'd like the most. So I'll just enjoy the relaxing process of filling in the rest of this background now and we can check back in when it's done. So that's two window scenes done. Let's draw a nice big scene for the third window, and after that, we can finalize the actual window frames. So for this one, it might be nice to do something a bit more detailed with more of a foreground, midground, and background. So I'll actually start planning out my composition by drawing some bushes in the foreground as if they're part of a garden just outside and are obscuring some of our view. So if this is a garden view, then we could probably add a garden fence. And let's put a gate centered nicely in our view. And then a few stones for a path. And then what lies beyond the garden? Maybe we're in the countryside and there's a distant hill like this. And we could draw a rough hedge line just outside of the fence to break up that straight line. And if it's the countryside, we've probably got a nice walking path. So I'm going to do a winding path from the top of the hill in an S shape and then match that line again next to it, but making sure that it's a lot thinner at the top to show that it's going into the distance. Now, this part is a fence, so let's add a few fence posts. But this middle part is a gate, so let's draw it a little bit differently. And I think it would be nice to see a few details of the garden. It can be a fairly wild garden, I think. It's not manicured with flower beds or anything, but there are a few flowers growing naturally. Like for a bit of detail in the foreground, I'm just going to add these really simple lumpy details to show that it's bushy. And I think that'll do for a sketch. Let's get started coloring it in. I'd love for there to be a sun in the sky, and this window pane has the perfect framing for it. And let's make the sky this lovely bright blue again because it's a beautiful sunny day in this scene, not a cloud in the sky, so I'll just fill in each of these panels right up to the line of the hill. Now we can color in the hill. I'm going to use my favorite green again. I probably need to stop choosing this pencil for everything because it's gonna run out soon if I keep using it so much. I just like that it's more vibrant than the other greens that I have. And for a sunny scene like this, I want the grass to be inviting. The footpath, I've left blank so that it can be lighter than the hill around it. But a bit of an outline will help it stand out. It could be fun to fill the hill with a grass pattern while I have this dark green. The scale of this grass is probably a bit big for how far away the hill is, but those are the kinds of things we don't worry about when we're drawing in our sketchbook. Now, I definitely want the foreground to be darkest. So I'll color in this tree shape with this dark green. Maybe I'll give it more of a squiggly texture while I color it in. Usually, if you've got a bright scene, the things that are right up close to our view are darkest, and the things that are further away like the hill are lighter. So the foreground being the elements that are closest to us, I'm coloring in quite dark. It's not a hard and fast rule, but it is a simple place to start. This fence should probably be quite dark, as well, so I'll color that in the other dark green that I have. It's going to be a very simply built fence, just a few posts and some horizontal bars across it. Let's colour in the hedges, and I want them to be a different color to the hill and the fence. This medium green doesn't stand out very much. We kind of lose the shape of the hedge a bit, but I can go over it later if I want. The hedge isn't a very important part of this illustration, so it doesn't matter if it doesn't stand out. Then we need some nice green grass in the garden. I'm losing a bit of the original sketch as I colour this in, but I can still see enough, and I also don't need to follow it exactly anyway, so it's not a big deal. And Now, I can outline and draw over these garden details. They're just sort of grassy bushy strokes with a few flower stems in there. If you draw a pattern of lumpy bits on a green surface, it usually looks like grass. On top of some of these, I'll just scribble a bit of colour to show that they're flowers. Because they're small, they don't need any real detail in shape. I think they can definitely just be a suggestion. And let's add a few little spots of colour around in the grass to, like, their tiny flowers. Then there's just this foreground bush. I'd like it to have some color so that it isn't all green. So we can fill it with berries or maybe their flowers. It doesn't really matter. Now we can colour the whole thing in. I'm using a dark green again and filling in the whole space, just carefully coloring around the berries. I enjoy drawing simple landscapes. It's relaxing to draw, and you also end up with a calm artwork, which is really nice, too. Maybe for this activity, you could draw a window from your house and what's actually outside of it. It might not be a beautiful countryside landscape like this, or maybe it is, but either way, it'll still be interesting. Windows are such great natural frames for art, and you could even extend them to show a bit of the inside, as well. Maybe there are some hanging curtains. Maybe there's a cat looking out at the view or an armchair next to the window. There are lots of things you could do. So this scene is all colored in now. Let's colour the window frames properly. And for this first one, I'm going to make it this dark, reddy brown that I have. I'm surprised I've managed to keep these lines so straight. Usually, I go quite wobbly, but maybe my technique has gotten better with practice. A wobbly window would have a lot of character, though, so don't worry if your lines aren't very straight. That's the first one done. I actually think it would be nice if the second one stayed white, but I do just want to outline the frame again in the navy blue. And maybe it would be nice to darken some of these edges on the inside as well. Then just for something different, this third one can be purple. I'm not sure that I've ever seen a purple window frame before, but I'm sure somebody out there has one. These straight lines take all of my concentration to do. It's such an unnatural thing to draw, but once I've done these, I think we'll be finished. So that's our final sketchbook page of the week finished. I'm really happy with these little scenes. I hope you drew some nice landscapes and are feeling accomplished and confident after finishing seven whole illustrations. Let's chat about what to do now in the next lesson. 10. What's Next?: We've completed seven lovely illustrations together, and your sketchbook is off to a great start. If you feel comfortable sharing what you've drawn with us, then you can upload photos of your sketchbook pages to the project section below this class. You can upload all of them or just your favorites. It's totally up to you, but I would love to see what you've made. Throughout this week, you've proven to yourself that you have so much creative potential and that you can make lovely things. Keep practicing and ideas will come to you more easily, and you'll only become more and more comfortable as an artist. If you have ideas for what you want to draw next, then that's wonderful. But if you want a little more guidance, then be sure to download your art, have it below, where I've included suggestions and ideas for the next few weeks. If you enjoy this class, then consider leaving a review to share with potential students what you liked about it. And for more drawing inspiration and ideas, you can find me on YouTube, Patron and Instagram. Thanks so much for joining me this week. I had such a nice time making up with you, and I hope to see you again soon.