Transcripts
1. What This Class Is About: Hello, I'm Mimi, and I'm a professional picture book
artist, but for years, the fear of drawing bad
things and the pressure of my creative expectations held me back from becoming an artist. But then I found a
way to give myself the creative freedom that I needed and would love to
share that secret with you. So let me introduce you
to my junk sketchbook, a zero pressure space
where I draw on random scraps of paper that are literally
destined for the bin. But how is drawing on junk
helpful to becoming an artist? Because it removes any pressure or stress from what
you're drawing, and that creative freedom
is really powerful. The best way to
improve your art is to feel free to be able
to practice and play. And so the easier you can
make that for yourself, the more hurdles you can remove, the easier it will be to become the artist
you want to be. These scraps of paper
are unimportant. It truly doesn't matter
if you draw something ugly or silly or
beautiful on them. And that gives you the
freedom to play with your creativity and be a
beginner without any stakes. It allows you to leave
behind the stress of the outcome of what you're drawing and focus
on the process. So in this class, I'm going
to show you how you can create your own zero
pressure junk sketchbook, and then I'll share some
drawing ideas to help fill your first pages and build
your creative confidence. If you feel comfortable
sharing a few pages from your junk sketchbook with us, I would
really love that. You can share them with us in the project section below where I'll also share
some on my own. So let's get started.
2. Creating Your Own Junk Sketchbook: So, to make your own
junk sketchbook, you need to start
collecting bits of paper or card that
you don't care about. It's important that you don't
mind what happens to it, to make sure you don't apply any pressure on yourself
when you make your art. I like to use a mix of scraps of individual paper that
I find lying around, paper or cardboard that is on its way to the recycling bin, bits of notepads that
I'm not precious about. Really anything I can find that is flat and has
a blank surface. Then I roughly tear
or cut them up into smaller sizes that are more
manageable to work on. The size you choose
is up to you. Or maybe you can
try a mix of sizes. I personally prefer
a small size, so roughly a five or
less because that works for my chosen art
supplies and my art style. I also find that
working quite small, lets me try out ideas
quite quickly and freely without feeling like I
need to fill a large space. But if that's restrictive
for you, then go bigger. And don't worry if some
of your scraps are wonky or wedge shapes or
have creases in them, because you can use
those different shapes to help you explore
different creative ideas. So you can kind of
think of the paper and the shape of it
as a prompt itself. So collect enough scraps to make a small pile
to get you started, and you can always collect more as you go as you start to notice things in your day
to day life that you could turn into
a sketchbook scrap. After I've made some art
on this scrap paper, I like to hold the
paper together with some bulldog clips because it feels more like a
sketchbook format, but also I can still rearrange
or add or remove from it easily without the pressure of permanent pages like
a regular sketchbook. You could also store your
finished art in a little box that's easy to browse or display them in your
creative space. It's totally up to you
what you do with them. So now you've collected
the materials for your junk sketchbook. But what if you don't know
what to draw on them? I'm going to show you three
really simple drawing ideas in the next lessons to help give your natural creativity
a boost and help you fill your junk sketchbook
with playful drawings.
3. Drawing Idea: Patterns: So you've got a nice pile of scrap paper ready to
make some art on, and remember the point of
these being scrap paper is that there's zero pressure to make anything
special on them. Anything at all that
you draw will be an improvement on them just
staying like this forever. So first, we're going
to draw a pattern, which is an art idea that requires minimal
technical drawing skills, but allows for maximum
creative play. Start by choosing a piece
of paper from your pile. Choose some colors
that you like from any art supplies that
you have on hand, and we're going to fill
this page with a pattern. And that can be any kind of pattern that
you can think of. For this example,
though, we're going to draw a Gingam style pattern. So for that, you just need a set of stripes going one way. Then change color and draw a set of stripes
going the other way. You can fill in these
crossover points if you want to add a
bit of emphasis there. And then I like to start
filling in some of these spaces with little
motifs or simple shapes. Things like stars, flowers, spots or anything really
that you like to draw. I haven't made a plan
for this pattern. I'm just experimenting as I go. And if I don't really like it, I can always try to
layer it up some more. So I'll keep adding
to it for a while, and almost always I
end up liking it more. If you really don't
like what you've made, then you can just start again
on a new scrap of paper. Remember that there is
nothing at stake here, but I do really
encourage you to stick with it for a little while
and see what happens. The beauty of doing this on scrap paper is that it
allows us to try things, even if we have no idea of
whether we like it or not. And we can take the
parts that we do like and carry them forward to
the next thing that we draw. So I like the stripes here. I think it would be nice
if they were bigger. So I can start on a
new scrap of paper and make another variation of this pattern to
try out that idea. You can draw any kind of
pattern you can think of and just play with
different color variations, different motifs, and
different shapes. Some can be more simple, some can be more complex, and sometimes the shape of the scrap paper can help guide the shapes
that you draw on it. So you can use that as another
kind of creative prompt. So have a go at drawing
your own pattern on one of your scrap pieces of paper
and see where it takes you. I'll see you in the next video for the second drawing idea.
4. Drawing Idea: Characters: So the next drawing
idea to fill your junk sketchbook with is to create
some playful characters. And don't worry if you've
never drawn a character before because I'm going to show you a really simple method. Remember that this is a space
for playing and practicing with no expectations on
yourself or what you create, and it's really important that you give yourself that
creative freedom. So choose a scrap piece of paper and then choose
a pen or pencil. And to draw a basic character, you can simply draw
a tall rectangle in the middle of the page, and this will be the torso with a curved top because
that's going to be the collar. Then another rectangular shape
at the bottom for a leg, and then another one
for the other leg. And I like to taper these
at the bottom a bit. The feet can be as simple
as two points like this. And then the arms can
be blocky, as well. I like to draw mine at
an angle like this. And the hands can start really simple like
mittens really, and then do the same
on the other side. If you draw the hands like
mine as a simple curve for the thumb and then another larger curve for the
rest of the hand, I then draw a line or two
to suggest the fingers. And it's as simple as that. Now, on this body, you can draw any character
head that you like. I prefer drawing animals, so I'll make them into
a sort of rabbit, but they don't have
to be referencing a real life thing at all. Characters can be
totally made up, especially in a junk
sketchbook like this. Now, once you've drawn
a base character, you can decorate them. I like to give them fun outfits to add a bit of personality, and this is probably
my favorite part. And then you can
also put them in an environment if there's a lot of extra space on
the page like mine. You don't have to color them in, but I think their
outfit would be extra cute if I draw it
in bright colors. So I'm going to color
mine in colored pencils. Use any art supplies that
you have lying around, even if it's just
a regular pencil or all you can find
is a black pen. You can be creative
with anything. But color is more
fun, in my opinion. So if you do have colors, then definitely consider
bringing those in. They also have
some soft pastels, which are so lovely to you, so let's get those involved. You might find that
some art supplies work better on different
materials than others. So if you have any paper in your scraps that
are a bit glossy, then wet media might
not work great on them, but just test it out
and see what happens. So characters can be really simple to
draw just like this. You could then try to make
another character again, but try a different
outfit on them or a different pose and give them a different
character head. Make as many silly
characters as you need to to build your creative confidence
and explore playful ideas. Remember, you're going to always start again if you
don't like them. And you can also take any oddly shaped scraps
like this triangle from an envelope and use that as a creative prompt
or challenge to draw something within
those boundaries. So this character's pose has
been guided by the shape, and I probably wouldn't have experimented with this pose
on a regular piece of paper. And you can play around with anything being
a character, really. I love making characters out of bugs because they are
so simple to draw. And you can totally
make them up, and they're still easily
identifiable as some kind of bug as long as they have
little antenna like this guy. Technically, insects
have six legs, but I got a little
bit carried away. I don't think anyone will mind. So choose a piece of scrap paper and try drawing
your own character, and I encourage you
to try to make them as delightfully silly
as you can imagine. Then in the next lesson, we'll jump into the
third drawing idea.
5. Drawing Idea: Colour Gradients: So the third drawing idea
is probably the simplest. It is simply filling
the full page with a gradient of different colors
in any way that you like, and then as an optional bonus, drawing some nice
line art on top. So let me show you what I mean. Choose a piece of
scrap paper that feels interesting to you and then choose a lovely color from your art supplies to start
filling in the background. Now, we're going to use more than one color
on the background, so you can either
do sploges spread around like I'm doing to leave space for
the other colors. You could fill the
whole background, and then layer up
other colors on top. The main thing is that
we're going to make a multi colored background with colors that blend
into each other. These soft pastels I'm using are just from
a discount store, so you don't need expensive art supplies to
make lovely things. As long as they
allow you to express your creative ideas, then
that's the main thing. So I've left lots of
space to add more colors, and I think I'll aim for
about three or four colors on this background to make
it nice and multi colored. The good thing about pastels is that they blend
together really nicely. So if you also want your
colors to blend together, choose an art medium that
allows for easy blending, like pastels, paint or
even colored pencil. I mean, this activity is really just about
playing with colors, and it always feels like a nice, relaxing thing to do to fill a whole page with
different colors. Once the page is all filled in, you could leave
it like that, but I like to add some simple
drawn elements on top. And since this one looks
kind of like a galaxy, I'm going to draw some stars. This is such a gentle activity and really nice when you
don't know what to draw. You can just put
some lovely colors down and see where it takes you. And you could try lots of
different color combinations. If I do lighter colors
like yellows and pinks, it feels more like a garden, so you could draw a
flower themed version. Or a variation on that to draw some different
types of leaves. Or focus on Lighter blues for an under the sea
theme like this one. There are lots of ways you
can explore this activity. So try making your own color
gradient and feel free to share with us in the project section of this class below. Now that you have some
creative ideas down on paper, let's chat in the next lesson
about what you can do next.
6. What Do I Do Now?: So now you have the
beautiful beginnings of a zero pressure sketchbook with some lovely
creative explorations. You can clip these
pages together to form a more traditional
sketchbook feel, or you could keep them
in a box to browse through or display them
in your creative space. It might take a bit
of practice to build your creative muscle and feel comfortable drawing
playful things, but that is exactly why these scrap pieces of
paper are so powerful. They're pressure
free, zero cost, and give you the
perfect training ground for that creativity
you're growing. So keep practicing,
keep playing with creative ideas and keep putting colorful
marks down on paper. And the next time you
have some scrap paper that's on its way to the
recycling bin or the compost, think about using it for
your creative ideas instead. It might just lead you
to an art habit that you love and the creative
confidence you're looking for. You can find more of
my drawing prompts and ideas on my website and Etsy shop so you don't ever need to run out
of things to draw. And you can learn
more creative tips on my YouTube channel, so I
hope to see you there. Thanks so much for
watching this class, and don't forget to share
your beautiful art with us in the project section down below if you feel comfortable. Can't wait to see
you there. Bye bye.
Mimi Purnell, Illustrator & Content Creator
