You know what? I think it's time we do another sketchbook video! I think we're
gonna talk about filling our sketchbook while improving it! Let's do that! I'm so
excited for the different things I have for you today. But first, I want to thank
Skillshare for sponsoring today's video. Let me tell you a little bit about them!
Skillshare is an online learning community. There are over 25,000
different classes on here in business, design, and so many other things. If
you're a curious person and you enjoy learning, this is a wonderful place for
you! You can feed into your creativity, learn a couple new things, or even
advance your career! Skillshare is a really wonderful place to keep you
learning and thriving. Best of all, it is super duper affordable. An annual
subscription on here is less than ten dollars a month.. and guess what?!
Premium Membership gives you unlimited access, so that means you can join the
classes you want and find a perfect fit for you. So I have a surprise for you -- the
first 500 subscribers of mine to use the link in the description are going to get
a 2 a month FREE trial on Skillshare! You can join over 7 million people
learning, and take a bunch of wonderful courses. Here's a course that I recently
took and loved. We're gonna use it in today's video. I'm gonna show you what I
learned, and I'll also leave that link down below in case you're curious.
Anyway, let's hop into the sketchbook stuff now, shall we? Do you ever feel like
your sketchbook is this really intimidating place? Kind of like a storm
in the middle of the ocean, and you're just drowning in all the pages getting
pummeled by the waves... you don't really know where to begin. You don't know how
to get out. You don't know where to even start when you want to improve. I would
recommend learning from somebody else! So that is the very
first thing: learn from other people. Sometimes, it's really good to just turn
off your worries and follow what somebody else is doing, and you don't
realize how much you're improving in the process. So what Idid, iis I pulled up a course
on Skillshare. It was a botanical illustration course by Sarah Boccini
Meadows. I really loved this course. I've been pushing myself to develop and
refine my botanical illustration style for over a year now, and sometimes I just
get really stressed out over it. So I took this course, and one of the things
that really stuck with me was she emphasized not to get hung up on
proportions of everything, and instead to embrace your interpretation of nature. So
she applied this by showing us different textures that you can use in your piece
if you're painting. Also, she showed ways to achieve certain color palettes,
and it was just really nice. It alleviated a lot of stress with finding
the perfect style, and gave me confidence to embrace the way I see the world and
the way I express that through my artwork. Anyway, I would definitely
recommend looking up tutorials or taking a Skillshare course. YouTube videos..
anything you can do to just soak in some fresh knowledge and shut off that voice
in your mind that says, "I can't do this," and have somebody show you YES YOU CAN!
You CAN do this! You don't have to be drowning in an ocean or in your
sketchbook. You CAN conquer it, and learn new things every day! Okay, the second
thing that you can do to both improve and fill your sketchbook may seem like a
load of common sense. This is not a new idea, but this is a friendly
reminder a wise person once told me: that you should always do a self-portrait
every year, or in every sketchbook if you want to see improvement. And now what
they meant with this was realism. They meant anatomy. They meantt proportions.
They meant portraiture. If you're somebody who likes to draw people, or if you
really want to improve with shading, I would totally recommend drawing
yourself (even if you have an illustration style. It still helps) Do this in every single sketchbook. Don't
let up on it. It feels awkward to draw yourself, but this is why I'm telling you
this! You know your body better than anybody else's. Every morning when you
wake up, you probably look in the mirror. When you brush your teeth... when you're
stumped on what outfit you want to wear... you probably look in the mirror! When you
wash your hands in a public restroom, what do you do? You stare in that awkward
mirror right in front of you! Yeah, you know what you look like! So that means if
you know every little blemish or line on your face, it means that when you draw
it, you're gonna be able to critique yourself really, REALLY well because you
know what you're looking at! You're looking at yourself! So if you want to
get really good at critiquing yourself, this is also a really good thing to do!
You will know if your drawing does not look like you, and you will know how to
pick out what to fix and what to improve. It's also just as awkward every time. It
doesn't ever get less awkward, but you know.. learning.. got to do it! Alright, let's
take a bit of a wild turn and scribble! You have probably seen this if you watch
YouTube videos. But seriously guys.. turn a scribble into a drawing! It is crazy what
you can come up with! I mean like... I was--- I didn't know what I was doing for this.
But it kind of forces you to think outside the box,
because you're literally trying to turn some weird scribbly thing into a picture.
You really have to twist your mind around and push yourself. This
really helps you to think on the spot. It helps you to work within limits if
you're very limited. It pushes that creativity, and I find that this exercise
oddly sparks inspiration if I feel stuck, and I don't know what to draw. Forcing
myself to create a picture out of what feels like a wasted ruined page to me
really helps. It really does. And then I get excited about drawing again, because
I just redeemed a page full of scribbles and turned it into something wacky and
fun and wild like this face right here! I would never draw this normally, but
because I did this scribble, we turned it into this really weird character! I mean,
this is some weird stuff for me, but it's really fun! It's enjoyable. I totally
encourage it if you just need some inspiration, or you really need to push
your creative limits. I used a lot of different art supplies for this, and at
the end I looked at it, and it reminded me of that character from Doug (that 90s
show). I can't remember his name... ah, what's his name?! Help me! Alright,
you may be thinking that this one is a bit of a stretch, but let me explain it
to you because I really want you to consider doing this! I want you to write
a letter to your future self. Your future artist self, okay? We don't have to get
too personal. You can just keep it art related like I'm doing,
but I want you to do a few things: I want you to lay your vulnerabilities down on
a page. Tell yourself what you're currently struggling with, and then tell
yourself some things that you're happy with about your art. Give yourself that
encouragement to chew on later. The third thing: remind yourself why you
do art. Why do you like to draw in a sketchbook? Why do you like to create?
Does it give you joy? What brings you to bring a paintbrush to
a page at the end of the day and create a picture? For me, my reason for doing art
is (mostly) spreading love to other people, so I wrote that down. I never want to lose
that vision. The reason why I think this will help you to improve your
art later is because, when you read this letter, first you're gonna read your
vulnerabilities, and you're gonna be like, "wow, I really came far! I improved a
lot of things!" Second of all, encouragement. We all stress out. We're
always down on ourselves. There's always something that we nag ourselves about,
right? So reading that little bit of encouragement later is a good motivator
to improve in the future. Now the third thing: just reminding yourself why you do
what you do. It's really refreshing, encouraging... and in the future, maybe you
lost sight of that and you just want to get that back. That might spark you into
doing art again, or it just might be like, "oh wow, this really solidifies my hobby!
This is amazing!"
For the final way that you can fill and improve your sketchbook, you are going to
need both pages. I want you to sketch the same exact thing on both pages. You don't
have to get it just right. Just sketch the same thing. I sketched a peach, and
now on the left page I am coloring it in with colored pencils. I am going
to practice one style on this page. Let's just say I'm going for semi-realism
here, and I'm gonna take my time. Make it really precise, because I want to get
those details in. I'm gonna layer this. I'm gonna focus on all these colors here..
I'm focusing on yellows, oranges, purples, and some green for the leaves.
But that purple... that soft a little purple hue in there... That
layer is what's just really creating softer tones for this peach. And now I'm
gonna remember that color, okay? I'm gonna remember that for my next page!
But first I'm gonna focus on these details and really, really refine them.
So we did some layering. We added some more purple. It's looking semi-realistic, right?
I would say we could wrap that up now. Let's bust out some paint, okay? We're
gonna do the same thing, but now we're gonna use some paint, I'm using some
gouache, if you're curious. I am going to change my style. We're getting really
loose and gestural now... I'm just slapping some paint down. I am NOT
blending this. We are just doing a very gestural style, and we're gonna see where
this takes us! But I am gonna remember that purple color, because I am going to
bring that baby out in this piece! See that bright purple around the edges? Boom!
And you see that like reddish color? Hmm.. joke's on you cuz in real life that's
pretty pink! Haha! We are really bringing out those purpley pinks, because we are
getting playful with our styles! So that's what I'm going to encourage you
to do. I want you to take two different styles--and maybe two different mediums--
whatever you want. You can get funky with this. This is your sketchbook. But yeah, do
the same image and two different things. Let yourself experiment and have some
fun, because this is your place! I hope you enjoyed this video, and I hope you
feel like you have some inspiration to improve your artwork! Let me know what
you think down below ,and if you've ever tried any of these! Thanks so much for
watching, guys! Have a great day! Bye!
you