hey friends elizabeth here from plant based bride back again with another video today
i'm setting up my bullet journal for april and this video is kindly sponsored by skillshare
i'll talk about them more at the end of the video but for now i want to hop right in to the setup
this month's theme is inspired by and dedicated to ukraine and the ukrainian people i like many
of you i'm sure have been absolutely heartbroken as i followed the news about what's happening in
ukraine and i felt it was important to use my platform here on youtube to bring awareness
and encourage my followers to come together and support ukraine through this horrific time this
video is coming out a little later than planned because i really wanted the artwork i was creating
to come from the heart and to take the time to try to do ukraine justice i will be sharing facts
in this video as i often do but i'll be focusing on facts about ukraine separate from the current
conflict there are two reasons that i want to do this the first is that i'm not an expert
i'm not a political analyst or a journalist and i would never want to be a source of misinformation
even unintentionally i will however be sharing links in the description box to sources that you
can seek out if you want to learn more about the current conflict the second reason is that ukraine
is so much more than what they are currently suffering and that's what i wanted to focus on
i'm also going to be linking resources in the description box that will help you figure
out what you can do to help ukraine right now whether you have the ability to donate or not
there are things you can do to help and those resources are there for you in the description box
so be sure to check those out once the video is finished i'm starting with a really simple layout
on this first spread i'll have the first piece of artwork on the left and on the right a very simple
and minimalist calendar i'm also cutting away the bottom section under the calendar and under
all of the weeklies so that you can see the bottom portion of the first and final page of the setup
no matter which spread you're on i'm also cutting tabs out of my weeklies so that i can quickly
switch between one week and another or back to the calendar as needed my bullet journal is a b5 size
which means it's larger than the standard a5 so your tabs may need to be smaller to fit in your
bullet journal the dimensions of the tabs in this setup are two by two for the diagonal sections
and three spaces tall along the side once i finished cutting out all of my tabs i flipped back
to that first spread so i could start working on our first piece this first piece was inspired by
many pieces of artwork that i've seen in a similar vein part in the pun where flowers
are growing out of an anatomical heart so i'm starting by drawing the anatomical heart and i
have done this once before in a theme a while back so i actually used the exact same reference photo
for the anatomical heart that i did back then i'm using my sakura micron in zero one
for the outlines and then i'm using a micron with the very fine zero zero five nib for the smaller
details and shading i also used several different reference photos of sunflowers in a variety of
positions and stages of opening so that i could create these sunflowers coming out of the heart
i wanted to start by doing all of the inking all of the line art and then to go back in afterwards
and add the color so that's what i'm doing ukraine is a country located in eastern europe and it's
the second largest on the continent and the capital is grieve i worked really hard on
my pronunciation so hopefully it's close ukraine became fully independent in the late 20th century
the country consists almost entirely of level planes but does have mountainous areas on some of
its border the vast majority of people in ukraine speak ukrainian which is written with a form of
the cyrillic alphabet ukraine possesses a wealth of cultural talent and a considerable cultural
legacy they have a rich literary history which my book club will actually be diving into in april
as we'll be reading a book written by a ukrainian author ukraine also has a strong tradition of folk
art which continues to the modern day i highly recommend looking up examples of ukrainian folk
art because it is absolutely stunning the use of bright contrasting colors and pattern
as well as almost mythical elements and a lot of representation of animals and plants and people
is really beautiful to see and personally i feel like there's no better way to get to know a people
or a culture than to learn about their art whether it be visual art theater literature music or dance
ukrainian folk art is not just limited to paintings or illustrations ukraine also has
incredibly beautiful and intricate embroidery wood carving ceramics and weaving using techniques that
are highly developed with stylized ornamentation that represents many regional styles folk music
in ukraine is still incredibly popular ritual songs ballads and historical songs were sung
acapella or accompanied by folk instruments such as the bandura which is a multi-stringed loot-like
instrument one style of energetic folk dance in ukraine that was composed of leaps and kicks
received for new detention in the 21st century as martial arts practitioners integrated its
movements into self-defense technique i'm moving on to my weeklies and just quickly filling out
all of the information here my weeklies are super simple and they stay the same from month to month
they're very minimalist and they're exactly what i need if you want to learn more about this style of
weekly spread which is called the rolling weekly i'll link the video where i go into detail in the
cards and in the description box down below so you can check that out and learn all about it
once i had all my weeklies filled out i moved to the final spread of this setup which is featuring
two more pieces of artwork so this first one was inspired by a very simple cartoony drawing that
showed half a sunflower and half an eye overlapped and i thought that was such a cool idea i saved it
to my mood board on pinterest when i was trying to come up with concepts and i was just searching for
images of sunflowers and seeing what would come up and i found myself coming back to the image
again and again and just thinking it was such an interesting concept i decided to go a little more
realistic here with my eye and the sunflower football or soccer for those of us in north
america is by far the favorite sport in ukraine ukraine is home to seven beautiful world heritage
sites including trev's saint sophia cathedral traditional ukrainian clothing can be recognized
by beautiful intricate floral and ornamental hand-sewn embroidery work on a plain white linen
shirt ukraine is also the world's largest producer of sunflower seeds and it's estimated that the
total size of ukraine's sunflower farmlands could cover the entire territory of slovenia
once i was finished inking in that illustration i moved over to the last illustration and this
is a really simple outline of a woman standing in the moonlight holding a sunflower and the petals
are raining down on her head because ukraine has vast tracts of arable land with fertile black soil
it's an ideal place for growing wheat and other food crops ukraine has been nicknamed the bread
basket of europe because ukraine is one of the largest producers of wheat in the world
once all that inking was done i flipped back to the first image so that i could add color and
i'm using a combination of gouache and watercolor from winsor newton to add the color focusing on
yellow and blue because those are the two colors of the ukrainian flag but also incorporating a
small amount of brown and green just to finish off the sunflowers ukraine is also home to the
tunnel of love which is a semi-abandoned railway line in northwestern ukraine
and has been called the most romantic place on earth this is a natural train tunnel where
green arches formed by trees on both sides of the single track railway line come together to meet
according to local legends couples who visit the place will have their wishes granted
my initial plan was to create watercolor paintings along the bottom here of sunflower fields but my
first attempt was not particularly successful and i decided to pivot and try something a little
different especially because i felt like the full watercolor painting didn't really fit with the art
style of the other pieces of this theme so instead i decided to draw a sunflower in its stages of
opening up from completely open to completely closed on the left side and then from closed
to open on the right very simple life stages of a sunflower i also decided to paint all of my tabs
black just to keep them simple i didn't want them to distract from the artwork that i was creating
flipping to the final spread here and adding color again focusing on yellow and blue but
again incorporating some brown and green as needed ukraine is also home to the deepest metro station
in the world located at a depth of 105.5 meters or 346 feet we have ukraine to thank for the gas lamp
which was invented by two ukrainian pharmacists in 1853 i definitely recommend that you look
up some examples of ukrainian music and art find images of their beautiful architecture
and fields of sunflowers ukraine is a beautiful country full of creative people and their culture
deserves to be celebrated before i show you the final flip through of this setup i want to quickly
talk to you about today's video's sponsor skillshare skillshare is an online learning
community with thousands of inspiring classes for anyone who loves learning and wants to explore
their creativity and learn new skills invest in yourself and your personal growth if you have a
specific skill you're trying to learn skillshare is the perfect place to start from photography and
illustration to graphic design fine art and more you can find classes that will match your goals
and interests skillshare is ad-free so you can stay in the zone while you're exploring new skills
new premium classes launch each week so there's always something new to discover
also very exciting news the entire catalog is now available with subtitles in spanish french
portuguese and german i'm currently taking josiah jazzabrook's class mastering illustration
sketching inking and color essentials i'm really loving this class so far jazza has
such a warm inviting encouraging presence and all of his tips are incredibly helpful
actionable and practical i especially loved the focus on planning creating mood boards and
sketching before diving into your final artwork because this is something that i always recommend
and practice myself i created so many loose sketches in procreate using my ipad
before deciding on designs for this video that you're watching right now i created mood boards on
pinterest for inspiration and i spent quite a bit of time sketching before cleaning up those lines
and getting ready for the start of this video because skillshare is sponsoring this video
the first 1000 people to use the link or my code plant-based bride will get a one-month free trial
of skillshare thank you so much to skillshare for sponsoring this video and now the final reveal
all of the spreads in my april setup in honor of ukraine here is the final result and i must
say creating this theme was very outside of my comfort zone i really pushed myself creatively to
try to make art that means something art that says something art that conveys emotion it's not that i
haven't done that in the past but i think for the most part with my art i focused on creating things
that are aesthetically pleasing that make me happy to look at and i tend to shy away from creating
art that makes a statement or reveals deep emotion because it can be vulnerable and scary to create
that way but i'm also proud of how these pieces turned out and proud of myself for giving it a go
and i also want to encourage you to try creating art with a message if you've been hesitant to
like i have i hope you learned something about ukraine in this video i hope you enjoyed the setup
please check out the links in the description box for the sources the resources places to
donate what you can do to help support ukraine right now even the tiniest action that feels so
insignificant on a personal level can really add up to huge change if we all stand together thank
you again to skillshare for sponsoring this video don't forget the first 1000 people to use my code
plant based ride or the link in my description box will get a one month free trial thank you so
much to my patrons for your support and i'll see all of you very soon in my next video bye friends
you