The Sketchbook Fillers' Club: Four Powerful Guidelines for Stunning Spreads

1. Welcome to The Sketchbook Fillers' Club!: Hi, I'm Dylan Mierzwinski. I'm a professional illustrator and work from home with my husband and dog in Dayton, Ohio. I am a college dropout and got fired from my graphic design job in 2016. So I turned to my sketchbook, practiced a whole lot, and have worked for myself full time since then. This class is about how to fill a sketchbook because sketchbooks are at the very heart of my success and joy as an artist. They're breeding grounds for ideas, reliable places to improve our skills and safe spaces to take a breath and be present. Lots of people see the polished end results of projects I work on, but all of those exist thanks to the space I take up in my sketchbooks. More importantly, I want people to know that you don't need to be a working artist to be an artist, to have a sketchbook practice you love. This class is for all people. But starting can be scary and continuing can be daunting, right? So in this class, I'll walk you through four gentle but powerful guidelines and share seven start to finish demos to help you fill up your sketchbook in an easy, personal, and repeatable way. You'll get to see how I use markers, guash, paint pens, colored pencils, and more to fill blank pages with color, curiosity, and expression. I don't want this to be the only sketchbook class you ever take. I mean, they're so fun, but I do think this one will blow your sketchbook practice wide open. I don't care what materials or skills you're working with. Let me show you how you can start where you are and become a proud lifetime member of the sketchbook Fillers Club. 2. Class Project: To get the most out of what I share in this course, your project objective is to fill at least one sketchbook spread of your own utilizing one of the seven doorways and one of the three layouts I share in this class. It's okay that you don't know what that means yet. That's what the rest of this class is for. Don't forget to finish the page, even if you think it's dumb and to reflect on what you like and dislike, especially if you think it's dumb. You'll see how I do just that in later demonstrations. I've created some class resources for you, including a breakdown of the four guidelines, a materials list, a printable reference to fill out and keep in your sketchbook, and a few more demo specific resources, too, which are all available as a downloadable PDF. Now, let's chat about the materials list. 3. Materials: Let's talk about materials. In this class, you'll see me use a variety of tools, including posca pens, which are markers of various tip sizes that dispense acrylic paint, Tambo dual brush pens, which are water based markers that have a brush tip on one side and a small bullet tip on the other. I enjoy them because they come in lots of colors. They last a while, and they don't feel too precious to be creative with. Orandach colored pencils, which I love because they produce a highly pigmented render and feel soft in a good way to me. Holbein Artist squash, which is an opaque and matte watercolor paint. I love it because you can work in layers and go from dark to light, a Pentel brush pen with black ink, which I love for its dynamic and textured line quality, a good old pencil and eraser, which I love because sketching first usually means I enjoy the rest of the process a lot more. I'll be working in a moleskin art sketchbook, which I like to pair with binder clips to hold the pages down. It isn't my exclusive sketchbook choice, just the one I've been using lately, but I have included alternatives in the class resources. And lastly, when I'm working with Guash, I also use a paint palette to mix on, a water cup, paint brushes, and a paper towel. In the class resources PDF, you'll find a written list of everything I just mentioned. Here's what's important. You don't need all the materials and colors that I do to successfully follow along with this class. On the contrary, I wanted to show you a variety of mediums so that you can see it's not the medium. It's the practice in showing up. Of course, you are welcome to follow along with me exactly, but you should still feel free to swap in colors and mediums that feel more exciting and accessible to you. A common pitfall for us creatives is to use the convenient excuse. I'll begin once my new or better supplies arrive. But really, it's a stalling to not face the blank page, and the sooner you can break that habit, the sooner you'll be filling sketchbooks with confidence and satisfaction. I recommend starting with whatever you or your kids have, and you can always add supplies in later once you're rolling along in your practice. That all said, here are the basics that you will need to follow along with this class. A pencil and eraser, a color tool in at least three to five colors, a black ink tool like a pen or a marker, and a sketchbook, which come in all shapes, sizes, and price points. Choose one that feels comfortable and not intimidating. When I'm creatively blocked, I love to buy a real cheap sketchbook, as it feels less precious and allows me to start, which is actually the most precious thing. So I've included alternatives in the class resources. Now let me break down these four awesome guidelines so we can get to sketchbooking together. 4. Guideline 1: Find Your Doorway: I'm sure you're anxious to get to the art making, and very shortly, I'm going to be filling a bunch of sketchbook spreads based on these guidelines. But first, let's talk about what they are so that we're on the same page. The first guideline is to find your doorway to make starting easier. Dorways are personally easy ways to begin practicing. For example, some watercolrist love to begin by painting simple leaf shapes or circles of color that gently bleed together. It isn't difficult or novel. It's an easy low bar to reach that makes starting easier like walking through an open doorway. My belief is practice itself is the doorway to everything. And practice for artists looks like showing up and facing blank pages, trying a lot of things, making a lot of work, doing some reflecting. These things do make us better. And for most of us, once we get going, we really get into the flow of things. But starting is the hardest part, right? Our brains really want us to stay still. They use tools like comparison, negative self talk, confusion, distraction, and more. Themore, practice takes courage. Whether you're painting a stupid, smiley face or expressing your activism for an important cause, you meet yourself on the page, and courage is required. Dorways help ease us into practicing. They help us muster the courage to get started. And not only that, when practicing is satisfying, engaging and fun, like doorways allow, we practice more. Our skills improve, and we enjoy the process all the while. Here are the seven doorways that I'll soon be demonstrating walking through in this course. Mediums and materials, technical studies, grids, favorite shapes and subject matter, inspiration, causes and purpose, and prompts. I'll explain each of these in a bit, but just know it can be so many other things, too. You physical setting, like tidying a small space, dirting a small space, lighting a candle, turning on music, changing into soft pants. Although we likely have a few doorways in common, doorways are unique to each artist. So it's important to be on the lookout for what feels personally exciting, easy, or natural. And here's a hint. You won't have to try to your doorway. If you have to try to your doorway, it's a window. Don't climb through windows, find the door. In fact, doorways can also morph into windows and vice versa. What was easy yesterday might feel insurmountable today and what felt too hard yesterday might suddenly feel fun and no big deal today. So always be checking in with who you are and what feels good today. Find today's doorway. So now it's your turn. I want you to write down your answers to the following questions as your answers are your doorways. I recommend writing them down in the front or back of your sketchbook or on a sticky note on the next blank page to keep them handy. Alternatively, I provided these questions with examples and a printable resource that you can fill out, cut out, and tape into your sketchbook so you can always find your doorway in. And keep in mind, I'm going to demonstrate these. So if you're a little unsure right now, don't worry. I want you to try to answer these questions anyway to get your wheels turning. Okay. Ready? One, what mediums or materials feel comforting or exciting to you right now? What's calling your name? For this one, I like to actually go physically look at my supplies to feel that spark. Two, are there any technical studies like color charts, value scales or mark making that sound fun and helpful today? Three, does a basic grid feel like a fun starting spot? Four, do you have any favorite shapes or subject matter that feel inspiring? Five, what artwork or existing things in the world are inspiring to right now? Six, are there any causes big or small that feel important to highlight with your art today? Seven, are there any existing prompts or books you can use that feel exciting to follow? Like I've said, you're going to see me demonstrate all seven of these coming up soon and just know that you are welcome to follow along with me or tailor it to fit your preferences. 5. Guideline 2: Use a Layout: Second guideline is to use basic layouts to make any work look better. Take this example. I'm going to draw a shape. On this piece of paper, it looks fine. It just looks like a scribble on a page. But if I frame it, suddenly it looks a touch more purposeful. There's a lot of explanations for this phenomena. For one thing, framing artwork contextualizes it. It creates a boundary that tells the brain, this is something to pay attention to. But also it plays on psychological importance, meaning when we display something with effort and formality, it seems inherently more valuable to whoever is perceiving it. Sort of like my favorite Robert Frost quote. No tears in the writer, no tears in the Reader. In this case, you're the writer and the reader, the displayer and the perceiver, and taking a little care with how you lay out your work will make you perceive it as more valuable. The main point here is to be thoughtful about how things are placed on the page. Using layouts instead of just plopping things down haphazardly, can impact how it looks on the page, even if the art itself isn't supreme, making it easier to face our work without cringing, which ultimately makes practicing easier and more likely to happen. And remember, practice is the doorway to everything. There are three types of layouts that I like to lean on, but keep in mind, you can collect more and add them to your arsenal as you keep going. These are just the ones that I find helpful. The first layout type is a framed layout, where you use drawn lines or tape to create neat rectangles to hold the artwork. This draws 100% on the framed artwork phenomenon I talked about earlier. Put it in a frame, and suddenly it's something worth looking at. I like to use thin washi tape or a pencil to make these boxes. But in the past, I also have made templates to trace the frames more efficiently and to standardize a series of pieces. Like in this sketchbook, where I have four warm up boxes followed by a larger box for the realized sketch. You may find that drawing and preparing the frames on the pages itself is a doorway to beginning and something you can easily do to set yourself up for filling the pages later. You'll get to see me use the framed layout in two upcoming demonstrations. The second layout type is my favorite and most used and is called a floated layout. With this layout type, objects are more organically placed on the page with comfortable halos of padding and space, which provide rest as our eyes move from object to object. Floated layout can have anywhere from a single subject floating on the page with surrounding white space to many subjects floating all over the page. The islands can be arranged neatly in a grid or more organically. What I love about this layout type is I can start the page anywhere and build it as I go. I don't need to have a vision or a composition ahead of time, just awareness of what space is left to fill, which also helps build my skills with improvising compositions and being thoughtful with shapes. Floated layouts also unite and allow for exploration of really disparate inspiration and subject matter. For example, this page of totally random objects feels united by the thoughtful spacing and color palette. You'll get to see me use the floated layout in three upcoming demonstrations. And the final layout type is a full bleed layout. It means there are no boundaries on the page and also little to no white space or blank paper. The subject or subjects take center stage and cover the page entirely. I like full bleed pages as a way to break up a sketchbook of floated and framed layouts. It's like a centerfold that grabs my attention and snaps me awake. Full bleed layouts are visually impactful and tend to be the most challenging for me to take on and finish, so I lean on them only when I feel like my creativity is bursting, or it sounds fun to sink into a spread. You'll get to see me use the full bleed layout in two upcoming demonstrations. And don't forget layouts can be combined. A full bleed page can sit next to a sparse floating page or a tight set of frames. The main thing you check in with is what layout type is right for you today and following it. I've provided a quick breakdown with examples of each layout type in the class resources. As I've teased, you'll also see these layouts in action in the later demonstrations. For now, just know that this is a decision that gets made after you've decided what your doorway is. 6. Guideline 3: Finish the Page!: The third guideline is simply to finish the page. If I quit, every time I had the thought, Oh, my God, I ruined this or Oh, my God, I suck so bad, I wouldn't have any filled sketchbooks to show you. I wouldn't have my entire art career. A lot of the time, what we perceive as being failed or bad is simply unfinished or we're holding too tightly to a vision, a darling that's ultimately limiting what the page could be and where the practice can take us. Do yourself a favor and don't judge or dismiss a piece until it's done. The action step here, once you have found your doorway and landed on a layout is to finish the page. Even if you're sure even if you're sure it's terrible. Finish the page, even if you think it's proof that you are terrible. We can only approve upon what exists. So finish making it exist before deciding what to do about it. Additionally, when you're in the trenches and you want to quit, asking yourself, what is the most wrong with this piece will help you focus in on where to begin problem solving. 7. Guideline 4: Reflect Briefly: The fourth and final guideline is to spend a little time reflecting on what you made. If you finish a sketchbook spread and then simply turn the page, you are leaving gold stuck between those pages, gold that you took the time to mine, gold that is specifically for you. I'm not talking about a full fledged critique. I'm talking about taking 30 seconds to look at the work and ask yourself, What do I like? What doesn't work, and to write down a few notes. As we talked about in guideline three, that harsh judgment that we have while creating is often a red herring. It is unhelpful. When I'm in the process of making something or I've just finished something, my brain says things like, see? I'm the worst. How could I have ever thought I'd be good at anything? Time to get in line to be a servant for a robot. But if I instead ask myself to actually write down a few notes about what I like and don't like about the piece, suddenly I become constructive, discerning, curious, less. Active reflection. The act of looking at your work and writing down a few notes for yourself for the future is the fastest and most reliable way to improve your work and better enjoy what you create. Instance, my initial judgment of this entire spread was I had ruined it. I mean, I liked it, but had the general sense I messed it up. But when I actively reflected, it turned out I just felt this orchid was overworked and too heavy. I actually like the colors and how the other floor on the page is rendered. It's got a charming wonkiness to it. That's a huge difference between, I've likely ruined this, and that orchid is a little bit overworked. And guess what? That orchid is a little overworked. That's a golden doorway that I mind from this page, and it provides hints as to what might be helpful practice for me. Maybe I'll pay closer attention to how other artists render orchids. Maybe I'll go on an orchid rendering tear, or I'll just be more mindful next time of holding back when I want to keep getting in there with the marker or brush to not overwork things. But I won't know to do any of those if I don't take a minute to just reflect on it. If you're going to make the art, do yourself a favor and check in with what's working and what's not. Write it down. These notes themselves are doorways to your next work. Additionally, if you do a lot of full bleed work and you don't want to comment directly on the page, you could do a review page every few spreads and collect the things you like, the lessons you learned, and whatever else. Like, I show on this page where I mentioned loving layering markers, sketching first and grids, but I disliked pulling my tape off too fast and ripping the paper using uninspired colors and colored pencils that are too hard. Also pulled out some color palettes and ideas that I felt were ready to be developed further. You'll get to see me reflect at the end of each of the seven demonstrations coming up here shortly. And by the way, if you were right all along and you get to the end and it's just bad work and you hate it, you can learn from it and then paint over it entirely and do something else on top or rip the page out or just turn the page and move on. Sometimes my old ugly spreads are the very markers I need to recognize and appreciate growth in myself, which motivates me to keep going. So don't cover and rip them all out. And remember, at the end of the day, it's a single sketchbook spread. It's not a big deal. So that's it the four guidelines. One, find your doorways to make starting easier. Two, use basic layouts to make any work look better. Three, finish the page, and four, spend a little time reflecting on what you made. Let me show you how they work in action, starting with the doorway of mediums and materials. 8. UGH...Let's chat UGLY WORK: Let's get something out of the way. An essential element to every artist's success and longevity is ugly work. Ugly work is what it sounds like. It's the ugly, childish, overworked, underworked, cliche, say work we make that we think reveals we are silly little frauds. I will repeat it is an essential element to every single artist's career that you have ever admired. One time in a chat with some fellow artists, an artist named Diana Lisa Robinson said, You know, when a musician is learning to play their instrument, they hit 1 million false notes, but those just float up into the sky as they attempt it again. Our false notes as artists are visible and on the page, so there's more evidence, but it's just as normal and essential as all the false notes a musician plays to learn to strike the correct ones. I started out as an untalented beginner. I make mountains of ugly work, and thanks to that, I also make a lot of work I really love. Please Please don't compare your artwork to mine or anyone else's. Lean on the guidelines instead. I give you full permission to fill your sketchbook with the worst art known to mankind to treat it like a junk drawer, where it's not always pretty, but it's full of great and useful stuff, fun stuff, random stuff that we never get rid of because who knows what Tamara holds. I give you full permission to treat your sketchbook as a test kitchen and not a restaurant. However, you need your permission, too. So in the class resources, please find a permission slip. You can read, print, and sign to remember you are an artist because you said so. Now, let's begin. 9. Demo 1: Mediums + Materials: Color Swatches: Welcome to Demo one. The doorway I'll be demonstrating first is mediums and materials. This is when we let the medium, art supply or tool itself beckon us to begin. Take a look at the supplies you have and notice what feels exciting to pick up and use. Today, I was looking at my supply shelves, and as I scanned my eyes over my jars and trays, I noticed a little excitement towards my Posca pens. Remember, doorways are easy and tend to feel like no big deal. Whereas right now, when I see my tray of watercolor tubes, I feel a little resistance, a little fussy, a little disinterested. That's a window or a wall that I'm not going to climb today. My favorite way to ease into a medium and material spread is to make a color swatch chart. That is when you make a visual reference of all the colors you have of a given medium. In fact, I often break in new sketchbooks by making a color swatch chart in the back of the book with a floated layout, which is why I thought it might be a good starting spot for this class. I've made plenty of color swatch charts throughout the years, and they never cease to be relaxing, enjoyable, and helpful later as references. If your medium or tool of choice is only in black or a single color, instead of color swatches, you can swatch out different ways to make marks with the tool. The point is to let the medium itself be the muse. Today, instead of my usual floated layout of swatches, I feel more interested in making a framed layout and creating neat boxes to color inside. Once you've picked out your medium, grab your materials and choose the layout you'd like for swatching or marking. The materials I'll be using for this demo are Posca pens, a pencil, a ruler, a special rough sand like eraser from Tambo that I wanted to try out and my sketchbook. But of course, your setup may look a little different. With guidelines one and two followed, it's time to focus on starting and finishing the page. Although the execution of this page is simple and I only need to draw boxes and color inside of them, I like to do a little prep work to make it go smoothly. First, I want to gather all the colors of posca pens I have so I can see how many boxes I'll need to draw. In this case, I have 29 colors, which I'll round up to 30 to make drawing the frame easier. Then I sort the Poskas into color groups like pinks, reds and purples, yellows and oranges, greens, blues, and neutrals. I'll write down an ordered list to reference when coloring. And now I'm ready to draw my frame layout. First, I'll use my ruler and pencil to draw a frame. I have 29 posca colors, so I'm going to round up and divide my frame into 30 spaces. I'll start by first dividing it into thirds, and I'm not measuring here, but you are welcome too. Then I'll rotate my sketchbook and divide the frame in half and then divide each side into five. Again, not measuring, but you are welcome too. With my structure set up, I'm going to X out the extra space so I can remember to not color there, and I'm ready to grab my paskas. I've got my sticky note handy so I can reference the order I liked the colors to be in, and then I'll arrange my paskas in that order. And like I said, there's a little setup to this one, but then it's just coloring boxes and just kind of floating away. I'm going to use my binder clips to hold my pages taut while I work. They are such a helpful tool. I highly recommend them. My first color is coral pink, so I uncap and start coloring. I quickly realize the consistency is a little watery, so I'm going to stop to shake and charge the pen on a paper towel, and that's where you push the tip into the body to dispense more paint, and then I can continue on with much more even coverage. Next, instead of going to the second color on the list, I'm going to skip to the third x to give that first one a little bit of time to dry. If I go in while the paint is wet, there's a good chance they'll bleed together a bit, and I want my lines to be a little bit more crisp. So I've got my red paska and I'm coloring along. I get a little hasty at the end and veer into the second box, but I think it'll be okay. Paskas are mostly opaque, and I should be able to cover it with color two once that red dries. Next up, I'll skip to box five and straw yellow. And while I don't want to waste your time showing me shaking these things every time, I do want you to know that I am shaking and charging these bad boys as I'm using them. Now I know what you're thinking. She's going to jump to box seven wrong. I get impatient, and I go to box two, so I can try to correct that red line with the pink that goes there. It covers on the first pass, which is very satisfying. Box four, I only have this red wine color in a smaller tip, so you'll notice it takes me a little longer and my strokes are a little tighter to get coverage. These little observations are an additional pro of doing these color charts. They kind of force you to spend time with your medium so that you can get to know it better. Onto box six, yellow. I want to point out that although this is edited for length and watchability, I'm really taking my time and enjoying the process. I'm listening to a murder podcast. I'm falling into the flow of the paint coming from the tip of the pen. And back to skipping to allow for dry time, I'll head to box eight and color with bright yellow. And while that dries, I can see a lot of thin areas in my first box. So I'm going to touch it up to get that full color. While coloring with light orange, I decided to charge the pen right on the page, which resulted in kind of a tiny puddle of paint, but it was actually nice to use the pen to smooth it around the area. The final color in this column is orange, followed by a quick touch up between light orange and bright yellow. With my first column of colors swatched out, I'm going to swap out my colors for greens and blues. Since I'm left handed, I'm going to go ahead and rotate my sketchbook just in case some of the thicker areas of paint are still drying in column one and move ahead with my light green. This is the first color that's going over a crease, and so I'm just taking my time and going over it from a few angles to make sure I'm covering it entirely. And next up, I'll skip to green. Then I'll skip to aqua green. And one thing I've noticed about these paskas, especially since I don't use them often, is they tend to get these little, like, scratchy bumps made of old paint and paper and dust stuck to the tips. I just kind of scrape them off with my fingernail or the cap or a paper towel and keep going. And really, friends, it's this process until the end, sticking to my color order list, picking gunk off the pens, and coloring the right boxes. Now, when I get over to white, which I like to sample to see how it contrasts against the page color, I accidentally get a little splatter on the page. I'm lucky it landed on a part I had yet to color, so I was able to get in right quick with a paper towel and mop it up with a firm little swipe. Had it gotten onto one of those pretty colored boxes, I'd still wipe it up, but then I would let the area dry all the way and then color on top with the correct color. With all my colors swatched out, I thought it might be nice to use the 30th box to swatch the widths of the different tip sizes I have. One other thing with paskas is they sometimes leave those little bumps on the page. So when that happens, I let them dry and scratch them off. In this case, I wanted to test drive the sand like eraser I got from Tambo to see if it would remove some of the burs, which it did, but I was too scared to go full out while filming this demo, so some were lovingly left behind. I'll do a quick touch up on aqua green and then use my pencil to label each color and the pen tip widths. I could have used a white gel pen to write the names right on the boxes, but I was really loving the clean and neat areas of color. So I made do, and I wrote the names around the frame. This spread in real time, took me just over an hour to complete. With the page finished, I've completed three guidelines, and now it's time for number four, reflecting. You're welcome to reflect mentally, but I find physically writing notes makes me more constructive and keeps the wisdom available. In either case, the task is the same. You ask yourself, What do I like about this? What did I like about making it? What do I dislike? When I reflect on this piece, here's what comes up. Pascas are very satisfying to color with. The medium dries a lot better than I think it's going to. Also, I love the red, the pink, the red wine, the straw yellow, all the greens and sky blue. So I'm going to star those. I'm also intrigued to Google how to correctly charge the pasca pens in case other artists have any tips to not puddle paint over the page. See that? That's a new doorway forward I created by simply showing up today and taking time to reflect. To recap, for this demo, I utilized the mediums and materials doorway. In this instance, I was drawn to my Posca pens and enjoyed spending time creating a framed layout to house a color chart. I finished the page and reflected on my favorite colors, the medium itself, and what I could learn next. See you in the next lesson for demo two. 10. Demo 2: Tech Studies: Layered Marker Trios: Welcome to demo two. The doorway I'll be demonstrating today is technical studies. Technical studies are the basic drills that help us develop specific skills like making value scales or practicing mark making. Think of it like a basketball player doing three point drills. It's a focused and repetitive process with an aim to increase proficiency or get better. These studies can vary widely based on your mediums and your interests. For example, as an illustrator, I'm often studying and practicing drawing letter forms. It's not rare for me to fill up pages drawing different letter forms or taking notes on what I'm learning about lettering. To pick your text study, first think of a medium or skill you'd like to improve. And then ask yourself, if it sounds fun to work on that today. Really, this is about doorways, and I find technical studies to be a particularly hot and cold one. Some days it just sounds downright boring to do a drill, but other days, it sounds like a happy relief, A, walking through a doorway. And that's why it's so important to check in. Do any technical studies feel fun to do today? If not, you can skip it. But if yes, go for it. Today, the technical study that feels like a doorway to me, and if I'm being honest, feels like a permanent doorway of mine is color mixing charts. Now, unlike the first demo where I swatched down colors straight from my paint marker, color mixing charts take various forms and allow exploration of how colors and mediums mix together. In fact, one of my technical study successes was a day back in January 2024, where I decided to layer my markers to create interesting color mixes, and it blew my marker practice wide open. Suddenly, I had way more colors to use, and the effect was sort of this inky misprint goodness that I couldn't get enough of. So today, I'm going to do a handful of layered marker studies to try to find some minimal palettes that I like in a floated layout. The type of study I'm going to do today is something I learned from Illustrator Lindsey Stripling. It's a technique that I saw her use with Corona ache No Color crayons in a class of hers I took. You start by picking three colors and then color them in an overlapping triangle to see how the colors look interacting as a palette. Instead of doing a full spread today, I'm going to do my technical studies on the left side, which is a great approach when I don't have as much time to spend. In fact, this entire page from start to finish took 17 minutes, and I was really taking my time. Feel free to follow along with the type of study I'm doing, even if your color medium is different from mine. Or, of course, you can follow your own medium and technical study of choice. Once you've got your technical study picked out, grab your materials and choose a fitting layout. The materials I'll be using for this demonstration are Tambo dual brush markers, a pencil, eraser, and my sketchbook. But of course, your setup may look a little different. With guidelines one and two followed, it's time to focus on starting and finishing the page. I want to draw some very simple guidelines to keep my floated color studies neat on the page. So I'm first deciding how many I want to do. Six feels a little sparse, so I'm going to do eight color studies. So I draw a basic grid with a line down the middle. Then I'll divide each side into quarters. In order to pick each trio of colors, I'm going to get out my color swatches, which are separate cards that show each color marker I have. While it's handy to have a color swatch chart in my book to have on the go, having standalone color swatches is so helpful for building strong palettes. As I flip through the cards, I'm on the lookout for colors that grab my attention and pairing them with colors that might interact in an interesting way. The first three I land on are 55673 and 873, so I'll grab those markers now. I'll start by jotting down the color codes, and with my first color, in this case, yellow, I'll draw a thick side of a triangle. Then I'll use my second color to draw a second side of the triangle, overlapping the first color at the top for a really pretty yellow orange. Finally, I'll use my cool pink to draw the base of the triangle, overlapping both colors at each end. See how this study provides a harmonious palette of six colors, seven if you layer all three colors together. Let's do another one. For the second one, I'm going to swap out 873 4603, a lavender color, as I want to see how the yellow and purple will interact. Did you know that violet and yellow sit across each other on the color wheel, and any colors that are opposite each other, when mixed, create a neutralized color. Sure enough, as soon as that purple crosses the yellow ink, I get a really awesome mustardy yellow. This is a great example of joy in the process. Seeing this bright yellow become grainier and dirtier from this layered color feels so satisfying to me. But maybe for you, it's a pink or a deep blue. The point is to be mindful during the process so you can actually receive that moment of joy or satisfaction. For my third study, I land on 55, 803 and 276. I write the number codes and draw my triangle. The first two studies had values that were pretty close together, but as I choose trios that have light, medium, and dark colors, I'm going to take more care to draw my triangles from light to dark. The marker tips clean themselves as you use them, but if I can help it, I still try to layer light to dark. My fourth study, I land on a punchier palette of 743905 and 528. I love that even though the blue layers to make much darker colors, those dark colors are still distinguished from each other, with the pink turning the blue into a purple and the warm red turning it into a deep neutral closer to brown. For my fifth study, I land on 98, 228 and 817. And this palette feels more balanced than the previous ones. For study six, I bring in a neutral 52 and group it with 26 and 873. For study seven, I wanted to play with primaries, so I choose 26, 528 and 856. I am feeling pretty obsessed with the retro rainbow hues that this palette produces. For my final study, I go with a little RGB or red, green, blue action and land on 526177 and 873. With my studies done, I can erase my guidelines and date the page. This spread in real time, including flipping through swatches, took 17 minutes. With the page finished, I've completed three guidelines, and now it's time for number four, reflecting. You're welcome to reflect mentally, but I find physically writing notes makes me more constructive and keeps the wisdom available. In either case, you want to ask yourself, What do I like about this? What did I like about making it? What do I dislike? What did I dislike about making it? When I reflect on this piece, here's what comes up for me. These two first palettes would be really pretty for flowers, and I love the boldness of the third and fourth. F feels balanced, and I'm intrigued at making a repeat with it. Six could use another layer of color or a slightly darker gray. I'm obsessed with seven, and I'm soothed by eight. There's not really anything constructive here, except it was good for me to layer from light to dark. Now I've got some fresh color palettes to use, which in themselves are doorways for the future. See how once you find one doorway, it's so easy to keep finding more of them. To recap, for this demo, I utilize the technical studies doorway. In this instance, I was drawn to making a color mixing chart with layered markers and a floated layout. I finished the page, and I reflected on each color mix. I will see you in the next lesson for demo three. 11. Demo 3: Grids: Quilt Blocks: Welcome to Demo three. The doorway I'll be demonstrating today is grids. This is when you start by drawing a grid and go from there. R. That's the magic. You can keep it simple and draw a basic grid and fill each square with something like I've done here with letter forms. You can also enjoy stylizing grids themselves and turning them into interesting geometric patterns. You can also take it a step further and use the grid as an underlying framework for a design, like I've done with this trio of patterns, which were all drawn on the same size grid. In this spread, I started with 1 " squares and began sketching in birds and picture frames and flower vases until the grid was full, and then I colored it in. You can explore neat grids, but also wonky grids, like in this petite checkerboard pattern. To use a grid as your own doorway, grab your materials, choose your layout, whether floated, framed or full bleed, and draw some intersecting lines with a ruler or free hand. You can set a goal like fill each square with a flower head, or you can just start with the first opening or intersection and go from there. This is a great tool for stretching your creativity and generating ideas. For my page, I'm actually inspired by this color palette I found during my technical studies in demo two. So I'm going to use it as a doorway to fill my grid with hand drawn quilt blocks and a casually framed layout. I find drawing and painting quilt blocks to be meditative, relaxing, and a great way to explore color. Feel free to follow along with my drawn quilt process, or you can follow your own grid whims. If you're setting a focus for your grid, you can do that now and go ahead and choose a layout, and then it's time to grab your materials. The materials I'll be using for this demo are Tambo dual brush pens, corona ache colored pencils, a pencil and eraser, in my sketchbook. But of course, your setup may look a little different. With guidelines one and two followed, it's time to focus on starting and finishing the page. I've gone ahead and grabbed my markers from the technical studies that I liked, and I also added another marker and two colored pencils as I wanted a few colors to soften and lighten the palette a little bit. Now I'm ready to draw my frame. Instead of using a ruler like I did for Demo one, I'm just going to go ahead and draw four lines freehand to make the frame a little bit more casual. And next, I'll divide my frame into a grid with free hand lines. Now I'm going to draw simple quilt block designs in each grid spot. My favorite quilts are comprised of simple blocks. So I start with a block of half square triangles and alternate them throughout the grid. My hands are a little shaky at first as I warm up, so I erase and redraw until I'm happy. For my alternating blocks, I go with what I think is called a broken dishes block. And even this part of the process is satisfying to me. Don't forget to slow down and enjoy the drag of your pencil across the paper. With my blocks drawn, I'm ready to just start coloring block one. At this point, I have no plan, just a color palette and shapes to color. I start with a neutral colored pencil and pair it with my gold marker. I think I'm going to layer color on top of the gold. I'm just not sure yet. In the second block, I start coloring with the same gold color. And you can see me hesitate as I consider where to drop down color. It's something that I've learned to do from many ugly sketchbook spreads where I let my hand become possessed without any sort of plan or thought. And so while I won't stew in confusion and perfectionism about it, I do take a moment to consider where I drop my pen down. I bring my blue down in the center and also layer on top of the gold to create a rich forest green. I pick my gold back up and fill in the remaining space. I'm not sure this is how I'll repeat it for the other blocks, but I can't know until I try. Back to my first block, I decide to layer both colors on top of the gold to create a rich black. If you're wondering, why doesn't she just use a black marker, it's because they just aren't quite the same. Black straight from the tube or barrel can be a bit flat, which is sometimes what you want, whereas mixed and layered blacks from combining all three primary colors are complex and rich and show a bit of lovely variation. And these are the qualities I love in layering my markers anyway, so I want to take advantage of it for my darkest values, too. For my third block, instead of doing ivory and black, I decided to pair the black with a burnt orange made of the red and gold, as I really love seeing it come alive when I was layering the colors for the first block. Both the black and the burnt orange have gold as a base, so I'm using gold first for the whole thing. And notice how I'm drawing each individual triangle instead of coloring the whole square. And this is because I tend to like when imperfections allow for spots of paper to poke through, which you can sort of see in the second quilt block once I move my hand out of the way. By drawing each shape individually, I get these imperfect seams where the shapes and colors touch and overlap, and that's really satisfying to me. Onto Block four. I can no longer resist the urge to use this pink colored pencil, which I added to the palette to pair with red, as red and pink is one of my very favorite color combinations. When I colored the other block with this design, I used three colors, gold, green, and blue, but I think I'd like the rest of them to be two toned. It's funny watching myself first outline the shape and then color the center is that's how my sisters showed me the color and coloring books when I was younger. First outlining the shape by pressing hard, and then we would color a little lighter inside of the shape. Just a sweet callback to my early artist years. To block five, and I'm really considering the overall pattern I want to make with these blocks. And I'm thinking of creating a diagonal or sideways V with the ivory and black squares, and then can alternate the orange and black ones. And it's okay if you can't envision what I'm envisioning. That's my plan for now. I really love the combo of gold and green and Block two, so that's what I'm going to do for block six here. Green is blue layered on gold, so the base for the entire block will be gold. And so far, I've been working left to right, but I'm going to skip to box nine because I'm nervous. I'll forget the pattern I just decided on. So I fill this square with ivory and black. Next up is the very center block, and I haven't used blue in a bit, so I want to use that. And even though I just decided to use two colors for this style of block, I want to make the very center square special, and so I grab the red to contrast the center triangles and make the corners gold. Onto the next block, and I know from my pattern that it's going to be a black and orange block. See these white diagonal lines that are peeking through the triangles. That's what I'm talking about withdrawing each shape of the quilt block separately. Even if they're the same color. I just really love the texture it creates. Keeping on my merry way, I create another gold and green block. I decide to differentiate the center broken dishes blocks by layering marker on top of the ivory colored pencil, which tactile wise feels so dreamy, by the way. And that little shift is just what I'm looking for. And then this block can have the same look, and that will help balance these center blocks with the ones on the sides and corners. I hope my sharing my thinking is helpful. When I watch art classes, I can feel a little bit dismayed when I don't understand how the teacher is making creative decisions or why they're doing what they're doing. If I wanted to continue with symmetry, this block would be pink and red to balance out the green and golds. But I find I like casual symmetry where the piece is balanced and mostly symmetrical but not perfect and predictable. So I think I can throw a pink and red block down here to balance out the one in the upper left and can fill this block with red and gold to keep things interesting. For my bottom right block, I'm finishing the pattern of alternating the ivory and black blocks with the orange and block blocks. Oops. Left a pencil line off this block. I bet a bunch of you caught it while I was sketching and couldn't stop staring at it. Sorry about that. Like I mentioned before, I already knew I wanted this to be my second pink and red block to balance the other one. And for the last block, I'll finish out the pattern with black and ivory. I've made a few real life quilts, and adding the binding is my favorite part. And so I thought it would be cute to color on some binding. I use some space at the bottom to swatch and label my color palette and space at the top to add the date. And then, you know, I get this urge as I often do to add some stripes, so I grab my blue marker and flick some stripes around the edge of the quilt binding. This spread in real time took 35 minutes. With the page finished, I've completed three guidelines, and now it's time for number four, reflecting. You're welcome to reflect mentally, but I find physically writing notes makes me more constructive and keeps the wisdom available. In either case, you want to ask yourself, What do I like about this? What did I like about making it? What do I dislike? What did I dislike about making it? When I reflect on this page, here's what I think of. I loved drawing these. You know, these colors really make my soul happy. I love the addition of the pink to play off the red. I a little bit regret the strips on the binding. Not quite sure. And lastly, I could see this piece turning into a repeat for my portfolio with some supporting designs. But that's a doorway for future me. To recap, for this demo, I utilize the grids doorway by coloring quilt blocks into a framed layout and floating my color swatches below. I finished the page and reflected on how much satisfaction I got from making this piece, as well as noting its potential for my portfolio. I'll see you in the next lesson for demo four. 12. Demo 4: Fave Shapes: Flowers: Welcome to Demo four. The doorway I'll be demonstrating today is favorite shapes and subject matter, and it's all about your particular, reliable, easy go to favorites. The simplest version of this is like how some watercolorists like to warm up by painting stems and leaves or geometric shapes that touch and overlap. The shapes and subject matter are what pull us into practice. For example, florals are one of my most go to subject matter doorways. When I'm unsure, when I don't know what I want to make, I'll just find a few reference images, pick a few colors, and just start. But I also love painting furniture and inky castles and drawing my art supplies and cute packaging. So allow all of your unique intersections to come into play and start by listing a few of your go to favorite things. If you're drawing a blank, go walk around and look at your belongings. What's on your T shirts? What shapes do you like? What makes you laugh? What have you loved since you were little or love now as an adult? Or you can start by picking up your medium, any medium and letting yourself doodle for 5 minutes. What comes out? This is one of those doorways where you may find it helpful to write it down in the back of your sketchbook. So when you're stuck, you can take a look and remind yourself, Oh, yeah, I love rockets, and I can draw them all live long day or triangles or that single eye we all used to doodle in the margin of our papers. Whatever is a reliable thing that you like to return to time and time again. As it's one of my very favorites, I'm going to draw some flowers, and I'm going to do it in a full bleed, brightly colored spread. That sounds really fun to me right now. Now, unless your subject matter is very simple, like geometric shapes or mark making, you may find it helpful to go ahead and find some reference photos to work from. I know I do, so I went ahead and I've gathered some floral reference images. I've supplied these same images in the class resources, and later on, I will share how to get access to hundreds of floral images like these for free. I flowers are a doorway for you too. You can use reference images from royalty free websites like Unsplash. But keep in mind, when you're working personally in a sketchbook, all images are free to use. Even copying artwork that you love. As long as you don't try to then publish it as your own or sell it or distribute it, using other work as a doorway is an excellent way to ease into your practice and to learn a lot about the work that you love. In the next demo, I'm going to show you how to create something new from inspiration. But for this demo, copy, steal, and repeat your favorites over and over. Feel free to follow along with my flower spread process. But of course, you can also watch my process and apply it to your own subject matter. Once you've got your favorite shape or subject matter picked out, choose a layout that feels fitting or fun and grab your materials. The materials I'll be using for this demo are Tambo dual brush pens, corona ache colored pencils, a pencil and eraser, and my sketchbook. But of course, your setup may look a little different. With guidelines one and two followed, it's time to focus on starting and finishing the page. I'm starting out with my marker swatches, and I'm looking to pull some colors that will work for the flowers and foliage I'm going to draw. I don't pick a palette ahead of time, it can get a little out of hand, and I end up using nearly every color and hating the result. My best advice for color is to let yourself play and to trust your instincts. In fact, if you're out of touch with your gut, forming color palettes is a great exercise for getting in touch with the sensations of your intuition. I land on some pinks, reds, greens, and a blue. I pull out my colored pencil swatches to add in a lighter value color and settle on a light orange. And as I'm grabbing my materials, I decide to add in a dark green colored pencil, too. I'm going to first loosely sketch the entire layout, beginning with one of the garden roses, followed by another one to his right. And notice how I'm not drawing details, just circles to represent where the flowers will go. I start adding in some smaller shapes, starting with a Clarkea bloom and then some hypericubrries. To balance the top left of the sketches, I'll add some big spots for my chrysanthemums. And now I'm moving into the bunches of sweet William, which, like the Clarkea and hypericumbries, balance out the larger scale of the garden roses and mums. All the marks and shapes I'm drawing are very basic. I'm just looking to cover the page and shapes to make a composition. Now it's time to fill in some of these spaces with foliage, starting with some sprigs of eucalyptus, which are really just a bunch of ovals that are squashed and stretched. I have a little space in this corner, so I draw a generic stem of leaves. In this upper right corner, I put a cluster of circles to represent parrot tulips. I anchor them and give them a little movement with the direction of their stems. As I'm moving around the composition, I'm looking to fill any sparse areas with foliage of varying shapes. With my rough sketch done, I'm ready to go in and refine some of these sketches to have more details, starting with these chrysanthemum leaves which get lively pointy edges. I move into the chrysanthemum placeholders and work out their petal shapes. Move into the garden rose placeholders and work on their petals and flower centers. Next up are the little parrot tulips, which benefit from simple centers and a few petal lines. And with that, my detailed sketch is done, and I'm ready to start coloring. There is not a right spot to start, start. I do so by grabbing my dark green colored pencil and start with a eucalyptus stem. One thing I love about colored pencils is being able to get lots of values from one tool. So while I pressed hard to get a nice solid dark green in the stem, I'll vary the greens on the leaves by varying the pressure on the pencil. I move across the page to balance the eucalyptus with the hypericumbry leaves, pressing hard and leaving negative space for stems and berries to sit on top. I'm worried less about accurately representing the foliage colors and more concerned with distributing the color across the design. As I move over to my sweet William foliage, I grab my marker and use the pen tip to create uniform bursts of lines to create the movement I see in the reference photo. Using repetitive marks like this helps the eye group this part of the picture together as one, helping to distinguish it from the other types of foliage on the page. I'll flip my marker over to the brush side and start adding some of this coral color to the tulip stems and some leaves in the bottom right corner to balance the coral in the bottom left. I grab a green marker and color one of the background leaves before returning to my dark colored pencil and more eucalyptus leaves. The green markers I chose are pretty close in value and hue to the green colored pencil I chose. So I get my swatches back out to add in an additional color. I narrow it down between a beautiful, bright chartreuse and a more calming sage color, and on most days, that chartreuse would have won, but this wasn't most days, and the sage was the winner. I use it in long strokes to vary the greenery in the bouquet. Wanting to balance the sage green on the right side of the piece, I also add a sage stem to the bottom left. Next, I grab my darker green marker and start coloring the foliage in the upper right. I contrast the leaf with its own center and the adjacent leaf by pairing the green with coral. I got a little curious and tested to see how the sage green would look layered on top of the orange leaf, creating a texture of little lines. I'll then use that same sage green to start coloring in chrysanthemum leaves and again, working to distribute the color nicely throughout the design. My lush composition is really filling in. I grab my dark green marker and start filling in the negative space around the berries, flowers and leaves. To fill in some of the white space, I color lightly with my colored pencil, coloring in the directions to match the directions of the flowers and stems. I grab my coral marker and color in some of the berries, and then I grab my dark green colored pencil and add little berry butts and circle some of the berries to emphasize their shapes. Using my green marker, I'll go around and add some details to help the foliage pop. Now I'm ready to start in on these flowers, beginning with using pink to create some shapes inside the garden rose. I'm being thoughtful with the marks I'm making and I'm letting negative space play a role. Before drawing the second rose, I erase my pencil lines so that they won't show through as heavily. You can see, other than the foliage, I'm really not focused on details yet, just getting a layer of color across the page. Next, I grab my red marker and set in on those chrysanthemums. I forget to color the third one, but don't worry, I come back for him later. I have an idea for some simple details, so I grab a green marker and make tiny repeated marks to help emphasize the center of the flowers. Then I color the rest of the center with my lighter colored pencil. I grab my dark red marker and head to the sweet William. I like to do a dynamic mix with some of the shapes colored in and some outlined, and then I'll color in the outlined shapes with my brighter red marker. For the clerkia, I'm going to use my light orange colored pencil to color the center of the flower, followed by the pen tip of my dark red to draw the details. And then I can use the brush side to color the rest of the flower. Next, I spend a little time with my green marker and colored pencil to refine the foliage, stopping to sharpen my pencils as needed. I also spend some time coloring in the negative space with my darker color to add some weight to the bouquet. Moving on to the parrot tulips, and I'm ready to use that blue I picked out. I start by drawing some center marks and petals and color around them. This gives a simple illusion of light without having to switch colors. To balance all that blue, I go to the left side of my page and color in some of the negative space. And not really knowing where to end it, I just end up adding in some stripes to mimic the foliage. I grab my sage marker and layer some more lines on top of coral, orange stems and leaves. There's a lot of negative space around the tulips, so I grab my dark green colored pencil and draw some rounded leaves behind them. I grab my dark red marker and draw some center marks for the roses. Then I just kind of circle around the flower a little wildly. And then for no good reason, I add a little bright red into. Now notice my forgotten chrysanthemum and grab my bright red marker to draw his petals like his brethren and also get in behind the lower one with the green marker to add a little weight and shadow down where the flowers are closer together. My final step is to color the background. I start by using my coral orange color, and then I get the urge to cover it with my dark green colored pencil, which I love the result of. So I color the rest of the background in the same way, starting with the coral orange and layering the colored pencil on top. With a few final touches, she is all done. This spread in real time took me an hour and 10 minutes to complete. With the page finished, I've completed three guidelines, and now it's time for number four, reflecting. You're welcome to reflect mentally, but I find physically writing notes makes me more constructive and keeps the wisdom available. When I reflect on a full bleed piece, I will either put the notes on the page before or after the spread or I'll write them on a sticky note and keep it in the sketchbook. In either case, you want to ask yourself, what do I like about this? What did I like about making it? What do I dislike? What did I dislike about making it? When I reflect on my floral piece, here is what comes up. Sketching first allowed me to be expressive with coloring, which I really enjoy. I love the palette, and I might want to jot it down before I forget. I love the areas where pencil is on top of marker and how refreshing the blue feels in this palette. In fact, my favorite part might be the blue stripes, which, if you remember, were just a way to transition out of the improvised blue area. I do dislike how the two pink flower centers and petals are rendered, and I wonder how I could have drawn them differently, like, more simply. Notice how I don't have a proposed solution for how to render these flowers any differently. That's okay. Reflection is simply about gathering the thoughts and reactions to what is happening right now that could easily be forgotten. Maybe those flowers are a doorway for future, Dylan. To recap, for this demo, I utilize the doorway of favorite shapes and subject matter. In my case, flowers. I gathered reference photos and colored them in an expressive foblei layout. I finished the page and reflected on the areas of the piece I love and an area I felt could use improvement. See you in the next lesson for demo five. 13. Demo 5 Pt 1: Inspiration: Visual Note Taking + Sketching: Welcome to Demo five. The doorway I'll be demonstrating today is inspiration, as in using the things you love right now as your starting point to make something new. It's different from favorite shapes and subject matter as shown previously, in that inspiration is often changing. And as a doorway, allows us space in our sketchbook to break down and understand what is lighting us up and then make something new from it. Subject matter, on the other hand, like in demo four, is really about identifying the shapes and types of work that you can reliably go back to, no matter the weather. For example, I went through a phase where I was very inspired by painting still lifes, whereas painting simple fruit shapes are a more reliable subject matter doorway that feels fun to me, no matter what phase I'm in. Still lifes were an inspiration at one point in time, while fruit is a favorite shape in subject matter. This demo is actually going to generate two full sketchbook spreads, the first where I capture my current inspiration and break it down using visual note taking in a casual floated spread, and another where I draw from my captured inspiration to make a custom spread of gouache badges and pennants in a neater floated layout. You don't know what you're inspired by right now or how to use it, this visual note taking demo is going to blow your mind and show you exactly how to effectively use this doorway. For example, these visual notes were taken as I was looking at lamps I loved, and then from those, I created these lamps of my own. Like, I know what lamps I kind of like generally, but it wasn't until I broke down my collected inspiration that I could see what kind of lamps I'm really drawn to, allowing me to make a sketchbook spread of lamps that I really, really love that are on my own. This folk piece in my portfolio was created from these simple visual notes I took while observing folk art. Thanks to the step of visual note taking, I'm able to harness my inspiration without ripping off my inspiration. You could feel an entire sketchbook of just visual notes that you take from things that are inspiring to you, which not a bad idea. Anyway, to get started, you want to begin by collecting a little folder, digital or physical of things that are feeling inspiring to you right now. And this doesn't have to take a long time. I suggest even setting a 15 minute timer to focus you. During this process, you want to be on the hunt for inspiration, not admiration. For example, I'm pretty obsessed with Live Potter's work. I love staring at it, and I feel very intimidated to begin. Like, maybe I should give up before starting. That's admiration. However, when I see Natalie Lite's work, which I'm also obsessed with, it makes me crave touching my brush. That's inspiration. Here's another example. I really admire moody traditional landscape paintings. I love them. I hang them in my house, but they do not inspire me to go to my sketchbook. I do not desire to paint this way myself. That's admiration. On the other hand, on Pinterest, I noticed I was pinning a lot of badges, buttons, matchbooks, and pennants. And immediately, my brain started firing ideas for color combinations and fun things my own could say. This is inspiration, and this is the stuff that we want to be collecting. Instead of asking yourself, what do I love, ask yourself what makes me want to create and use it as your lens for what treasures to collect. If you're feeling inspired by badges and pennants, too, feel free to follow along with me to make your own. I've gone ahead and shared my Pincher sport of inspiration in the class resources, but of course, you can watch my process and apply it to your own inspiration. Once you've got your collected inspo, you can gather your materials. Keep in mind you likely won't know the layout you'll want for your main piece until after taking visual notes. But that's just fine. We at least know our visual notes will be in a casual, floated layout. The materials I'll be using for the first part of this demo, the visual note taking part are a pentel brush pen, Coronh luminance colored pencils, and my sketchbook. The materials I'll be using for the second part of this demo, the spread of pennants and badges are a pencil and two erasers, Holbein artist Guash the pigeon letters round brushes in size six, in size two, a palette for mixing paint, a water cup, a paper towel, and my sketchbook. But of course, your setup may look a little different. With guidelines one and two followed, it's time to focus on starting and finishing the page or in this case, all four pages. Let's get into visual note taking. Off screen, I have my Pintras board pulled up of collected inspiration. And with my pentel brush in hand, I'm starting by looking at a collection of badges. And the first note I want to take is for the idea of badges themselves. So I draw a circle and label it as a badge. I love the stitching around the border, so I jot that down, too. Now, I don't want to draw any of these specific badges in their entirety. So I leave myself a general note that an icon can go in the center and an accomplishment can be lettered around it. In a different part of my spread, I begin writing ideas for the content of my badges and pennans. I love the stargazer idea from these badges, so I write it down. And by writing it in a space separate from the actual badge drawing, I'm helping to loosen the ideas from each other. It's like finding big, pretty rocks and breaking them down into smaller pieces and throwing all the pieces in a bucket together. Stargazer gives me an idea for moon over, so I write that down. The small addict badge sparks my love for nachos, so I write that down. The young and free badge sparks an idea for a badge that says old and free and also one that says old spirit. Next up is this dog button, and what I love most about it is the color palette. So in a third spot of my spread, I'll use my colored pencils to jot down the pink and yellow duo. There's a lot I love about this matchbox. But first, I want to simply note the idea of drawing a match box or a match book. So under my basic badge, I draw a box of matches. In a fourth part of my spread, I make an area to start capturing motifs. In this case, a little horse that actually reminds me of some full courses I've painted before. So I draw one. I also love the banner shape for lettering, and I draw that in the motif area. The last thing I want to note from this beautiful match box is the color palette. You may remember my love of pink and red from the grid and quilt block demo. Next up is a classic pennant, which I first capture in the basic shape area of my spread, making sure to note the little ties. I draw a second pennant to capture the idea of an icon with lettering around it. This tutorial I pinned for making a real pennant had a good tip for fitting the letters inside shapes. So I draw that among the other shapes and layouts. With this pennant, I like that the icon takes up the entire left side with the lettering fully to the right. I've long loved the suits of cards, and so I draw those in the motif area. This little butter pennant reminds me of a butter hat that my husband got me, so I butter down on the content area of my spread. These pennants are simple, but there's a lot I like about them. First, I like the idea of using a last name for the concept of the pennant. I also love the big script taking up the layout. I love the stripes on the edge. And finally, the simple and bold color palettes really speak to me. Now it's time to add a banner to the basic shape area of my spread, including the cute little Gromets. In the content area, I add a note about inspirational reminders. Next, I jot down the smart vertical layout of this pennant. These mini pennants also provide an alternative to the long wide triangle, so I jot that down too. I also love the AC pennant, but I'm more likely to say Ugh, so I add that to my content area. I love the red and white stripes of this vintage pennant, and so I add that to my color palettes. And this is how I continue on until my page is full of ideas. And I encourage you to do the same, whether you're looking at the Pintresbard that I provided or your own collection of inspiration. This visual note taking spread in real time took me 20 minutes to complete. And now I'm inspired and ready to make my own spread of badges and pennants. If you haven't already, take a moment to look at your visual notes and decide what layout you're using. I'm going to start by sketching, and I encourage you to flip back and forth to your notes often, as you will see me doing to help fill the page. The very first shape I sketch is a big old banner in the top left of the spread. I put it here because that flat top edge nicely aligns with the top of the book, and the raw edge shape leaves room for other shapes. Next, I sketch a symbol rectangle banner, placing it a little lower on the page to stagger it with the banner in the top left. Right now my goal is to fill up the pages with shapes. So I look back at my notes to see what other basic shapes I collected that can be used and decide on a classic pennant in the bottom left. This third big shape really nicely balances the other two. I want one more pennant, so I balance a second one in the upper right of my spread. Instead of doing a match box, I decide to draw two squares to fill this space down here for a classic matchbook of which I can show the outside and the inside design. Looking at my notes, I remember circle and oval badges and begin filling them in the available space. In the awkward space I have left, I go for the folded or creased pendant shape, followed by another circle. I could put another oval badge or even a backwards pennant up here, but I go for a scribbly date instead. With my composition of shapes all sketched out, I'm ready to start adding my own spin and details to each. I take it one badge at a time, referencing my visual notes and trying out ideas. When something doesn't work, like this Bob Dylan quote, which I love, but I felt I was trying a little too hard to be cool, so I erased it and replaced it with something else. Sketchbooks aren't about knowing, they're about finding. For my oval badges, I decide to honor my grandpa, Eugene and my grandma, Wanda, and this is where pieces really become ours because, yes, this entire page is inspired from beautiful works by other people and existing things, yet none of those people would have made this particular collection. I think it's a great testament to visual note taking and how our inspiration is the ultimate doorway to expressing ourselves. And now my sketch is done. I'll take a break and come back tomorrow to begin painting her. 14. Demo 5 Pt 2: Inspiration: Painting Badges + Banners: So it's a new day with terrible lighting, and I'm ready to paint. This part of the process is the most meditative because I just get to essentially color in the coloring book lines I drew for myself. I'm squeezing out some guash. I've got white, flame red, yellow ochre, and primary yellow, primary cyan, emerald green, and black. And while I will generally describe what I'm doing throughout the process, the point of this class isn't really to teach you how to paint with guash. It's just to help share helpful guidelines for filling sketchbook pages. So I'm not going to get too into the weeds about it, but if you'd like to know more, I recommend my course getting to know your paint. First up, I'm using red right from the tube with some water and headed for my Polish and proud pennant. The main thing I want you to see here is I'm painting around my pencil lettering and not over the pencil lettering so that I can see them more clearly when I go over them later in white. Next, I mix a pink from white and red and go to paint the Wanda badge in the same way. But before I get in there, I'm going to use my eraser to lighten my pencil lines a little, as I sketched quite darker than usual so that it would show up on camera. I first go around with my bigger brush to fill in most of the space, and then I switch to my smaller brush to fine tune the negative space for the lettering. I'm now using the same pink to paint the background of my UG pennant. And notice how I'm not worrying about finishing each badge entirely before moving on. Instead, I'm going to cover the page in a first layer of paint and add details on top. I mix up a green with emerald black and yellow ochre and fill in the border of my old and free banner. During visual note taking, a lot of the palettes I liked were simple and bright, so I'm carrying that over to this page. I use the same green to fill out the magical being badge, similar to how I balance the shapes during the sketching phase. Right now I'm trying to balance the colors. The pinks on the left balance the red on the right, and the green at the bottom left begins to balance the green on the right. I mix a little ochre into my black to soften it and paint the border from my home banner. I can't wait to paint those little gold gromets, but I must be patient and let the paint dry so that the gold can really pop on the black instead of mixing with it. I mix up some yellow ochre and start filling in my matchbooks. I lighten my pencil lines and use the same ochre for the base of my sketchbook fillers club badge. But partway through, I realize I can paint over the pencil lines and still see them. So I do that instead of trying to paint around the tiny little script forms for the word sketchbook. Next up, I mix a retro teal from primary cyan, white, ochre, and a touch of black and start painting in the base of my nachos pennant. Then I use the same teal to fill in my star and crescent moon badge. Finally, I mix an ivory from white with primary yellow and a touch of red to fill in the neutral spaces. The mix is translucent enough that I can see my sketches through, so I can cover these areas pretty quickly. With my first layer of paint down, I'm ready to take a break and come back tomorrow to finish all the cutie details. Ah, a fresh day with much better light and a second camera that's actually recording for the most part. I start by spraying my paint pallet with water as gouache is just opaque watercolor and can be reanimated after drying. I start with my teal color, my tiny brush, and the lettering on my grandpa's name badge. I move from right to left to cut back on left handed smudgies. With the same teal, I head down to my Lady Luck matchbook to paint the lettering. It's Oh, it's, um, it's kind of hard to see with my hand in the way. If only there were another camera, boom. Finally, camera B is in the works as I take my time around this tiny script. I darken my teal by adding more primary can to it and add my little badge stitches around my sun and moon badge. Next, I mix up some red in color in the hearts and diamonds on the matchbook and the match heads, too. Similar to the first layer, I'm trying to distribute my colors across the page, so I use my red to accent my UG badge. I mix up a thick ivory and add the script lettering to my Polish and proud pennant. I can clean up some of the smaller letters with red paint after I let the white dry. Next is the ivory nacho lettering. Followed by the Ivory ug letters. And really, friends, I go on jumping from badge to badge, filling in tiny details, taking it slow, until my page is done. I lose track of time. I melt into it. When I'm all done, I erase my pencil lines, and if I'm being honest, I sit and stare for a long time. This badge, banner, and pennant spread in real time took me 2.5 hours to complete. With my pages filled, I've completed three guidelines, and now it's time for number four, reflecting. You're welcome to reflect mentally, but I find physically writing notes makes me more constructive and keeps the wisdom available. In either case, you want to ask yourself, What do I like about this? What did I like about making it? What do I dislike? What did I dislike about making it? When I reflect on my badges and pennants, here is what comes up. I really enjoyed getting to paint without worrying about composition. So sketching first rules for me once again. Something I dislike is the sketchbook fillers club badge is a little hard to read. If I could change it, this yellow could be brighter to make the black lettering pop more or a dirtier yellow with ivory lettering. I also didn't leave enough room for the apostrophe at the end. I would love to turn these into stickers, and so that could be a doorway for future Dylan. To recap, for this demo, I utilize the doorway of current inspiration. I collect pieces that inspired me into a Pintres board and reviewed that inspiration using visual note taking and a casual floated layout to break down what I was seeing into details. I then use those visual notes to inspire a neater floated layout of custom guash buttons, badges, and pennants. I finished the page and reflected on the enjoyment of sketching first a spot for improvement and an idea for the future. See you in the next lesson for demo six. 15. Demo 6: Causes: Love Thy Neighbor: Welcome to Demo six. The doorway I'll be demonstrating today is causes and purpose. Causes and purpose are an excellent well of creative juice. They can be small and personal causes like expressing petty feelings or say, shining a light on a rude piece of furniture in your house that you often stub your toe on or knock your shin on. Or, you know, I have long atan arms. I'm always knocking my knuckles on things. This is a cause I really understand. That's something you can speak on in your sketchbook, for the fun of it, for the hell of it, because who else is going to? Or it can be something bigger. For example, in my country, America, we have never been so divided and quite frankly, outright, hateful to each other, at least in my lifetime. Right now, every single person I know, myself included, knows a handful of people that they would deem evil idiots. And unfortunately, I think we have to find a way to unite you guys, even though we are all someone's evil idiot. And so I thought that it would be nice to do a cross stitch style sampler piece that says love thy neighbor in a full bleed layout. Not because I think it will necessarily change the world, but because if I died tomorrow, this is a worthy use of my life moments, reminding myself, reminding us to love our fellow humans. Reflect a little on something that feels so meaningful to you that it's worth facing that blank page and filling it up. It can be a small stand. It can be a big stand. Take a stand, man. Feel free to follow along with me to create your own love thy neighbor piece or use your own cause to guide your spread. And once you've got your cause or purpose, choose a layout that feels fitting and grab your materials. The materials I'll be using for this demo are a pencil and eraser, Holbein Artist guash, the pigeon letters round brush in size ten, and a Yasu tomo fusion round brush in size five, a palette for mixing, a water cup, paper towel, posca pens, a sticky note, and my sketchbook. But of course, your setup may look a little different. With guidelines one and two followed, it's time to focus on starting and finishing the page. I'm starting out this full bleed piece by sketching a simple border shape, something sort of whimsical that feels comforting like my grandma's cross stitch samplers. Now I'm ready to paint the background. I'm envisioning a warm ivory color for the center background and a warm peachy pink for the border. I squeeze a good bit of white gouache onto my palette, along with some primary yellow and red. I'll use white, a little yellow, and a dab of red to make my ivory, and I'll start spreading it on the page, switching to a larger brush that can hold on to more paint. Then I'll use a slightly different ratio of white, red and yellow to make my pink. I have a lot of thick paint on my brush, so I dab it around to different parts of the page before adding more water to the mix and spreading it all around. It is very satisfying. I give my background time to dry, which doesn't take too long with guash, only a few minutes. And I'm grabbing a sticky note to write out Love thy neighbor to make sure I, A, know how to spell it and B, to see how to stack the letters. Now, earlier I peeked at my color swatch chart from Demo one to help pick colors for this piece, and I landed on pink, red, green, a lighter green, khaki green and yellow. And then I just sort of throw myself into it without a plan. I have a very loose vision in my head of the words, love thy neighbor made up in tiny Xs, taking center stage of the design. But I got so excited that I just kind of began. And pretty quickly, things get a little wonky and I start to feel frustrated. So I decided to reset. I let the paskas dry and mix up more ivory paint to cover my mistake. I needed a perfect patch, I would do another layer once this one dries, but since I'm going over top of it with a similar design, I think one coat is enough. Plus, I don't need to be perfect in my sketchbook. I just want to keep moving today. This time, I grab my pencil and lightly sketch out where the letters will go. And then I get back to drawing my little Xs. It still isn't perfect. I kind of veer off course, but I'd rather have it be wonky than the total complete mess that it was. Then I grab my pink posca pen and draw a jagged little heart shape to take the place of the O in the word neighbor. It feels like something is missing at the top here, so I grab my yellow posca pen and decide to draw a bow. To balance that out, I grab my red and draw some simple and symmetrical flower heads followed by green to add into their stems. I'm really improvising my composition as I go, and so I lean on more symmetrical flowers for balance. I did not follow my pencil line for my letter G, so I'll lightly erase those lines, taking care to not disturb the paint. Grab my red pasca and start drawing Xs over the heart shape. This is the smallest red paska I have, and I'm struggling a bit to make each X clear, but that's okay. I keep on. I want to add in some more flora around the piece, so I grab my khaki green paska pen and add a border of vines, which leads to drawing these little strawberries at the ends. I keep this pattern going around the entire border. With the border filled out, I grab my pink and red paskas and add Xs to the flowers, and then I follow suit with the greens. For the dots on the strawberries, I add little khaki green Xs. The corners felt a little bare, so I add some simple flowers. And then I get this urge to use the yellow and not really thinking through where that yellow might be best used, I just kind of start coloring around the letters. But this is what sketchbooks are for taking those little weird alleys and seeing if they lead anywhere cool. Spoiler alert. This one doesn't, in my opinion, but I'm still glad I took a look. It was really fun to color with the yellow that I had that urge for. Finally, I grab my green and add a few detail lines to my border vines. This spread in real time took me an hour to complete. With my pages filled, I've completed three guidelines, and now it's time for number four, reflecting. You're welcome to reflect mentally, but I find physically writing notes makes me more constructive and keeps the wisdom available. In either case, you want to ask yourself, What do I like about this? What did I like about making it? What do I dislike? What did I dislike about making it? When I reflect on my loveth neighbor piece, here's what comes up. To be so honest, I was flying pretty high on the first five demos, but then I feel Hmm. Ah, yes, embarrassed and disappointed with this piece. This is the time that it is most helpful to reflect, to learn from it. I do actually like the cross stitch love thy neighbor concept and the style of the little stitched letters. The frame, I guess, feels a little too rushed. In fact, the whole piece could have benefited from, like, a more thoughtful sketch, and the yellow around the letters is not working for me. The border also just feels a tad spidery and dark. And this is a fabulous example of the power of reflection because my initial reaction was to just re film the demo and act like it didn't happen. Really, I was so embarrassed that I almost did that. But that's not helpful for either of us because this is how it is sometimes when you're working in your sketchbook. Thanks to reflecting, I saw that I really love the concept, just not the execution. So I took the piece to my iPad where I could play a little more and ended up with a portfolio piece that I'm pretty obsessed with. I was able to solve the pain points I called out during my reflection, which ended up being a really helpful guide. My sketchbook piece was enjoyable to make, improved my painting and Posca pen skills and was ultimately the bridge to a portfolio piece. This wasn't the only solution, though, which is why reflection is so helpful. On another day, maybe it would have felt better to just repeat the piece and try it again, sketching a little bit more thoughtfully before committing. On another day, maybe I would have felt satisfied that I gave the concept a go and would have felt better just turning the page and moving on. You never know until you ask. To recap, for this demo, I utilize the doorway of causes and purpose to make a full bleed love thy neighbor piece with Guash and Posca pens. I finished the page, and although I wasn't thrilled, I reflected on what wasn't working for me, leading to the piece being used as a concept for a portfolio piece. See you in the next lesson for our final demo. 16. Demo 7: Prompts: Favorite Corner: Welcome to Demo seven. The final doorway I'll be demonstrating is prompts. There are so many art prompt resources out there for artists from challenges shared on social media to books that teach you how to do things. You can even make your own custom prompts by jotting down your various doorways on pieces of paper, keeping them in a little container, and pulling a few when you need a place to start. For my spread today, I'm going to utilize a prompt from my most popular class, Illustrated Journaling 14 Days of Prompts, as it's one of my personal favorites to revisit. The prompt is favorite corner, which I'll complete with a floated layout. Creating artwork in response to prompts, especially ones that I revisit, creates a really, really awesome time capsule that is so enjoyable to look back on. For example, here are my favorite corner entries through the years in different homes in which we glipped. You are welcome to follow along to share your own favorite corner, but I've also shared some of my other favorite sources of prompts in the class materials. You may also want to do a quick search for prompts that includes some keywords that are specific to you, like gardening art prompts or beginner gouache prompts. Once you have your prompt, gather your materials and choose a fitting layout. If you are following along with me, the next step is to pick your favorite corner of your current dwelling. It doesn't have to be a literal corner, just an area that brings you joy and snap a few photos as reference. Mine is the sun room or a house here in Ohio, and so I made sure to take a few photos as reference. The materials I'll be using for this demo are a sticky note, a pencil and eraser, Tambo dual brush pens, corona ache luminance colored pencils, a pen tail brush pen, a Pilot Precise V five RT, which is just a pen and my sketchbook. But of course, your setup may look a little different. Guidelines one and two followed, it's time to focus on starting and finishing the page. With my reference images pulled up off screen, I write down a list of the details I want to include in my favorite corner spread, including the chair and pillows, the windows, the three plants, the old light fixture, the lamp with the wavy shade, a floor tile, my space heater, and my hobbies like journaling, books to read, and my AirPods. Learning my lesson from demo six, causes and purpose, I am for sure going to sketch in pencil first, beginning with writing the prompt along the bottom of the page. The biggest element on my list is the chair and pillows, so I begin to sketch it down in the corner. When I'm done, I cross it off the list and keep going. I use the straight edge of the sketchbook crease to line my window against and draw a hanging plant in front of it, even though the plant in real life is fake and comically small. I want the light fixture to really have a nice, prominent place, so I draw it larger in scale above the chair. And that's a really fun part of these floated layouts is getting to play with scale to adjust emphasis. I left myself an awkward space that I think I can fill with a square for the floor tile. I use this vertical space below the window to add in my space heater, which isn't necessarily cute, but is honestly the MVP of the sun room in cold seasons. I use the room to the right of the space heater to house the remaining two plants. I only have the lamp and my hobbies left, and I decided to put the lamp close to the light fixture, filling an awkward space with a cord. I use my final space to fit in an open journal, some books, and my airpods. With my sketch complete, I went through my marker and colored pencil swatches and chose a palette that is reflective of the items as they are in real life. I grabbed my materials and pick the chair as my first object to work on. Unlike the floral demo or the badges and banners demo, where I developed the piece altogether, I'm going to take this 11 motif at a time. I work up the chair in stages, first coloring the base, then adding the pillows, and finally adding some of the wood details. I layer colored pencil on top of the marker to create the chair design and texture. Next, I use my pentel brush to color in the floor tile, leaving the stars the white of the page. Next, I grab my neutral colored pencil and start drawing the light fixture, which is milk glass with little bumps all over it. So I take care to create that texture with negative space. I use markers to mimic the brass and top it off with the pentel brush details. I focus on the lamp and use a warmer buttery yellow pencil for the shade as if the light is turned on at night. I erase my pencil lines a bit so that they don't mix with that lighter yellow color. I color the base, the finial and cord, and then use a colored pencil to create light lines on the lamp shade. For the plant, I use a marker for the stems and a colored pencil for the soft ferns. And again, it doesn't have to stay true to life. I draw my space heater. I draw my foe plant, playing with positive and negative space, so it isn't too heavy on the page. I draw Joyce's beautiful basket and layer the basket weave on top in marker. I layer yellow and chartreuse into the leaves to give the illusion of sunlight bouncing around. I keep my hoppy icons simple, re using my palette colors to balance things out. I go over the prompt name with my Pentel brush and switch to a regular pen to add labels and fill awkward gaps. My chair feels like it's floating, so I grab my smoky colored pencil and scribble in some shadows, adding them under the plants too. This spread in real time, took me 50 minutes to complete. With my pages filled, I've completed three guidelines, and now it's time for number four, reflecting. You're welcome to reflect mentally, but I find physically writing notes makes me more constructive and keeps the wisdom available. In either case, you want to ask yourself, What do I like about this? What did I like about making it? What do I dislike? What did I dislike about making it? When I reflect on my favorite corner spread, here's what comes up. Is a really great snapshot of a place I spend so much of my time. I love the spread overall, and especially the chair, the light fixture, and the way the faux plant is rendered. I especially enjoyed the marker and colored pencil layered on top of each other, which is a doorway I would definitely like to keep exploring. To recap, for this demo, I utilize the doorway of prompts, in this case, a favorite corner prompt, which I colored with markers and colored pencil in a floated layout. I finished the page and reflected on the details I love and want to take with me to future spreads. With all seven demos done and doorways walked through, let's do a little review. 17. Quick Review!: The spirit of guideline four, let's take a moment to reflect on all we've done together. First, I set a goal for you to complete at least one sketchbook spread using one of the seven doorways and one of the three layouts. Though hopefully you'll try them all. Then I told you about the available class resources, and we briefly discussed materials. Next, we dove into the four sketchbook fillers club guidelines, the heart of this class. Number one, find your doorway to make starting easier. Number two, use basic layouts to make any work look better. Number three, finish the page, and number four, spend a little time reflecting. Then we got into the demos. For Demo one, I demonstrated the doorway of mediums and materials by making a color swatch chart in a framed layout of MyPoscapens. For Demo two, I demonstrated the doorway of technical studies by layering markers in a floated layout to find interesting color palettes. For demo three, I demonstrated the doorway of starting with a grid by drawing a colorful quilt in a loosely framed layout with color pencils and markers, inspired by a color palette from Demo two. For demo four, I demonstrated the doorway of favorite shapes and subject matter by filling a full bleed layout with flowers done with marker and colored pencil. For Demo five, I demonstrated the doorway of inspiration by taking visual notes of my inspiration and painting gouache badges, banners and pennants in a floated layout. For Demo six, I demonstrated the doorway of causes and purpose by creating a love thy neighbor design in a full bleed layout with posca pens and gouache. For demo seven, I demonstrated the doorway of prompts by following my Illustrated journaling prompt of favorite corner in a floated design with marker and colored pencil. So how did it go for you? Which doorways called your name and which ones felt more like windows? I personally found technical studies, the grid quilt, my inspired banners and badges, and my prompted favorite corner pages to be my favorite to work on and final result wise. Whereas the unplanned nature of speaking on my cause left me feeling a little dissatisfied during the process and with the sketchbook result, though it did lead to a portfolio piece I love. Take a little time to reflect on how it went for you. Then find your next doorway and show up again. 18. Thank you! Want Flower Pics?: Thank you for hanging out with me so I could share my deep love and best practices for sketchbooking. I can't wait to see how you take it and run. If you would like to keep creating with me, you may want to check out my other courses. If you would like instant access to hundreds of floral reference images that you may use personally and professionally for free, you can sign up for my monthly newsletter. And I also work with artists one to one and in groups if you feel like that is the right path for you. Until then, happy sketchbooking. And hey, welcome to the club.