Hello everyone! I am back with another video and this time it is a sketchbook tour video,
so I'm really really happy that I finally managed to finish a sketchbook that I am showing it to you
now as a video. The brand that I'm using for the sketchbook is Mont Marte it is an A5 hardbound
sketchbook. I absolutely love this sketchbook even though it is not the best, it's not a mixed media
sketchbook and I still use a bunch of mixed media on this. But anyway, so I started this sketchbook
in 2022, so I usually write that down on the very front page and I also just decorated it,
but I finished this in January 2024, so it took a long time and here is the first sketch that I did
with Copic markers, and I even added my favorite colors that I love using for Copic markers. On
the left side is a bunch of Cricut offcut vinyl, and you'll see a bunch of that just like pasted
into the sketchbook, because I really didn't want to throw it out, so it just became kind of like a
decoration. I also like to journal a little bit in my sketchbook. In this one I actually journaled a
lot but usually I will try to write on the left hand side because I don't like drawing on that
side of the sketchbook. Here I kind of started to think that I was was going to turn the sketchbook
into an illustrated cookbook, because I was learning a bunch of recipes online at that time,
but that was that was the first and last. And then some more Cricut vinyl off cuts on this
page which is actually why she ended up having a heart-shaped hair. I also like to glue in a
bunch of scrapbook paper because I have a bunch and it just adds a little bit of texture, it
decorates the page. This one is actually one of my favorite page spreads in the sketchbook, this one,
the black bar where it says pull, that is actually another Cricut vinyl offcut I just added this onto
the page very randomly, and then it was still a blank page and then when I got to this page where
I needed to sketch something, I just worked around it, and this is one of my favorite page spreads.
And here we have 20 journal prompts to figure out what you want from life. I actually never followed
any of these journal prompts. And here those dots are actually there because the illustration behind
it bled through, so I kind of just wanted to cover up those bleed marks with some polka dots,
so this is the page where it bled through. And here I also practice a lot of typography,
so you can see that on this page right here. And this page on the right is an example of where I
had an unfinished sketch, and a couple of months after doing the sketch I went back onto it with
like a bunch of markers just wanting to doodle and I added like these random people; that are people
figures, that are on top of her head. And I don't know why I did that but I also am really surprised
because it kind of looks creative. I don't - also - don't know why I chose those two colors but this
is another example, so it's just a bunch of random eye sketches all over the page, and then future
me went back into it and added a bunch of these words - also just playing around with typography,
but yeah I was just kind of like having fun and that is something that I actually would like to do
in my future sketchbooks, where I can go back into a page with an unfinished sketch and just work on
top of that because then I feel like I get to be a little bit more creative and I end up thinking
outside the box, because a lot of the sketches or the drawings that you saw in the previous pages,
those are things that I would probably never would have thought of voluntarily. So yeah!
Also over here it's just a bunch of notes of the time when I was learning how to draft a bodice
block for sewing because if you didn't know I actually do sew nowadays. It is something that
I do professionally now too, so really really happy about that because sewing is another
one of my passions. And because I was sewing a lot I wanted to do a lot of personal projects,
so you can see here some sketches that I did of things that I wanted to sew but unfortunately I
didn't have a lot of time in 2022 to really sew a bunch of these things. I probably only did one,
which you can see is the sketch on the right hand side, and this is what it would have looked like
without the doodles on top of it, so it would have just been a blank page with a pencil sketch just
plonked in the middle, unfinished. And here is another example. So this would have been like a
an unfinished sketch and then in 2023 was actually when I added onto this page spread. So I added all
of the words. I added all of the random doodles on the left hand side and it literally says - I
added - be creative, because around this time I was feeling really creative, and then we're
back to 2022 so more sewing projects that I was listing down for myself, and I decided to
decorate it in 2023 with some cute business cards. And I just literally just pasted them
on there. I also just - would - you'd see a lot of scrapbook paper kind of glued all throughout
this page. Right here was actually what prompted me to get back into drawing, believe it or not,
this is a page spread of a sewing project which I called project one, and it is literally just
a bunch of my thoughts written down because I've had a lot of personal sewing projects in the past,
but unfortunately because of work or life, usually those projects would need to be paused and so
after a couple months when I finally had time to get back into the personal sewing project,
I would just forget everything that I did, and unfortunately - I personally like to finish a
project, like for example if it's a drawing, I like to do it in one sitting but you can't really
do that with sewing, especially if you don't have like all the time in the world, so you have to do
it in multiple days, but if you kind of leave some time in between the project, personally for me,
like I forget, so this is basically me documenting a sewing project that I was doing. It was a really
big sewing project and I wasn't sure if I was going to be doing it continuously,
so I decided to document it, but because of this, I started drawing like this little doodle right
here. But majority of it is still literally just some writing and photos that I glued in, but yeah,
just the feel of the paper under my hands and just looking through my sketches once again,
it reminded me of how much I really enjoy drawing, and this is what then catapulted me into getting
back into art. So here I actually even like I wrote myself a note because in October I had
to pause on the project, so I wrote myself a note being like this is what you're going to
do after you get back, and then around this time it was also close to 2024, so I wanted to list
down a bunch of my projects. So even though the sketchbook isn't super art related, it's actually
more of a sewing sketchbook I guess, because a lot of the pages are dedicated to this sewing project,
but it's still like - I personally - I'm really proud of myself for doing this because now I
am drawing once again and I'm even starting a new sketchbook, although it's not really a new
sketchbook. I took my 2021 sketchbook which was unfinished and I'm working on that now so that I
can finish it and do a sketchbook tour. But here, this is the start of an art project that I decided
to work on because I told myself I can't just work on a sewing project, I also need to work on an
art project, so I started to sketch out ideas and that is when I started to actually practice with
gouache. So this is just the beginning right here, and I also was doing a lot of research
because my word or my theme was nurture so I was just looking up a bunch of things,
like I was looking up a bunch of flowers or things like that. This is where I practiced more gouache
especially when painting portraits and some Taylor Swift lyrics because I was listening to a lot of
Taylor Swift during this time. And I was actually really struggling with how to use gouache and I
posted a bunch about it on the YouTube Community post tab. And so I wrote down my gouache notes
and literally like the struggles that I faced. And this one right here on the right, I did that
one on the same day, and this page spread over here, that first one did not turn out so well,
this one right here turned out a little bit better, and then I got a bit confident and wanted
to do another one to see if I could replicate literally the exact same thing that I did,
but then it didn't work, and then I decided to try it again on this one but then it just wasn't
really working, and so I decided that I was just going to stop for that day, and it says gave up
just a little. And then a couple of days after, I did this one right here and I love how I painted
the hair. This one turned out a little bit better but what I was realizing is my facial proportions
weren't up to par, like they weren't looking as great or as refined as I wanted them to,
so I started practicing how to draw portraits again, and these ones, I decided to also practice
with gouache, so after I did a pencil sketch I would then paint it with gouache, except for the
one on the left I just left it as is and I even wrote some Taylor Swift lyrics, but some more
art project research. And here I actually have a video of this but this is when I really started
to hone in on the facial proportions so I started sketching them. And back to the project because
this is actually when I finished the project and I even wrote down all of my final thoughts and
what I was going to do after. But I finished it in Jan 2024, January 7, but that is it! I can't
believe I actually finished a sketchbook! It has been such a long time, like I said the last time I
finished a sketchbook was in 2017 and I think that was also the last time I did a sketchbook tour.
After that I have absolutely no idea what happened in 2018, 2019, 2020 but I have a sketchbook for
2021 which like I said is unfinished and that is the current sketchbook that I'm working on so I
can't wait to finish that one as well! There's a lot of pages that are still blank on that one,
but I probably am going to do the exact same thing on that sketchbook as I did here where I
will just go back into a bunch of the pages that have unfinished sketches and just draw on top of
it or literally glue some scrapbook papers, and just like start a fresh clean slate. So
yeah! That is probably what I'm going to do. Thank you so much for watching this video! If
you want to see the sketches in video form that are featured in the sketchbook you can just watch
them right here! Thank you so much for watching this video! I hope to see you in my next one!