The Magic of Timed Drawing: Quick Exercises to Sketch Better & Faster

1. Trailer: There's a fun and magical way to practice drawing that can be done in just a few minutes a day, even 15 seconds. It will also help you to make drawing a semi daily habit, which builds consistency, which is the key to rapid improvement. Hi, I'm Yasmina, a self taught artist who loves to paint. After focusing mostly on loose painting for many years, my drawing skills got a little bit rusty. So for the last four months, I've kept a semi daily sketchbook that focuses on drawing practice. Once I started doing time drawing exercises in it, I realized how fun they were and kept at it, and then I saw so many benefits. It forced me not to judge my results, so I drew more. I gained confidence in my lines and started trusting my hand and eyes. It helped me to loosen up and avoid adding too much detail. My proportions, free handing and observation skills improved by leaps and bounds. I was able to study many, many subjects in less time than I used to do. One. It also helped me to work on my biggest weakness, which is understanding the three Dess of things by just doing one simple exercise that I will show you. And I was able to practice even on busy days because I could spend just 5 minutes and Bill a Hole page. This class is made up of fun exercise that I put together designed for easy follow along. Exercises are tweakable to your liking, so you'll discover your favorite ways to practice. And I'll even give a tour of my sketchbook to show you the infinite possibilities and my progress. I want art to be fun for me and you, and I also want us to grow, and this class is the easy way to do both. You'll never look at your sketchbook the same way again. There's no pressure, there's no stress, no fear, it's just fun. And time drawing is so easy to do and so versatile that you'll have no excuse to have art block. For the painters out there, I'll even show you how to do time paintings in the last lesson, which is really fun for loosening up. However, this class's main focus is observational drawing, because mastering the fundamentals has to happen before exploring different mediums or styles. And if you're more advanced artist, it's really good to also sharpen those basics like I'm doing. The best way to learn is also by doing. So grab a pencil and paper and join me. Are you ready to level up your drawing skills in a fun way with the magic of time drawing? Let's have some fun. Let's go. 2. The Benefits & Learning to See: Hello there. Welcome to the class. So before we jump into the exercises, let's talk about the biggest benefits of doing them. I hope this will get you excited to make this into a semi daily habit. And I personally have been keeping an almost daily practice sketch book and I alternate between free hand drawing, time drawing, and normal drawing. And I will do a little tour of it later in the class to give you more tips and advice. I have seen so many benefits so far, and T drawing is my favorite way to warm up or practice when I don't have that much time. But there are so many benefits, and one of the biggest ones is that you learn to really see what's in front of you because you don't have time to analyze what you're seeing with your brain. You have to just quickly put it down on the page. Your brain is forced to observe the lines and shapes very fast, and you skip editing the subject. Trying to analyze what it is or think dog or cat, you're just like lions, lines. This really forces you to see it. Maybe your results will look wanky. But the important thing is you're getting your brain and your eyes and your hand used to working together to observe. I know this sounds strange, but being an artist means learning to see. Hand eye coordination is the other half of the equation, of course, but if you have the motor skills to draw basic shapes and lines, then you can technically draw anything. Long as you can see. But of course, you can get better at drawing lines and circles and you have to master those, the basics to be able to draw well, and you will with practice. But those are the easy part compared to actually seeing what's in front of you and putting that down. You get better at both skills the more you do observational drawing. The remedy is just to practice a lot, and that's what time drawing does for us. We study many, many subjects in a short period of time. Other benefit is learning to be selective with details, which is really important. If I draw every detail of a subject, it looks cluttered, it's too much, unless you're being realistic with a pencil or something, you have to learn how to choose the parts that you want to keep and the important parts and leave out the rest. It just looks better. This will really help you to draw things stylistically. You also learn how to draw faster. Which is really beneficial because you can study more and shorter periods of time. When you do so many different studies in a short period of time, you get more experience faster and improve faster, you level up your skills. You also become more confident with your lines. Do you ever have a wonky line and you just draw over it or you race it 1 million times? You can't do that in time drawing. You just have to put a line down and be comfortable with it. This is something a lot of beginners struggle with. If you do, don't worry, this will really help you. Also a lot more fun than normal drawing because when we're working so quickly, the results really don't matter, and you end up practicing more. You can really just focus on drawing and let your inner critic be quiet and just enjoy the process. It also helps to overcome art block. Are you one of those people who are like, I don't know what to draw? Anything I try sucks. Well, if you do this, of course, it'll suck, especially if you're starting, but that's the fun part. It's just practice. You know you're improving. You know that it doesn't matter what you draw. You can just look up any reference picture or draw anything on your desk. It's just such a fun and controlled way to practice. One of my favorite benefits is you learn how to loosen up in your own work and your own style. You learn how to have expressive and live lines. For me, this is something I really want with my style, but maybe it's not your thing. That's okay if it isn't, you still get benefits. But if you do want to be more loose like I do, then this will really help. You learn how to make those bold and confident strokes, and it helps also with my paintings. You can also focus on one subject and learn how to draw it really fast and learn how it works and it's anatomy, and all that stuff just by doing it from different angles and different poses or whatever it is. The more you draw a specific thing, the better you get a drawing. If I want to draw 100 faces, it would only take me 100 minutes, an hour and 40 minutes to draw them. While most beginners just focus on one face for those 2 hours, you can do 100. Do you know how many more benefits your brain gets from that? You'll really learn how they work and how to see them properly. You also learn how to do proportions. I like to do free hand drawing which just means I don't put shapes down first, I don't do a sketch first, I just go for it, and that's been my challenge lately. That's what you're forced to do with time drawings. You don't really have time to do all the shapes and all that. Helps you to develop those free hand skills and learn how to see proportions and how to put them down. This will really just benefit you when you do your final sketches because the proportions will be more accurate naturally, even if you're using simple shapes. I mentioned this before. I really love using this as a warm up. I find if I warm up with these, I tend to do better with my actual drawings. There really are so many more benefits, and I'm sure you'll notice them in your work as you do the exercises. The best part is you can tweak the exercises to your liking. I'll show you a lot of different examples of things that you can do. I've touched on this real quick, but these exercises are really especially beneficial. If you're the artist that gets stuck on the details and perfection. This is something a lot of new artists tend to do, so no worries if that's you. They obsess and constantly erase and refine and end up working on one piece, one drawing, for a really long time. Maybe days, maybe Maybe a couple hours. But the truth is they just need more practice, and they're barely growing their skills by being fixated on this one drawing. Practicing things that take longer to draw is wonderful and you should definitely do it. But alternating it with time drawings will help you to get more practice time in, but spending all your drawing time on one thing really holds you back. Time drawings help you to draw faster and learn to see faster and learn to do more faster. Even when you do your final pieces, you'll actually be able to do more in a shorter period of time, and they help you let go of perfection. Actually really like loose pieces, but if you're a perfectionist, you can still take this class, it will still help you. A lot of beginners also tend to focus on one drawing and then give up because they feel like a failure since they invested so much time into this one drawing and it doesn't turn out good. But the truth is you need to make tons and tons and tons of drawings and most of them will be ugly, and this is normal, especially when you're starting out. I still make ugly drawings all the time. But this is why practice time like this where you let go of results is so important. Fastest way to grow is to practice a lot and using a lot of different subjects or references, and time drawing forces you to do this. That's really the biggest benefit, but let's go back to seeing. Let me show you a quick example of how important seeing really is because it's really important. You might already be familiar with this from my C better to draw better class. Had my husband who doesn't draw since childhood draw this line for me. I broke it down into simple lines so that it's easier to observe. Then I told him to draw it upside down instead of thinking of it as a line, I told him to just see shapes and lines and convey those, not to think, just to put down what he sees. Look at how much better he did with the upside down drawing. The proportions are so That's because we get in the way of our drawing skills when we try to draw what we remember a subject to be or what we think it looks like instead of actually seeing it in front of us. This is what I mean by learning how to see. Our brain filters in what we're portraying, and it tries to tell us like, the eyes are up here, but then the forehead is too tiny. This happens a lot and we have to retrain it to really see. If you want to try this yourself, I've included the image file that you can download, print out, and try out. You'll be inspired if you do it because it really works. Upside down drawing is better than right side up when you can't observe. But it's okay because this class will really teach you to see. Secret really is to keep your eyes on your subject more than your page. You're just making sure your lines are in the right spot when you look down on your page, but you're not staring at your page and drawing. You're looking at the subject and maybe like 70% of the time. You're in the subject and 30% on the page. That's really the secret to learning to see what's in front of you. Otherwise, it just hates practice. But the cool thing is learning to see benefits more than your drawing. It makes you more present and aware of life and everything becomes more vibrant and beautiful. You could get lost in a light filtering through a window or the detail of a delicate flower. Know I sound a little cheesy, but this skill will enrich your life. We learn to let go of our program of stereotypes and learn to appreciate things as they are. There is so much beauty in this world. Next time, you're bored and waning in line, instead of being on your phone, try practicing, observing all the details around you. You might notice beauty in the mundane or something you just never paid attention to or look at a loved one's face and just love it for what it is. It's okay if you don't understand what seeing means just yet. It will click for you as you get better at seeing with time and practice. Let's get this time drawing adventure started with a quick review of supply ideas. 3. Supply Ideas: Now, let's jump into supplies. You really can use anything you like, but there are pros and cons to different ones. I'm going to show you some of my go to favorites. The first is the mighty pencil. This one gives you a lot of versatility and is probably the easiest to get. You probably already have one. You can press down harder for a thicker and darker line or touch the page like a feather for a very soft nine. You can shade in many different ways as well if you want to incorporate value. If you love to sketch and the pencil is your best friend, I recommend a two to six B pencil so you can get darker lines, but a normal HB is fine, too. You really shouldn't use an eraser for time drawings, but we will also practice normal drawings. If you want to use one, just use anything you already have. I use it from time to time. The second medium is my favorite. In I love being able to make thick and thin lines, the rich darkness of it, the finality of my strokes, which I cannot erase, even if I wanted to. It helps me go of perfection. But this medium is a little harder to work with. You can use ink and a brush, but that's even harder in my opinion. That's why I really like the brush pen with bristles, or you can get one without bristles. Since we are just practicing, the most economical way to use an ink brush is actually to fill a water brush with ink, and you can do so with any color you like if you have ink, like here, I did a nice pink. This medium takes more practice, but for me, it's so much fun to use, especially for quick drawing. If you will work with it for your actual finished art, then why not practice it now? I love to practice with this. It's probably my favorite. Also, a nice colored option for pencils is colored pencil. I prefer to work in black and white, so there's no distraction, but using color is up to you. It can make your drawings more fun, and it can help you to just like your results even if you don't like them. I know that sounds weird, but I don't know why. Color is cool, okay? So the next option is not my favorite. We don't get any natural line variation with it. It's a fine line or pen or a micron pen. But a more economic thing to do is just you can use a ballpoint pen. It works just as well, especially since we're just practicing. This medium might be your favorite though. If you're someone that likes an art style that has simple lines for out lines with no line variation, then it doesn't hurt to use this. Whatever your final medium is for your style, I would use that think you practice with. Especially if you want to do hatching or cross hatching type shading, this is great for that. These are the three main mediums I recommend for quick drawing. But you can also use anything you have on hand, you can even use charcoal, which I know is highly recommended, but the downside to it is it's super messy and I find it looks terrible in my sketchbook when I close it and smears on both sides. But to each their own, if you want to use charcoal, go ahead. Find what you like to use. You can even use crown, whatever you like. S for paper. Anything works. I've been using this 60 pound paper for my sketchbook and yes, I use ink and the pages are a bit transparent and there's a little bit of bleed. But it doesn't matter because I'm just practicing, it really doesn't bother me. But if I can make one recommendation, it's to get a sketchbook for practice. Because it's so much fun to see your improvement over time. It is so much easier to have all your sketches in one place. If you date your pages like I do, you can see how you're improving with time. It's just awesome. I'll show you a little peek into my practice sketchbook later in the class. I only recently started keeping one. I used to just practice on scrap paper and I would throw it away when done, and I regret that now. It would have been much more fun to have more of these sketchbooks. But whatever you do is up to you, and also if you hate your sketchbook at the end, no one stopping you from throwing it away. You don't have to share with anybody. It's your sketchbook, and you don't have to have a sketchbook. I think they're do want you to keep all the drawings you make in this class because we're going to have a final project that will help us to see our progress. Find the way you like to practice the best. There's no one way and you really can't use anything. I'll show you one lesson at the end. I will show you how you can also do speed painting. If you do those, just make sure your paper is thick enough for paint. Now that you have everything you need, let's warm up. 4. Quick Warm-Up: This is an optional lesson. You don't have to do it, but I find it helps, especially if you're a little rusty. Take out a blank scrap page, and let's just fill it in together. No stress. We're just going to get our hand moving and practice doing simple things because everything out there can be conveyed in simple curvy lines, or straight lines, and shapes. Do some lines down. It's okay if yours are wobbly. Try using your whole arm, maybe even your shoulder for longer lines. Now quickly cross them. Next les, do some circles. They don't have to be perfect, circles, draw any way you like. You could do them really quick. You can do them slow, whatever you want to do. Some triangles, again, just practice, don't worry about perfection. They're just little triangles. They're not going to hurt you. Squares. Yeah, squares. Try to make all the sides, even. I find that it's kind of hard actually. A nice, twirly line like this. I love doing these. A Ziggy zag line, Ziggy zag. A wobbly line, and more. I love these. Now we're going back in our squares and just repeating the shape twice. Now, the same thing with our triangles and circles. You can add more shapes if you like. Whatever you want to do, add more lines, whatever you want to do. Just have fun. Now we're going to just scribble, scribble, scribble, your little kid. Let go of control and just move your hand, your wrist, your arm, even your shoulder, if you like, and just let the line dance on the page. Maybe it wants to make a big circle, a nice, big, loose circle and oval, whatever you want to do a square, whatever you want to do, let your hand move on the page. Draw over everything. It doesn't matter. We are just moving our pencil across a page and getting comfy with it. Okay All warmed up. All loosened up, so. It didn't even matter what you drew or what it looked like. We're just going to go over it. So I wanted to think of that in the same way with all the time drawings. It doesn't matter what they look like. You're just getting your hand moving and you're practicing. Now we can start the exercises. Let's go. 5. The Basic Timed Drawing: Okay, we're going to just jump right in. We're going to be drawing this fish, and you might think to yourself, I can't draw that. That's just too hard. My brain doesn't know how. Where do I even start? I don't know what a fish is. Well, maybe not that one. Well, remember what I said. A being able to see, we don't need to know how to draw a fish, to draw a fish. We just need to be quick and convey what we're seeing and only pay attention to the lines and shapes in the best way we can. It's okay if your skill level is really low, and it's okay if it's really hard. It's okay. I just want you to try. I want you to not think fish and just do it, just think lines, just think shapes. This subject is very, very flowy and fun to capture, and there's really no wrong way to do it. I repeat, there is no wrong way to draw fish. Just try without fear. Ready, do it now. Come on. We got this. Grab a pencil and paper, and let's just go for it. This first one is going to be 15 seconds. Remember, to keep your eyes on the subject, we're in the paper, and it's okay if it just looks like a bunch of lines, just be quick and lose. We're just getting the essence of it. You're going to improve with time, I promise. Ready? Said? Go. Okay. 5 seconds left, four, three, two, one. Pencils down. Don't worry if your drawing is incomplete. You'll get the hang of gauging the time as you do more of these. And you can always add a quick line or two after time is up to finish it. I do that all the time, so that's not cheating in my book since we're just practicing. I mean, don't tell anyone okay. Here's a playback of what I did. I focused on the outline first and then added in the details. Notice how my shapes don't match. The body is too wide, but I think I caught the essence. Look at it, I think fish. If yours doesn't look like a fish, that's okay. Don't judge it, and you don't have to try these like I do. Find what feels natural to you instead. You can do details first, you can do shapes, whatever you want to do. Usually, I just start wherever my attention is grabbed. Just do it, don't think, and just try and see what's natural to your hand. Now we're going to do the same thing again. We're going to double our time for 30 seconds. Again, start anywhere you like and go for it. Just be quick. If you have time left over somehow, just add in details or draw over any lines you already put down to refine the shapes. I always draw over my lines and never erase, just do whatever. Don't worry about it. Again, it's not a fish, just a bunch of lines and shapes, and there's no wrong way. So Ready? Set, go. Five, four, three, two, one. Okay. Time's up. How did you do? Yeah. That was fine, wasn't it? Okay, so let's analyze what I did. Not jaw, just observe and gently correct my observation in my head. I'm learning from what I'm doing Ron and what I'm seeing Ron. Notice how this time I didn't just focus on the outline because I had more time I added in details as I went. There's no rhyme or reason to it. I just did it. There's more texture and my lines are more neat. The proportions are more accurate with the head shape and body shape being more right, even the tail is the correct size. As you can see, this 32nd drawing is much better. This is why I usually only do very simple subjects for 15 second drawings. They're really not my favorite, but maybe they'll be yours. If yours doesn't look anywhere remotely close to the fish and it is just a bunch of lines, as well, that's okay. You will get better. You will get better. Trust me. And you will get better drawing quickly and putting down what you see, and that's really important and you're doing good. Just practice it. Now, let's do the 1 minute drawing, which gives you even more time to refine. So you can take your time more here, but try to still be quick. Ready? Set, go. Okay. 30 seconds left. You could do it, I believe me. Oh Okay. 10 seconds left. Five, four, three, two, one. All done. Okay. Let's analyze again. I think the 1 minute one is the most enjoyable just because I feel like I have time to try. I hope you enjoyed this one as well. But let's play back what I did. I realize I always started at the head, which is the focal point to me, which is just fancy way of saying the most important part of the piece that I noticed the. Notice how I captured the angles much better and the proportions of the body look good. This one is the most accurate and has the most detail. But I lost a little bit of the spontaneous quick lines that I have with a 32nd one. This is why I love doing the 32nd and the 1 minute one is the most. 30 seconds helps us to loosen up more and capture the essence with those quick quick lines, and 1 minute lets us see more details. It helps us to be more accurate but still quick. Now we're going to draw the fish without a timer. Just take your time and do your best. You can use an eraser if you like and start with simple shapes or free hand like I It's up to you. You don't have to draw super slowly, though. This is just practice and not a finished piece, so take your time. But don't be a perfectionist. Just do your best, just do a quick study. Nobody has to see this. It's just practice. So go ahead and start. You can pause here until you're done, and let's go. Okay. Yeah, we both drew one subject four times in four different ways. If you didn't do any of the drawings, I really recommend you do because you can read all day about art, you can watch videos, but you're not go to learn anything until you try. All learning is done by doing. I really, really believe that. I've watched classes on things before, and I never tried it, and I just forgot everything. I'm looking at you embroidery. Uh, but my final fish looks good, but for some reason, I rotated it. But the funny thing is my 1 minute drawing isn't so different from this one. I find this happens a lot. I actually usually prefer the 1 minute drawing because it looks more spontaneous and free with the lines. And I tend to add too much detail to my finished art, and I usually don't do that with my time drawings. That's kind of what I'm aiming for with my finished art. I want to loosen up more in my actual art style. So these time drawings are really invaluable for me. But I'm happy I got some practice time in. Like I said before, results don't matter, and we just learn from every time we draw something. Get quicker and more accurate with time and practice as well. The important part is you're improving and trust me you are. I know you are because that's what happens when you practice. I just want you to know you did great and I'm proud of you, and here I'm going to clap. Because no matter what your results are, you have to appreciate that you tried, ok? And that's how it starts. And here, let me show you a ugly sketchbook. Look, look, this is my first drawings. Look how bad they are, ok? Well, it's not even my first drawings. This was when I was like 17 or something. So yeah, I've drawn before that. But yeah, you see my proportions whereof, It's okay. It's okay, you guys. It takes time to get good. The more you practice, the faster you level up. I guarantee it. So you did great. Okay. Keep your ugly drawings, and if they're good, they're better than mine. Go ahead and share them and put me to shame. I don't care. I want you to. I want you to to your best and, like, be happy, okay? It's okay if someone does better than me. It's okay if other artists are better than me, and it's okay if I'm better than you or someone else's or you know, it doesn't matter. We're all practicing. We're all having fun, and we all have unique art style and something beautiful to share with the world, okay? All right. Okay. So please don't throw out your ugly drawings, especially because we're going to do something fun for the final project, so keep your drawings in case you want to share them later, to show your progress. Okay, My branch is over. Now, Let's look at some other ways you can practice. 6. The Timed Blind Continuous Contour : Next exercise is called a blind, continuous contour drawing, and maybe you've already practiced it before, but I want you to do it again and this time timed. And for a very good reason. This exercise will teach you the most important habit that you need for all drawing, which is looking at your subject more than your page, so you can truly see what's in front of you instead of letting your brain trick you. So you can outline reality instead of imagination. You will learn how to take the information you're seeing and how to put it down honestly with your hand without judgment. You'll learn how to move your hand in a way that is observational, if that makes sense and organic. Like feeling out the edges of what you're seeing with your pencil on paper without caring about results. The blind means we're not looking at our page at all. We are only looking at our subject. We will also do it continuously, which means we will not lift the pen off the page until we're done drawing. This makes the process much quicker and easier. Contour means outline. So we will focus on the outlines or lines we can see in the subject. Also, if you fall off the page, just put your pen back without looking and start anywhere. Don't worry about results. Just practice. I chose a very fun subject to draw. There's all the details and lines that really stick out. Anything organic like this like plans is perfect for this. Remember, just focus on the lines. It's not a rose, just a bunch of lines. Please do with me. It's really fun. It will teach you to see, and it's really not that hard. And there really are no bad results, just practice. So the first is 15 seconds, just like last time. So ready? Set, Go. Be quick. Your speed, your lightning. Don't worry about details. Go for it. Let those lines scribble. Five, four, three, two, one. Okay, all done. If you feel like maybe you were too slow to capture the rows, that's okay. It doesn't matter. 15 seconds is pretty hard, and you have to be really fast. Now we're gonna double our time. Let's do 30 seconds. Just do the same thing. But this time, it should feel a little bit more organic because you'll have more time to really study the outlines. Okay, 30 seconds. Re? Set. Go, go, go. Just fill out those outlines with your pencil. You got this. D. Five, four, three, two, one. All done. Mine looks more quirky this time, but I got more details because I was able to go more slowly with my pencil. So the first one is the essence, the generalization, and the second one, we can start getting in those details. And now we're going to do 1 minute, so we can get even more details in. Again, don't worry about the results or them overlapping or coming off the page, whatever we're just practicing and just observing. L just keep your eyes on the subject, not the page, and let's start again. Ready? Set, go. With this one, take your time more, get those nooks and crannies, and interesting details. Notice all the little curves, all the lines. Just outline the edges of what you see with your pencil. You have 30 seconds left. 15 seconds left. Five, four, three, two, one. All done. You did great. You can see the level of detail on my outline is the highest, and it looks strange, but I got the essence of my subject. These are always weird looking, so don't worry about that it's normal. It's also normal for proportions or placement of things to be off when you do these because you're not looking at your page. This is why I usually do look at my page is to just make sure the placement of things is correct. I think the results are so neat and fun and it really teaches you to see the organic shapes of things as they are. Now, no matter what results, we're going to do a normal drawing again. You're free to do whatever you like. Is not timed so just do whatever, take your time. You can start with a general sketch, whatever you want to do. But try to keep the habit of looking at your subject more than your page alive. What we just learned and look at your subject more. Look at your page just to put the things in the right place and make sure they look right. If they just draw over your lines, try not to erase and just go for it. Another fun thing is just to look at your page really quick and your subject and compare them really quickly by moving your eyes and you can see where things look off on your drawing. But just draw over your lines, just go for it, there's no perfect way. But it's just practice, so don't take forever, just go for it, just do a five minute sketch. Go ahead and pause here and do your best to draw your rows realistically. Okay, y, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed this and notice how organic my rose feels. I kept those realistic features, lines and details that I got from looking at it blindly, and those made it feel like a rose. I decided to do some light shading and I recommend you adding value to your studies whenever you feel like it, because it's good to practice that, but you really don't have to. But if you do want to do more value studies, you can also do time to value studies, but I would give myself at least 3 minutes per subject because values take more time to see. And a trick for seeing values is to squint your eyes. So I'm pretty happy with these results. It's not an exact replica of the rose, but it feels alive and I manage to capture the essence and liveness. Maybe you're positively impressed with yours. Even if it doesn't look accurate, does it look organic? Did you get the essence? If so, great work. That's all you need to do. But if you didn't, don't worry, just keep practicing, and maybe do this exercise more often. Line contour drawing teaches you to really see. I recommend you practice it, even if it's not time, especially if it's really hard for you, I think not timing it is just fine as well. I think it's good to alternate between time drawing and not time drawing. I'll leave it up to you whether you want to time this exercise or not. But it really will help you to learn how to observe and it will rewire your brain to see. Now, if you feel rushed in any of these and if time drawing is really hard for you, let's look at a fine exercise that helps you have more time to refine things. 7. The Double Timed Drawing: This next exercise is especially great if you feel like the time drawings are too fast, and it's hard to make a finished drawing. So you want more time, but you still want to be quick. So this is a two parter way of drawing. We're going to first do a quick sketch, which will be 30 seconds, where we will focus on just the basic proportions. And then we're going to do a longer two minute one with darker medium or the same medium is fine too. It's up to you. For example, if you use pencil, you can just sketch lightly for the first 30 seconds and then press down harder for the last 2 minutes to add detail. It's like an initial sketch and then a finalization with the second time. Doing this tiger and I know it can seem overwhelming, but don't worry, try it with me, even if you've never drawn an animal before, because it's actually the best way to learn is when its subject is hard to draw. Challenge yourself and don't be afraid. I promise the worst you can do is just make something that doesn't look good, and no one will die and something in the world, and you're going to learn a lot more this way. Okay, so you have 30 seconds to just get the overall outline or proportions. If you feel like that's not enough time, make it 1 minute. That's fine. You can do what feels right to you. You don't have to include any details, and please don't use an eraser, do your best, and just draw over any lines that you don't like. Just keep it simple, and you can just use basic shapes if you like. Your turn. Ready? Set. Go. 15 seconds left. Five, four, three, two, one. Yeah, you did it. It's okay if your proportions are off, but maybe take a second to notice what doesn't look right. You can analyze and then take another 30 seconds to refine your proportions if you like, or just put a line down where you think it should be bigger or smaller. I want to make it clear that definitely can move things around if it looks in your initial sketch as you're drawing. I will do that with the tail, for example. And I do that a lot in my drawings. I just take the sketch as a basic thing, and then I just kind of refine it more and observe more when I put details in. So I can move things around if it feels right to. We're never married to our sketch. It's just there to help us. Okay, 2 minutes this time. If you want to do three, you can. If you want to do four, you can, you make up your own rules, okay? So Ready? Set, Go. Just do a normal time drawing right on top. Don't worry about it looking wonky, just do it. And this is practice. It doesn't matter. Be quick and just draw. The more you do these, the more you learn to be selected with details, and only include those that stand out to you. Remember to look at your subject more than your page as well. 1 minute left. 30 seconds left. 15 seconds left. Five, four, three, two, one. Y, all done. So how did you do? Here's how I did. I really like how I did the paws and stripes. But the face turned out Wonky. The eyes are off for sure, the placements. But it's okay. Do you want to know a little secret? This was actually my second try. He here's my first one. I just didn't feel like I was paying enough attention. I wasn't observing enough, and it didn't look like my reference. So I tried again. But I'm gonna show it to you anyway. I also didn't warm up, so It happens. As you can see, improvement happens with repetition as well, and we'll talk about that more in a future lesson. And I can definitely practice this one more. I've actually been trying to draw big cats, and they're pretty hard. It's okay that both of them weren't as good as I want them to be because every time I try drawing a big cat, I'll get better at it. I still practice and challenge myself, and the more difficult and challenging your subject is to draw, the more quickly you get better. It's like taking on heavier weights in the gym. You also can't expect yourself to get such a hard subject on your first try. The key here is just to try try try try. So hopefully, trying the tiger made you a little bit brave, maybe a little bit. We're going to do something that is harder. I don't draw this much, and I think most beginners have the hardest time with this, and that is faces. Because of how many expectations we have about it, our brains think they know what faces look like, but we really don't. We have to observe them to find out. Faces are hard, but it's okay. We want the challenge. But because it's so challenging, let's try to give ourselves a whole minute for the initial sketch. Then we're going to do two for the final one last time. Play around with the times when you do this in your sketchbook and find what works for you with experience. So, again, this time we're going to see lines and shapes, and it's okay if yours looks like a funny potato in the end. It's Okay. So let me show you again, my earlier drawings. Faces were really hard. Do you feel better now? Yeah. Okay. It's just practice. So let's go. Ready? You can do this set. Go. A good tip with the harder subject is just to start with the outlines of the shapes like I did with this one. And then I did the eyes and the nose. But I really messed up the nose, but that's okay. I just kept going and re throw it. So, just do it, just do your thing. Continue refining until you've got the placement of all the features. So, we got 30 seconds left. Five, four, three, two, one. You're all done. Now, pick your darker medium, and we're going to have two whole minutes to refine our sketch. It's okay if you drew something off and notice it right now. You can just kind of correct it real quick if you want, or you can just correct it with your final medium as you go. That's what I usually do. Just don't be a perfectionist, and just try your best. So on this last stage, you like to focus on general shapes, and in this one, we're going to include all the details instead. So just observe and put down details as best you can, but simplify them. You don't have to include every little thing. Okay. Ready? Set. Go. 1 minute left. 30 seconds left. 15 seconds left. Five, four, three, two, one. Yay You're done. How did you do? Notice how I use scribbles to represent the hair, and man, did I do way better than I expected? I actually thought I would do the tiger better than the face because I'd never draw people, but always draw animals. This just shows how funny drawing can be. Some days I draw one thing better than another or I just can't draw, and that's normal. Don't worry about it. Also, I warmed up with the two tigers before doing the face. I find that warm ups really do make a difference, sometimes you just have to push. Find that when I try to draw something complicated first, it won't turn out as good as my subsequent drawings. I try to start with simpler things. This exercise is great if you still want to do quick drawings, but you need more time and it helps because you can analyze the proportions of your sketch first and fix it up as you draw over it, but you still get those loosened fun lines because you're going quick. Do these from time to time, but maybe it'll be your favorite exercise. It can even become the way you draw. You can do something like taking your time with the initial sketch and then a time drawing for the refining part of your actual illustrations or the opposite, and you can change how long they are, whatever you want to do. Find what you enjoy the most for your drawing style and what works best for your practice sessions. Now, let's try another exercise. That's about repetition. 8. The Timed Repetition Exercise: Now we're going to get into repetition. We've actually already done this in the other two exercises. But I think it's so very important because every time you redraw the same subject, you get better at seeing and it can be a fun mindless way of practicing, especially if you don't want to constantly look for new references or want to master a particular subject. This is the best way to learn how to draw one thing, like if you want to draw faces or you want to draw animals, whatever it is, if you just draw that same subject over and over, that's the best way to improve. This lesson we'll be drawing this little guy. We're going to just do one reference over and over and over again. Looks weird, don't he. That's why I chose him. The less you know how to draw a subject, the more you have to learn to see, and the faster you learn to see because your brain doesn't have shortcuts for it yet. This one has a lot of fun detail, and we have this nice stock he's sitting on to ground him. It's just two straight lines. Don't worry about it. We're going to do a 32nd study over and over and over. If you want to do something different, if you want to make it 15, 30, 1 minute, over and over, you can do anything. You can do two minute studies over and over, whatever you want to do. But we're going to just do it this way and we'll do it together just to practice. Let's start. Just do what you learned so far and be quick. 30 seconds. Ready? Set, go. Oh 10 seconds left. Five, four, three, two, one. Yeah. I don't know how you did, but I did terrible. The proportions are off and he just looks like a sad little guy. This is just really squished. I'm actually glad this turned out so bad so you can see that things take practice, even if you've been drawing a really long time, and I rarely draw frogs, but I like to because they're just so different and unique. Don't worry about it, don't worry about results. Bad drawings are normal in growth, and they're perfect for this exercise. Whenever I make a about drawing like this, I just put a little LOL next to it to lighten the mood. Put like a smiley face or nothing, whatever you want to do, but just laugh at it. Don't worry about it. This helps me to salence my inner critic, and I just try again. Bad drawings are the stepping stones to being a better artist. Okay. Let's go again. Ready? Said, Go. 15 seconds left. Five, four, three, two, one. My second try looks much better. But I messed up on one of his arms a bit, and the proportions still aren't right. But this is normal for free hand time drawing, so don't be too hard on yourself. I'm just going to try again, and that's what we should always do. Also, you can number them so you can see the progress of each try and kiss you forget which ones, which, I tend to do that. Okay, one more time. Re? Set, Go. A five, four, three, two, one. My proportions are better, but I don't like his face, and I made his body too long. Okay. Okay, Okay. Try again. Tye for number four. Re? Go. Five, four, three, two, one. Okay, try number four is better, but it's still not perfect. I hope this is teaching you that it's okay to have difficulty with a subject. It's normal. We are just practicing. Okay, so this time, I want to do a not timed one and try to capture it. I welcome you to do the same thing. I usually like to finish off time drawings with a not timed one, especially if I have difficulty with them. So go ahead and pause it and do your best. There's no rush and keep it relaxed because there's also no pressure. Nobody has to see what you make. It'll be our little secret. Okay. So just pause here and give it a try. Okay, I don't know how you did, but here's mine. And again, I messed up the proportions. The body still feels squished. I don't know why I had such a hard time with this, but I'm glad because you can see it. It's okay. I'm just going to analyze what I did wrong, and just try one more time. There's no limit how many times you can try. Every time you're going to learn something. You don't have to try again, but if yours looks off to, you can, I welcome you to try it with me, pause again if you want to or just play whatever you want to do. So here's my frog for my last try. This time I actually got the proportions right. Thank goodness. And the essence right. I like his face expression. I also noticed there was way too much detail on him in my last attempt, something I usually do when I don't tie my drawings. So I try to hold back from adding too many details. I think this last try looks best, and I'm pretty happy with it. It was an enjoyable exercise for me and I love pushing myself and I love being challenged. Yours doesn't look good, you just need to practice more and you can do these forever. You can do a frog every day, whatever you want to do. No one's stopping you, and the more you do it, the better you get. Remember Practice practice practice. Also remember to keep all your bad drawings so we can do something fun for the final project challenge that I keep hinting at. I hope you enjoy this repetition exercise. Remember, you can improve so quickly with this practice. Repetition is so powerful because you learn a lot from each drawing and you know where to improve and then you improve look how fast I got better. Look how fast I see you know, you're like, Oh, this was wrong. Now this is right. Now this was wrong. This was right. So you're learning how to see. You're learning how to improve. You're learning how to analyze your art and improve and just get your weaknesses sorted out. So I really love our petition. It's also a great way to do something without thinking about it because you don't have to keep choosing a new reference, and you can just try again, try again, you get used to it, your hand gets used to it, and you get better at it. That's why you saw me incorporated so much in the last lessons. Okay. Now let's talk about drawing a subject from all angles, which is hard at first, but it's an important key for getting good, fast, and I'll show you why. 9. 360 Timed Drawing Life Studies: Okay, so this lesson may sound technical or hard or challenging, but it's actually quite simple, and I cannot overstate the benefits of doing this. It is one of my favorite ways to practice personally, and I find it the most challenging as well. So we're going to draw one subject in real life from many different angles. We all have something that we would benefit from drawing in our house. Be something you like, and I recommend that because then it's more fun to draw. I personally collect cute figurines. But maybe you have an interesting plant or your child has an action figure or toy or maybe you have a cool worn boot with like shoelaces or some of geometric tool. Whatever you like to draw, find something in the house that represents it, and we're going to draw it from every single angle. This is actually a powerhouse of an exercise, and I call it 360 subject to life studies. This will train your spatial awareness, and you will get better understanding and capturing the three dens of things. It makes you aware of space. It makes you aware of perspective. Really forces you to observe to be able to put down what you see accurately. If your drawings feel flat, this is what you need to practice most, and this is something many people try to avoid when learning to draw, especially when you're self taught like me. I know I tried to avoid it too. Remember what I said about the harder something is to draw, the more you benefit by drawing it. There's no cost in trying to do this and in failing in it, but a great cost in crippling your skill set out of fear of failure. Need to learn this, we're just going to do it in a fun way, we're just practicing and there's no stress. Results don't matter, and you will get better with time I promise. The reason this is so wonderful is because when you put something in a weird pose upside down, you've never really looked at it like that before. It's really hard to see and draw that forces you to see and forces you to become a better artist and to be more aware of things. You'll probably draw it really funky and then you'll be like, Oh, this is what I did wrong or that. It makes you really just look at lines, look at proportions, look at space and between things. Drawing from a strange angle, especially like upside down or above an object will train you seeing muscles so much. You are forced to see things as they are, and you will get better at seeing them the more you do this. You'll also learn how things work in space. You'll have the skill set of rotating your subjects, even if it's a reference photo in the future if you do these. Also, please try to do life drawing from time to time, just in general. You benefit so much more from drawing from life than from references. Ask any art teacher they'll all tell you this, and doing it time makes it feel like less of a chore, and it helps you to not care about results as much. I'm telling you this exercise is a powerhouse for quick improvement. And if this is your first time doing this, expect really, really wonky ugly cricket drawings. This is normal. Just push through. So, the worse your drawings are, just know that that means you just have to practice this more and not skip it, so please don't avoid it. Just try. No one has to see your drawings. This is a figurine I haven't drawn before because I want to show you how it's hard for everyone with something new. But there are certain ones that I've drawn a couple of times like these deer. I love drawing deer figurines. I think the legs are so hard to get right, and I just love that challenge. Get out something that's pretty challenging, but not too challenging for you for your first try. So make sure you have a timer, make sure you can easily see it. I use my phone. Most technology has a timer in it nowadays, could be your Apple watch, whatever. Put your object in any pose you like and start with 15 seconds if you like. You could start with 30, whatever you want to do. Here I started with 15, and then I empted up to 30 with a different pose. I just move my subject. Again, move it again and do another 30, if you like. I decide to do 1 minute for the next two, and then I try 2 minutes. There's no perfect amount of time. It's just whatever works for you. Just rotate your subject, and you can even do 30 seconds or 1 minute only or 15 seconds only and just get the gist of things, whatever you want to do. But I usually find that 1 minute is like the sweet spot to actually seeing things. Especially for something like this, it usually gives me enough time to complete it. But if you need more time, you can do 2 minutes. There's no rules. It's up to you. If you feel like a drawing, turn out bad, try it again with the same angle. Did so here with my last one and it somehow turned out worse than my first try even though I had double the time. The beauty of this is it's okay. Sometimes you'll have better drawing days than other days, and that happens to me all the time. There's always tomorrow. Your skills are still leveling up, even if it feels like everything you make is worse than before. That happens to me too. It's okay. Here are more examples for my sketchbook of doing these, as you can see, I really really enjoy these. I like to alternate between timed ones and not timed ones. If something's really hard for me to draw, I just try again later with the same subject. That's the fun part of these as well as you can do it again. Deer legs are always the hardest, but I find that I'm much better at them now than I used to be because I've done them I think alternating also if it's timed or not timed or free hand or with a sketch verse or whatever helps you improve, and don't feel stuck in a box, try these in any way you like. But these are amazing to do. If you want to do figurines like me and don't have any, you can probably find some at your local thrift store or garage sale and try to get weird angles like from the top or from below by holding it in your hand because those angles really help you to see the three Dess. So these are the main exercises. We're still going to do a painting example at the end of class. But next, we're going to take a peek into my recent sketchbook for examples of how to do the exercises and how my practice sessions look, and I'll share some extra tips that will help you to draw better. Okay, y, sketch book tour time. Let's go. 10. My Practice Sketchbook Tour: Okay, it's time for a sketch book tour. So this is 100 page sketch book. It's 60 pounds, so it's pretty thin, but I get 200 pages of drawing, which is pretty neat, very economical, actually. And I try to draw mostly in black and white. This is like a big pen, This is ink. I change my mediums a lot, here's a pencil. And I tried to free hand most of the time, which just means that I didn't sketch beforehand. These are sketch beforehand. But these are as well. But most of the time I tried not to, like these. These are really wanky actually. I always dated my sketches and I wrote like little notes to myself. As you can notice, I did these lines in the background, and my lines actually get better later in the sketch book. They become more good. These are a little wanky. And I was kind of really quick with this. Let me just show you what it looks like. This is something you're welcome to do in any of your pages. Just like this. Just a flick of the wrist. This is kind of the thing we did in the warm up. And then you can also try doing longer ones, you could try crossing them, you could do circles, anything. I do this to fill in the page and it gives me more practice time. So this is charcoal. That's why I don't really recommend it in a sketch book. And I just kept doing free handing. I was seeing, you know, kind of some progress, but mostly I felt kind of stagnant. Some things turn out good like this. And then other times I just couldn't get things right. This one started without warming up, and it didn't look good. And then this one looked really good, and I was happy with it. So, you know, just it depends on the time of the day. It depends on if I had my coffee or I'm sleepy. Also, just randomly, I could be good or bad. Doing things like perspective, I really recommend to just draw landscapes. Anything like this is good. And here's an example of something else I did. If I drew something, I just did not like it, I would try again. So this is my second try. I never wrote it right here. Second try. First try. And it looked much better. Here's another three D object, 360. I did a lot of those not timed. And this is pretty wonky. See, this is pretty wonky. It's okay. This one was really good. I mean, like I said, it's normal. I did more three 60s. These are free hand again, free hand. Then I finally is going to start doing time drawings. These were continuous contours. I tried to be quick. I like how these turned out. They're cute. I see a lot of wonky lines right here. The big pen is hard to draw, but I like the sketchy lines it makes. I think it's cute. I never runs out of ink in my experience. Yeah, My lines are starting to look better over here as you can see. I like to do these little sparkles. I think they're so cute. Find things you like to fill your page with and just like add them in. This was also free hand. So I was getting better a free hand, and then I would do something that didn't look good again. So it's just how it is. Okay. Here's when I started doing time drawing. These were all 30 seconds. These are little QP babies and then little ducks. I like how this turned out. I did these and I was like, Wow, these feel so alive. This was a brush and ink. This brush was not timed, and I just did a bad job, and then timing it made me more selective, I guess with how I put things down in my lines and just looks so much better. And so I started doing time drawings more. I used to do them a long time ago. I kind of stopped, and I never really did them to this extent. And when I was doing these, I was like, This is really fun. So here's the first try, the second try, the third try. These are all 1 minute, and then I just drew it without being tied. So as you can see my first was pretty bad, better, best, and then pretty much the same, I would say. But, yeah, I really like how my lines started looking in these. So I kept going. These are 15 seconds. I love how these turned out. See a simple subject is the best for 15 seconds. This was just a freehand 360. I did these a lot. I started alternating. I'm doing free hand, I'm doing timed. Then again, free hand, Ted. I feel like that really helped 30 seconds, free hand. See this one. It didn't turn out so good. Proportions are off. Proportions are off. These are okay. But then if I flip the page, I tried again the next day, and these are actually really good, and I was faster a drawing them. So yeah, progress, right? So these were 30 seconds, and these were the continuous blind contour. I did one not timed, but quick, a 32nd one, and 1 minute one, and then I just try drawing it for 1 minute normal drawing. So see the lines. They're like on every page. I just think it really helps me to just warm up my hand and just fill in the page and practice. And my lines get better as I go along. Look at my circles. See, you could do circles. You could do anything. So 15 30 1 minute, not timed. I love doing these. I love a petition like this. Again, a quick blind contour. Sometimes you don't have to time them, just try to be quick. 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute. And then I tried it again. And Oh my goodness, this one is so much better. I love this one so much. I just want to capture this in my art that I don't time. To much detail. I need to be more like the time drawings. So this is something different. I didn't really show this in a lesson, but I timed how long it took me to draw them. So I tried to be quick, and look how good these are for free hand. I got so much better at this. I drew this deer a couple of times, so you get better with repetition. And it just took me. So this is quick. You know, I used to be slower. I'm excited about that. Okay, these were the ones you build upon, a 32nd gesture and then a two minute to refine. 30 seconds and 2 minutes. And this one didn't turn out that I wanted to try again, did the same thing, and was better. These are all 30 seconds. Not very good. Again, 30 seconds, not very good except this. That's okay. These are 1 minute, like, little Japanese dolls, and I rarely draw faces. I love this. I love how this one. I just love them. And then yeah, so I tried new subjects as well. And I did in free hand, and then I did in Freehand again. But this time, I did pencil, and I love how these turned out. So experiment with media, experid how you do lines, you know, It's fun. Okay, so, so this one is a good example of it, not being good. Yeah. Lo This is probably my worst drawing in here or this one. I don't know. I just had a weird day. But, you know, I kind of like the m. They're quirky. You know, who cares? Okay. Then I did 1 minute, these were better, still not great. And then I did a sketch and draw. I'm having a hard time with big cats in the sketch book. So that's like my challenge. These were just free hand. Look how much better my free hand has become. Like, Look at how much better my little lines are, they're more straight, and I just looks more accurate. So these are just little 32nd ones, and I wrote down with practice you can trust your hand. I just felt like it was effortless to just convey what I was seeing after a while. And it just made me more confident with my lines. And yet, still had bad results sometimes. This page isn't as good, but you know, I just kept going. And I just felt more and more confident. I used to not be able to draw people. These are the figurines. And I just I don't know. I did better and better. This one was free hand, so I alternated, I did it again the next day. And then I did freehand again. And I think this is really good for free hand. I mean, I don't know. I'm not like saying I'm the best, but that's better than I used to be. So these are 30 seconds. He saw this one. He saw this one. And then we got more one minutes. These are all by the way, like vintage figurines. I collect them and I love to draw them. So just draw what you like to draw. But try to draw new things too because it's good for your brain. Again, 1 minute, 32nd. And these were not timed, but I did them quickly. So you don't always have to time it, like I said. You can just try. It's okay if you don't fill every page. I try to, but sometimes I don't, and that's okay. So these were freehand, again. My free hands getting so much better here. I'm looking at these and I'm like, I'm getting the proportions right. These are like people, so they're harder to do, and I was just really impressed at this point. So again, freehand. And these are quick, too. These are quick free hands. Look at this dear. Look how good I did. I did that. I can't believe it. I mean, some of them are bad, but, you know, I'm just saying, like, I'm improving. You know? It's so much fun to see. So again, 1 minute, 30 seconds. 1 minute, look how bad this is. I put a LOL. Every time I do something bad. Who cares, right? Good days, bad days, right? These were 1 minute. These were really good. These were also 30 seconds. I'm pretty good at drawing birds, but I was impressed for 30 seconds, like This was good. I'm actually building myself up. Look at me. Look at quiet, inner critic. Anyway, these were sketches first. I'm seeing a lot of progress here. This one looks good at the end, but it was really hard for me to draw. Like, I think I erased a lot or something. I try not to use the eraser too much in this, but sometimes I allow myself, and I like, write it down. And yeah, I wrote down. I was really hard to do. So I tried doing the next day, well, two days later. I skipped days a lot. That's okay. These were 30 seconds, and look how bad they are. And then 1 minute, I tried again, the same references, they're better. So just try again. This one was kind of harder for some reason. But I kind of like how they turned out. They look cool. I like the medium. So these are a minute. And you can see sometimes I repeat the same subjects. I have a pints board full of vintage figurines. I'd like to repeat them because repetition works. These are 1 minute. This is pretty hard to do actually. And then I did not timed and free hand. So I really liked this cat. That turned out pretty good. This rows, too. 1 minute figurine study, I like drawing this really big. I thought that was fun. I don't really draw big, but if you like to draw big, go ahead. Freehand, 15 seconds. 1 minute. This was a bad drawing day again. I just kept getting proportions off. In fact, I've tried drawing this cat a few times, and every time I do it, it doesn't look right. So I just have to keep trying. It's kind of hard. But this was free hand, and look how good these are. I'm not sketching beforehand. Like, I've improved. I'm so proud. Okay, freehand 30 seconds. 1 minute. But notice how many, bad drawings throughout, you know? And this two was so hard to draw. This two was getting at me, but these are also free hand. I did pretty good. B, challenge yourself. So, this one I was so impressed with because, you know, I've been having a hard time with big cats, so I want to draw them. So I sketched it and I inked it, and it took me 50 minutes for this one and 50 minutes for this one. And I was like, Okay, that's really quick. So I'm becoming faster at drawing harder things. And notice how there's a bigger time gap now. So I've been more busy, and it's actually the last entry right here. I've been more busy, so I've been more sparing it here, but I've been painting more, and I've been working on the class and editing it right now. So that's okay. You can have gaps in your sketchbook. As long as you come back to it, you know, don't feel stressed or pressured. But, yeah, I really like this little figurine, so cute. And another the cat again. I still suck at the cat. I'm going to try the cat again. But, yeah, that's the sketchbook. As you can see, just fill the pages with any elements you like. Try different mediums. I also recommend a sketchbook with bigger pages because then you can fill it with more stuff, and there's just more to do. But you can do a small one if you want, if you want to just do like one little drawing a day. That's fine, too. I just feel like it kind of takes the pressure off when you just draw anywhere and start anywhere and just just go for it. But yeah, even notebook paper is fine, like I said, just have something and try. And as you can see, I've really improved. I still have bad drawing days, but I'm really, really proud of myself for how far I've come, how much more confident my lines are. And that's what you're going to have to if you just practice, and you just keep going with it. I love the Tiger so much. But yeah, so I mean, these are free hand, you guys. Like I'm telling you, like, I couldn't do free hand in the beginning. I had to always sketch my basic shapes first. And I've just gotten so much better observing and just putting it down and being confident. So that's what I want for you guys, and it's just so much fun to have a sketch book. I still have a little bit to go. So I just I encourage you to start one. It's so much fun to look at your progress. So yeah, that's a sketch book tour. I hope you enjoyed it. Now let's finish off the class with just one more lesson on how to do quick timed painting, which is also really fun. 11. Timed Loose Painting: All the painters out there. Yes, you can do time to paintings. It's a thing. This is especially useful if you want to learn how to loosen up. My advice is to have all your supplies and colors ready before you start. And maybe pick out your colors beforehand and give yourself more time than normal because it takes time to do things like clean your brush and pick up a new color. But otherwise, it's the same process, and you can do this with any paint you like, except maybe I don't know if I would do oil, but I guess you could. But the best would be gloch or water color. I guess you could do acrylic too, but you can do pastels. You can do anything. You can do this with color. Let me show you a simple example for water color and a more intuitive one that will be more mixed media. I will be painting these beautiful roses right in front of me. Like I said, before drawing or painting from life offers a lot of benefits, so take advantage when you can. Here's how I would do it. I started with a 1 minute because I think 30 seconds is too short for this kind of painting. I picked a color that represented my subject, the best and use a round brush that's very versatile because it's bigger. I used quick strokes and put more paint down where it needed to be darker like in the middle. Then I picked another color for the leaves, put them in and got a nice pink for the vase. It's very simple, very quick painting. Is very much like time drawing with just going fast and not caring about results, and as you can see, it helps if you keep your color palette minimal. And you can choose your colors ahead of time like I said before, because it'll make it easier for you. Just keep your strokes quick and you get this really fun effect. There's no thinking, just a representation of what you see. I think it turned out pretty nice. I love the quick loose strokes and the fun wet on wet textures that we got. This is actually the medium I almost always work with, so it's easier for me. And I recommend you do this with a medium you're comfortable with. No one that you're learning, because you want to be comfortable with it to be able to do it quickly. It might be overwhelming if you're new to it. We want this to be as effortless and quick as possible. So with this one, I gave myself more time. I did 2 minutes. I can pay attention detail more and add more colors in. The painting will be more detailed and realistic with this kind of time. Whenever you do these, make sure you can see the time or because you need to be aware of how much time you have left in case you start being too slow, sometimes I get lost in the moment. I actually didn't feel like I finished this piece within the 2 minutes that I had, so I decided to add one more minute. These are your time, drawings or paintings, so you make the rules. I feel like this piece looks much better with the details. I just built on what was present and just kept building on it and looking at my painting and looking at the subject and thinking, I need more time. But then I thought to feel like this would look really cool with neo color two pastels on top. I decided to give myself 30 seconds to add details with them. I picked out two colors beforehand, and then I went in and added them quickly and loosely. This added so much liveliness to the piece and made it so fun. As you can see, you can use time drawing or painting any way that works for you. But it helps to add a liveness to your work and helps you not to be a perfectionist. For example, you could take your time with an initial sketch and then do a time drawing or painting on the top, and then do another one to add detail like I did here or finish it off not timed. The possibilities of using time and not time drawing together are limitless. You can do whatever you like. Find it really helps me to loosen up. If that's something you chase in your style, and you just can't get there, try using time drawing in your actual finished artwork and see where it takes you. You will naturally become more loose when you create even when it's not timed if you practice this way. I hope this last example inspired you to play. The possibilities really are limitless. So just have fun and find your favorite way of working with time painting, slash drawing. Now let's finish out the class and talk about the final project. 12. The Final Project: You made it the last lesson. You should be so proud of yourself. Like, awesome, seriously, especially if you practiced along with me. If you haven't, please try doing all the stuff because you learn by doing. Okay, it's time for the final project. Of course, you can share anything you've made so far, but I challenge you to do something even more fun. I hope seeing my sketch book inspired you to start your own and make this into a creative habit. Encourage you to start a sketch book yourself. It can be a super cheap sketchbook. You can do whatever you want in it. You can make it a mixed needy one or just drawing whatever you want to do. It doesn't always have to be time for what you do in it. I like to alternate between time and free hand for myself, but what you do is up to you. It's your sketchbook. You can just draw, I don't know, grasshoppers in it. It's yours. So incorporate time drawing here and there, or every day, it's your choice. Dry doing different exercises from the class for the most benefit and quickest improvement because they all grow different skill sets. But you can also focus on the ones you like the most. Here is your challenge. Start practicing. These every day or every other day or whatever you remember and try to practice for at least two weeks. Two, 30 days, 30 days is even better. I find improvement is most visible after at least a month. But if you keep practicing and do it almost daily, you will have a night and day difference after a year. You can become so good so fast if you just put the type in. For this class, so you don't forget to share, I want you to practice for at least two weeks. And then find the ugliest piece you met so far. It has to be like the one you hate the most. I challenge you to redo it. It could be from any of the exercises using the same reference, or if it was the 360 challenge, just use the same object. Whatever it was, just redo the same circumstance is the same time, the same subject. If you did amazing at all of them, just pick your weakest one, and you should still see improvement. This will show you how far you've come, and when you see progress so quickly, it motivates you to keep practicing. At least it did for me. I feel like I've improved a ton with every month that goes by, and I'm really excited for it. I've also been enjoying drawing more, and it's become easier. It's become easier to see, put down lines, and just have fun. And it really helps because I took the pressure off results, and I can just do it, especially in doing time to art. The results on matter. It is just practice. Okay, so that's it. That's your challenge. And make sure to make a project in the project gallery so everybody can see your results. Of course, you can also share anything you've made already, anything you're proud of, or maybe you surprise yourself at how good you did on a first or third try, or how you improve with the repetition exercise, anything. We never know our potential until we push ourselves out of our comfort zones. So that's it for the class. I really hope you enjoyed it. And if you want to continue learning from me, I have 30 other classes. But the ones I recommend for drawing are S Bitter to Draw Bitter, which has many exercises that you can incorporate into your practice sessions. You're completely new to drawing, but you can draw anything class shows you how to draw anything by just using simple shapes, which really helps with getting proportions right. If you want to do a different drawing challenge, I have another one in the class called the three building blocks of drawing, which features a seven day drawing challenge. And of course, I have tons of other classes that teach you how to draw cute things, how to paint with water color, with gas, how to do brush flettering, and so forth. I really hope you guys enjoy the class, and inspire you to practice. I'm gonna keep practicing, and I'll actually probably make a future class you'll talk more about keeping a sketch book Do give me a follow to get notified when it comes out if you're interested. Also, if you enjoy the class, please leave a review so other students can find it. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming along on this drawing journey with me. Have fun creating, and I'll see you in the next class. Take care and have a wonderful, wonderful time drawing and practicing and playing.