Hi, I'm Danny Gregory and I wanna teach you how to
keep a beautiful sketchbook.
I've filled over 150 sketchbooks full of beautiful drawings
and color and calligraphy and stories and design, and I
wanna tell you how you can too.
In this video, I'm gonna show you the exact materials that I
recommend to all the students taking courses at Sketchbook
School, and I've been curating the materials in my own personal
toolkit for many, many years, and I've learned a lot about
what works best for me, and I think it'll help you too.
Alright, let's start by talking about probably the most
important thing, your sketchbook itself, and about some of the
things you might wanna think about when you're getting one.
First of all, size.
How big should your sketchbook be?
There are big sketchbooks and medium sized sketchbooks
and little sketchbooks, or even teeny tiny sketchbooks.
Some of them are perfect for keeping at home on your desk.
And some will fit into your bag or even into
the pocket of your jeans.
So what's the right size to pick?
I mean, if you have a little sketchbook like this, you can
draw in at any time 'cause you'll have it with you.
But if you have a large sketchbook, you can also
work on more complex compositions and larger images.
So why not use the Goldilocks method and pick
one that's in between?
Pick one that's about, I don't know, the size
of a regular novel.
You know, something that you know that you can fit
into your backpack or.
Put by your bedside.
Next up binding.
Again, there's lots of choices.
There are hardbound books with a proper spine that look just
like any book on the shelf.
And then there are sketchbooks with spiral binding that
allow you to flip the pages over and fold the cover back,
and I've worked in both and they're both great options.
You can also find high quality books that have a
soft cover like this, that, uh, feel like leather.
I love them too.
You can get sketchbooks that open from the side,
sketchbooks that open from the top sketchbooks that
are landscape or portrait.
You can even find sketchbooks that are square or open like
an accordion, and you can cover them with stickers and
drawings, whatever you want.
It's your sketchbook.
You make the rules.
A lot of choices when it comes to paper too.
The paper inside your sketchbook, there are
sketchbooks with thinner, smoother drawing paper that's
great to use with a pen or a pencil, but they might
buckle and wrinkle if you use water-based media like
watercolors and markers.
Or you could choose a book with beautiful, heavy
watercolor paper, cold press.
You can find sketchbooks with tinted pages, gray and blue
and brown, and even sketchbooks with tinted watercolor paper.
It's also mixed media paper, which is again,
somewhere in between.
It's not quite as rough as watercolor paper, but it can
take wet media like watercolors or markers, much better
than regular drawing paper.
I think that a mixed media sketchbook is a great
place to start and to see what works for you.
Alright, so there's so many choices and perhaps you're
thinking, eh, I'll just go and buy the cheapest one.
Hold on.
I recommend getting a quality hardbound sketchbook to work in.
It's gonna be something that you will treasure for years to come.
So why not start with something of, of quality, something that
produces reliable results and.
It's a pleasure to work in.
The fact is you are worth it even if you're a beginner.
And if you are just starting out or if you wanna refresh
your class, check out one of our introductory
courses like Art Bootcamp.
We'll take you step by step through everything that
you need to know to draw and paint in a sketchbook.
It's a great course, and I go back and take it time
and again too, myself.
You can sign up at our website, sketchbook school.com, and at
the end of this video I'm gonna give you a discount code and
I'll also put a link below.
Alright, next, let's talk about pens.
And they're my favorite thing to draw with, and
I, I even made a separate video about why that is.
But when it comes to pens, there's again, lots
of different options.
There are fine liners, these are technical
pens, and they come in.
A whole bunch of different thicknesses from double zero
all the way up to one, and they're also permanent, which
means that you can watercolor over their lines without
worrying that they'll run and spoil everything you can draw
with, I dunno, basic roller ball pens and ballpoint pens.
I did that for years and it worked great.
Felt tip markers.
I love them too.
They're flexible, they're broad, they're
expressive, they're smooshy.
You can use brush markers with a hard tip on one end of
the pen and a fine flexible brush on the other side.
And then there are refillable brush pens that can make
lines of all thicknesses in expressive sweeping marks.
And then there are fountain pens, which can take lots of
colored inks, and they have wonderful, flexible nibs.
They're a real joy to work with.
And I love dip pens, which are steel nibs in a wooden
handle that you can use with India ink or various
kinds of colored inks.
There's so many choices, but fortunately, pens are
inexpensive enough that you don't really have to make up
your mind once and for all.
So what I'd say is go out, get a few different types
and see how they feel in your hand when you draw.
How do the strokes feel?
Do they suit your style, your grip?
Remember the best pen is the one that feels right in your
hand that you're going to use.
This is my favorite right now, but it changes over time.
Next, let's talk about adding color to your sketchbook.
I love watercolors.
They are translucent.
You can layer them and blend them.
I.
I like to use hand watercolors rather than tubes because
they're the most portable, but they come in lots of
different types of sets.
You can get field kits like this one that are small
enough to fit in your bag.
I even made my own teeny tiny watercolor set that can fit
in the pocket of my jeans.
I.
There are different qualities to this.
There's student grade, which is less expensive, and then
there are artist or professional grade which have more pigment.
They last longer.
They give you better colors, but they can be
a lot more expensive.
I personally prefer Windsor Newton professional watercolors
in all my sketchbooks.
There are also so many options when it comes
to watercolor brushes.
But I think that you should just start with a medium
sized brush, like a number six, and maybe a finer one
to do some detailed stuff.
That's about all you're gonna really need in your sketchbook.
My absolute go-to for painting is a water brush, which
have plastic handles and a reservoir of water, and I
take them with me everywhere.
They're a great option.
You can also add color with markers now.
Alcohol markers, they might end up bleeding through your
sketchbook page, which can be a drag, but there's lots of other
wonderful water based options that are perfect for paper.
They're soft, flexible, expressive, thick pens like
this Echo Line series and super fine brush pens like these
micro brushes from Pentel.
And I also love these watercolor markers, like these
ones from Windsor Newton.
They match the color of their line of watercolors, but they
work like markers and they can also be diluted with water so
that they turn into fluid paint.
I love markers in my studio, but I rarely take them with
me when I draw outside.
They're just too bulky carrying around bags of
lots of different colors.
I also love to use wash, which is opaque watercolor, and here
you can see the difference that the opacity makes.
This is what a watercolor painting looks like, and this is
what a wash painting looks like.
The colors are vibrant and you can layer them on top of each
other like oil or acrylics, but they're water based and
they work well on paper and they're pretty easy to clean up.
I also love to draw and to letter and to paint
with colored drawing ink.
And it comes in so many different colors, and I use
them with brushes and dip pins.
Again, they're great in the studio, but not that smart
to carry around with you.
Lots of little glass bottles messy.
I always add colored pencils to my kit when I'm working in my
sketchbook because they provide beautiful colors and they're
portable and you can even draw them over washes of watercolor
to get even more vibrant colors.
You can also sketch with colored pencils, although they tend
not to be as easy to erase.
A good set of colored pencils will last you a really long
time, and the better the quality, the better the colors.
I like to narrow down my kit of supplies to a small selection
that I carry with me in my bag.
This way, I have them with me when I go on the road
or when I leave the house.
All I need are a couple of pens, a small watercolor set, a
brush, maybe a handful of color pencils, a few brush markers.
And of course my trustee sketchbook.
It's nice to carry a glue stick and a small pair of scissors
in case you come across any kind of ephemera, like a little
leaf that you wanna press into your book, or a souvenir ticket
stub from a foreign train ride.
These little touches can make the stories in your travel
sketchbook really come to life.
I've been filling sketchbooks for many years, and I hope
that you'll join me on this wonderful adventure.
All you need to start is a sketchbook and a pen, and a
few colored pencils or markers.
From there, you'll build your kit.
You'll add fresh materials.
You'll discover things year after year,
you'll evolve and grow.
Oh, and meanwhile, here's that coupon code that I promised for
the discount on Art Bootcamp.
There's a link in the description below
where you can sign up.
Alright?
If you have any other questions, pop 'em in the
comment section below.
Then grab your supplies, open your sketchbook,
jump in and join me.
Let's go on an adventure.
It's gonna be awesome.