I retook this class two years later as a part of the Break Creative Blocks workshop and the exercises are just as great and fun.

1. Material exploration:

I used inks, coloured pencils, watercolours and gouache for this. I kind of liked where this was going quite early on, so I didn't layer as many different materials as I had initially planned. So it is quite controlled, butI still like it. 

2. I skipped this one this time because I honestly don't enjoy lettering at all. Also, I didn't start a new sketchbook, si I didn't really need a title page. 

3. Self portraits:

The self portrait in the upper left corner I did a while ago and I decided to use the empty space for this exercise. 

I love drawing along with music. I listened to "Calling the Rain" by Harakiri for the Sky, which is a pretty dark song. 

 

4. This time I chose to draw toads and my god did I struggle with this. I don't know why, but for some reason I find them impossible to draw without a reference. But I did try some different techniques, and that was fun. Somehow I just couldn't let go properly. 

 

 

5. For this I basically copied this photoshopped image of a castle on top of a narrow rock I found on pinterest, then splashed some ink around and transformed the picture with more ink and some gouache. 

 

On the whole this was a lot of fun, but looking back on the drawings I did 2 years ago, I think I was a bit more experimental and wilder then. I know I have improved since then in terms of technical skills, but I think I am even more afraid of letting go now. That's something to keep an eye on, I guess. I'm really precious with my sketchbook, even though nobody is ever going to see it, maybe I just watch too many perfect sketchbook tours on youtube?

 

 

Here are the drawings I did when I took the class for the first time:

 

I had such a good time with these exercises! I decided to get out my big A3 sketchbook and just go for it.

1. Material exploration:

This was so much fun! I used charcoal, pastels, watercolours, watercolour pencils, a uniball fine liner, indian ink and acrylic paints. I always use both sides of each sketchbook page and I had so much fun doing the first one (on the right), I decided to do another one on the page next to it.

Somehow whenever I start doing something abstract I always start seeing faces or creatures. So to me the left one is some kind of witch or sorcerer and the right one kind of reminds me of a seahorse or some other ocean creature. What do you think?

 

Title page:

I limited myself to the use of ink pens and acrylic paint for this one and now i wish I hadn't. This one took quite a long time and I think it was a little too controlled, so I got a bit fed up throughout. But I pushed through and finished it. I think the outcome could have been a lot more experimental and creative, I think. It's my least favourite of all the pages, but nevermind.

 

2. Self Portraits:

I love the blindfolded one. After finishing this exercise I decided the page needed a bit of colour so I added some red pencil.

 

3. Music:

I was listening to the album Berdreyminn by my favourite band Sólstafir. The drawing ended up looking like a pretty creepy face...

 

4. Transformation:

I drew so many chickens and variations of chickens for this one! Some are a little silly - there is a weird chicken man, some kind of chicken-fish and some creature on wheels. I was also inspired by one of the previous exercises and did a blind drawing of a chicken (upper left corner). I used a lot of different media in this exercise as well: ink pens, a brush pen, watersoluble ink, markers, watercolour, watercolour pencils, pastels and charcoal.