Transcripts
1. Trailer: A lot of people always wanted to start drawing but as we get older we find it more difficult and that's why this class is called Wake-up Your Inner Artist. Hi, I'm Simon. I'm a digital content creator and illustrator and I'm currently living in Copenhagen, Denmark. Drawing is my first love. I remember dueling for hours every day as a child with the rage to master perspective, proportion, shading. In this class, I'm going to help you set up the right habits in order to start your drawing practice. I will help you find the motivation, the inspiration and the time to get started. By the end of this class, you will have completed a three-step project that consists of finding inspiration, getting started and lastly, being accountable. We're going to cover different things, including the different type of material that you can use, how to set up your creative space, how to block some time every day to prioritize your drawing practice and look at fun ways to never run out of inspiration. What are you waiting for? Motivation come through action. Check out the next video and get started.
2. Project Introduction: The purpose of this class is to help you get started in drawing regularly, in fact, every day. By the end of this class, you will have completed a three-step project that consists of finding inspiration, where to look for inspiration, how to stay motivated. Getting started, what are the type of material that you will need to get started, and also what's the right mindset in order to get started. Lastly, being accountable, I'm going to help you set a goal and tell your friends about it. They will help you stay accountable. Don't forget to post on the group project regularly. This will allow you to keep on track with your progress, find a community that will support you, and stay motivated. Throughout these lessons, I'm also going to share with you some of my personal tips and tricks on how I got out of an uncreative road. I'm also going to share with you the story on how I started my 100 days of happiness. A visual diary I launched on Instagram to help me find gratitude in everything that I do. Now, before we get started, I need to ask you one single question, are you ready to commit to five minutes a day into your drawing practice? Well, if the answer is, yes, then check out the next video where I'm going to talk about the different ways we can find inspiration online and real life. See you in the next class. Bye
3. Getting Inspired: Where do you find inspiration? All around you. Hi everyone, and welcome to this first video lesson. I really want to kick off with the topic of inspiration: How to find inspiration all around us online, in real life. I truly believe that by being able to feel inspired, this is the key motivator in order to help you reach your goal, and to draw in a consistent manner. Where do you found inspiration? Well, all around you. It's an active exercise to look for it. Whenever you walk in a park, and you look at the trees, and you notice the urban skyline, the different type of flowers that are growing, the dead leaves on the floor, the spuddle of water, the street fashioned. The colors and even in your house, this weird candletea light holder that you have that's shaped like a T-Rex. All of these can act as sources of inspirations. Now, you can also look for inspiration online, and that's what makes the Internet such a great place. I find a lot of my inspiration through Pinterest and Instagram, where I found to seek great inspirational artists. Moreover, I also get inspired by the achievement that those people have accomplished, and it really pushes me to want to do more and more. Here's a great tip to find good art on Instagram. First of all, as in real life, remember that looking for inspiration is an active exercise. The more you actively look for it, the more your brain will get used to finding things that inspire them. Look for specific hashtag on Instagram. I follow, for example, black and white photography or hashtag digital art, and one hashtag that I find particularly interesting is to draw this in your style challenge. Where different artists are encouraged to draw a prompt image in their own style. Looking for inspiration is very important in order to help you develop your own sense of style and art before even picking up the pencil. By actively and consciously looking for artists and art that pleases you, you'll be able to establish a pattern of what you like, and what you don't like. What type of art you're drawn towards, and what type of argue you like to create. Now, it's time for your first project. Go on Instagram or on Pinterest or any site that you like in particular, and tell us of a one online artists that you like. This is a great exercise in order to better known yourself as an artist. Are you still feeling inspired or perhaps even more inspired that you are to being here at this class? Then you might be ready to set a goal. check out the next class, and I'll show you how to set a proper goal for your art ambition. see you there. Bye.
4. Setting a Goal: The reason why I was too afraid to pick up the pencil and make time for drawing is because I didn't have a proper goal in mind. Now in the previous video lessons, we talked about the power of finding inspiration and getting inspired by everything around us in order to know ourselves better as an artist and to feel motivated to draw again. In this video lesson, we're going to discuss about how to set proper goals in order to get back into our drawing practice and add some clarity on why we want to do this. I want you to ponder upon those following questions. The first one is why are you here? Why are you even listening to me and following those video lessons? Why do you want to get back into drawing or to start drawing and to draw every day? Let's frame it differently, is it for fame? Is it to get the technical skills? Is it to be able to show your friends and family that you've completed a year of illustration and you have an amazing portfolio? Or is it really to prove to yourself that yes, I can get back into drawing and that's something I always wanted to prove my younger self? In the previous class, I asked you as part of the project to look at different artist online and to tells us what type of artist or which artists do you specifically like. This will help you set up a proper goal and to found out why you are listening to me talk about how to draw consistently. Second, think about the sacrifices, are you willing to get out of your comfort zone? A good way to look at it is output versus outcome, outcome is to dream. For example, if you romanticize being an artist and you fast forward towards years and years in practice and all you seen is the outcome of that famous person on Instagram who has a million followers and will live the beautiful life of being a content creator, output is how many hours that person had to put in order to get to that level. I always tell people think of the output. For example, I live in Denmark, it's summer. You can see outside, it is nice and sunny. My a little sacrifice for today is that I'm not going out to grab a nice beverage outside but I'm staying in to shoot that video and create content, but that's my decision and I love doing this. You have to take outputs that you enjoy doing in order to achieve your goals. Finally, think of setting a measurable goal. A specific goal would be one that is measurable. For example, if I tell myself I want to get back into drawing, well, that's not very specific enough, you have think measurable. I will sit down for five minutes every day for the next five days, starting next Monday and I will draw for five minutes and I will have five drawing entries. Now that you're feeling inspired and you have a better idea of what you want to achieve for yourself, what your goal and purpose is, it's time to pick up that pencil. If you're already in the next video lesson, I'm going to cover the different type of material that you will need. See you there and grab your pencil. Bye.
5. Drawing Material: For this class, you will need a pen and a paper. That's it. The easiest ways to get started is to use the simplest material. The one that you already have at home. Meaning, something to write or draw with, like a pen, a pencil, markers, and a piece of paper. That easy. Let me tell you a story. I told you I was in an uncreative write for many years. How I got out of it, is by looking at different Instagram artists. Once specific artist caught my eye and they were using post cam markers. Post cam markers are a brand of markers from Japan, who were really popular in the 80s among graffiti artist, and who recently made a comeback. What's really cool about them is that they get really opaque. I got really excited and I told myself, because those markers are quite expensive, they will cost around $3-$5 each. I will only buy two or three, by selecting a specific color palette that I will need. Then if I draw consistently after a week or 10 days, I will by another set of two or three to expand my collection. This was a great motivator for me to get started in drawing consistently. Eventually, I upgrade to an iPad. I have an 11 inch iPad Pro with a second-generation iPen and I love it. I use it every day. But I had to justify to buy, so I told myself, if I draw consistently for the next few months, then I will allow myself to buy an iPad and switch back into digital art. I'm a big believer in not breaking the bank and using what's within your reach. There's no need to spend thousands of $ on the newest iPad Pro and the newest gadget. You can be an artist and get started with your drawing with whatever is within your reach or even available at home. We want to get to know you a little bit better. Share with your peers and with myself who you are, what type of material that you would like to use when you draw or when you create art. Now that you've learned about the different material option, let's talk about setting your creative space. If you're ready, I'll meet you in the next video lesson. Bye now.
6. Creative Space: Having a creative space will be conductive to a hire level of productivity. In this video lesson, I will talk about two different type of creative space. The first one is a physical creative space and the second one is a mindset. Let's get started. Your environment, your surroundings play an essential part towards your creativity. Now, at the bear minimum, you will need a clear desk where you can sit down and draw and of course, a chair. Even if you're going to draw on an iPad, I strongly recommend sitting down at a desk, on a chair and focus on your art. You can also make your physical space more inviting by adding plants, candle, motivational quotes, a nice set of pencils on your desk, but make sure that it's not cluttered with coffee mug, TV remote, wires throughout the day. Also bonus point if you can have it in a separate room with a closed door or away from distraction. A mindset is a time allocated in your calendar to draw. In order to be consistent in your drawing practice, I strongly recommend tackling it like your ritual. So draw every day at the same time, lock it in your calendar so you're reminded and perhaps your family and friends are reminded that this time is for you to draw. Now, for example, I draw every day after work, after dinner, so around 08:00 PM in the evening and this is my time to unwind. Another important rule is to stay away from distraction. In the physical space, you can draw away from the television, put your phone away and I would say the same rules apply in your mindset. Really try to put all of your energy and those five minutes into creating art. Now, that you have a clean desk to create art and you've allocated time from your busy schedule to draw, let's look at your daily drawing practice. See you in the next video. Bye.
7. Daily Practice: One of their greatest challenge of drawing consistently every day is finding inspiration. Now, I know that in the first video lesson, we tackle the topic of finding inspiration everywhere we are. But in this specific video lesson, I'm going to give you a few tips on how to never run out of inspiration. It's a pretty big claim I must admit, but follow me. I'll show you. Now, the best advice I've received was to draw the same thing every day. If you draw the same thing every day, you won't really run out of inspiration. You will see your style develop very quickly, and of course you focus a little bit more on quantity than quality, and that's how you develop your skills. With this advice in mind of drawing the same thing every day, that's how I decided to work on my 100th day of happiness. I have decided to drop a 100 times, different moments that made me happy. It's basically drawing myself in different situation, experiencing different things, but that made me happy on this specific day. The thing that I really like about this project is that it really made me grateful. By drawing something that made me happy every day, I had to rethink about sweet moments are mundane events that happened, that actually, I could be really thankful for. It's a great visual gratitude journal, and that really helps with getting fulfilled and happy. Second, by having this predefined project, drawing something that makes me happy every day for a 100 days, then whenever I would sit down in my desk, I wouldn't start thinking about all the possibility of what to draw. Maybe I could only focus on which color pilots use, maybe using a more muted or more vivid color palette, but I knew that the topic, the assignment of the day was to draw something that makes me happy, and this type of preset goal really helped me to sit down and be focused on the task at hand. Don't spend too much time about finding the perfect palette or creating the perfect shade. Or don't beat yourself up if your proportions are not right or your fingers are wonky, even until that day I had problem withdrawing perfect hands. Just do it, and you'll see your style will develop and you'll be able to create beautiful art, and the great thing is a sense of accomplishment, but also being able to compare your first drawing to your 100th drawing, give it a try. Now, that you have the material, the inspiration, the mindset, and the goal, let's seen how you can be accountable for keeping up with your drawing ambitions. See you in the next class where we are going to discuss about accountability and telling your friends about it. Don't be shy. See you there.
8. Be Social: Just one second. This is what we're going to do in this class, is tell a friend and be accountable. Now that you've started your drawing practice and you're feeling a little bit more confident, don't hesitate to tell a friend or a network of people to support you in maintaining your goal. For your last project, I want you to tell a friend or share with an online community that you trust, what your goal and objective is, what you'd like to accomplish, and what support you will need from us. It could be something as simple as, "Hi. You known I've always liked to draw and I haven't drawn in a while. Now, I'm going to commit to drawing for five, 10, 30 days in a row, and I want you to keep me accountable. Why don't you ask me in a few days if I can share with you some of my illustration or tell you how it's going?" Now, I've given a few examples in the project description, if you need more help. In the next video lesson, I'm going to conclude and give you sum of the few highlights that we've covered, take-away messages on how to wake up your inner artist, and hopefully, you've found the right habits to start your drawing practice, to start drawing every day or consistently. See you in the next class for the conclusion. Thank you for watching.
9. Final Thoughts: This is it. This is the last video lesson where I'm going to conclude a few highlights and take-away messages from what we've covered a little bit earlier. Thank you so much for going through the video lessons. I really hope that you found them beneficial and that all the tips and tricks I have given you will help you develop your own drawing practice. By now, you will have completed a three-step project. You should be able to identify a few Instagram artists or online artists that you like and whose art inspire you. Hopefully, you already have gotten started with drawing. Congratulation. Finally, you're being held accountable by telling one of your friends. Great job. A lot of the tools that we've discussed throughout this video lesson can be used for other aspects of your life. Now, in order to create our habit, it's about getting yourself outside of your comfort zone and being consistent. I really hope that by the end of this class, you will have gained the confidence to start drawing again and telling people how awesome of an artist you are. Now that you've gained confidence in drawing again in a regular basis, in the future, I will show you how to open your own Instagram page as an artist and what are my tips and tricks. Thank you so much for watching the videos until the end, and I hope to catch you soon later. Bye.
Simon Ip, Digital Illustrator
