Today I'm gonna make a video using my 'number one favorite art supply' - the art
supply I couldn't live without, the arguably best art supply in the world
and that is.......
the pencil!!
more specifically my favorite pencil variety, the
mechanical pencil
let's see what we can come up with!
♪
something I've always liked
about art and something that always has drawn me to art: is the fact that you
don't need expensive art supplies to be able to make something cool, it all comes
down to how much practice you've put in and the resources that you've collected
in your mind and your ability to throw those onto the paper and that's
something you can constantly be practicing without the need to go out
and buy some kind of new art supply
and I think the fact that anybody in the
world can sort of have access to creating something and making art even
if all you have access to is a pen or a pencil you can create something and not
to go all chef Gusteau on you, but anyone can draw and and that's what fills the
world with like all different types of art and I'm getting a little sentimental
but I just love how many different ways there are to approach like the same
general idea - like you can use all different art supplies or you can try
all different art styles or you can try abstract and you can-there's so many
different ways to approach the same thing and the fact that with just one
pencil and like a piece of paper you can create something that didn't exist
before and some of it can have like deeper meaning and tell a story and
other art can just be fun and fluffy and some art can be dark and mysterious and
make you feel emotional like there's no one specific way that art has to be, you
know? - and you could make it with anything. I don't know, I'm feeling like I'm at a
loss for words but I just keep talking sooo that's how art makes me feel and art
doesn't have to be seen to be enjoyed like the creator can just keep it all to
themselves and still find fulfillment in that or you can share it with the world
and see what other people think I don't know there's just so many different
aspects to it and it brings me joy and I hope it brings you joy too like I hope
you find joy in the process of creation or sharing or learning from
others it's...
ah!
art can start as a way for you trying to find peace in
yourself and then when shared with the world maybe it can help
other people find that piece as well and maybe learn that they want to try and
explore the world of art (you know just off the top of my head)
someone with the
username I think it was squishable or something asked me the other day" "do I
draw the character first or do I draw the clothes on the character at the
same time?" and I did answer the question but to like address it more
fully if I know exactly what I want the character to be wearing I draw it like
at the same time I'm laying out the preliminary sketch so you can see if you
look at this drawing that I'm making right now there's some light lines and
then there's some darker lines so those darker lines are ones that I'm like 'yes
that's where I want that to be' so then I darken it up - the lighter lines are those
quick fast ones that are easy to erase if I don't like them and I can move them
around a lot easier and you'll notice she's kind of little naked right now
because I had no idea what clothes I was gonna give her so if I don't know what
clothes I'm gonna give her the best bet is to just draw the body and get an idea
of what the body shape is and then try and figure out what the pose is - that way
once you have that, you can go on and add clothes afterwards and you're going to
have a very good idea of where the body is because you've already drawn it and
this helps you figure out where wrinkles are and figure out what parts are
further away, and I've seen like hard to draw books where they're like you always
need to draw this way which I don't think is a harsh rule because sometimes
you can just draw if you know exactly what you want it to look like you can
sort it just you know finagle it as you go if you have a hard time with Anatomy
I think it's important to focus on the body first and then add the clothes on
top but once you start getting a grasp of that then you can start taking some
little shortcuts and sometimes I think when we focus too hard on creating the
skeleton or the body we can end up with some very stiff characters and I think a
way around that is to focus on the shapes of the body instead of the
skeleton of the body and when I started doing that I found it just as easy to
kind of focus on the clothes if I knew exactly what clothes I wanted the
character to wear because I could focus on the shapes of that so if you're
having trouble with Anatomy definitely study some references, figure out where
all the body parts are, like we don't have
wrists in our elbows or anything, you got to figure out how everything bends
and you can also push it so it doesn't need to be harsh, I mean like I said
earlier there are no rules in art so you can-you can make an arm look like a
macaroni noodle that's actually kind of popular right now even if it's not
physically possible, unless professor Lockhart tries to heal one of your
broken bones, but I think every style even when we take liberties are rooted
in some kind of realism so it's always important to study life and figure that
stuff out, I feel like I am really all over the place right now, I don't
remember what a question-Oh! Clothes. so yeah focus on the shapes of the
character I think would be my most helpful tip because once I started
approaching the character as simple shapes instead of like "oh my gosh I have
to draw an entire body" it got a little easier and I have a whole video on how
to like break down the body into shapes. I'll have that linked somewhere if you
want probably in the description. if you're having trouble with that. but once
you've learned to break the body into shapes it's very easy to then take that
knowledge and start breaking clothes into simple shapes and being able to
incorporate that into the preliminary sketching process.
another question I get
pretty often is how do you come up with the ideas for what you want to draw and
to be honest [deep breathe] I don't go about this the way you are probably suppose to, I mean sometimes I
create little thumbnails and then that inspires an idea then I create an
illustration but for like this one in particular I just drew a head and then I
was like well she needs a body so I attach the body, and then I'm like well I
want her to be kind of floaty so I make her look floaty, you know, she's not
grounded in any way, and she's just you know floating there; so then naturally
her hands have to kind of be-you know we don't want them just stiff by her side
we gotta like give it some contrast so one can be like a way up here and
then one could be way back there and then I don't know maybe she should have
some clothes so we gotta give her some clothes and then boom and then I have
this kind of drawing right here.
every drawing I make is honestly made for me
first and then I share it with you guys and there are certain things that I
really enjoy drawing so those are the things that I'll tend to focus on and
lately I've just really enjoyed drawing floaty people so I think going in that
was the only like idea: "I'm girl who's floating" that was basically
the thought process and then yeah it just naturally evolves over time and I
slowly chisel away at the idea and make little changes over time and come up
with something that you know looks like this. I think this probably derives from
the fact that I was a big sketch-booker I just liked creating sketches in my
sketchbook and these sketchbooks were places just for me to experiment and
create what I wanted to create I never went to like art class and I never had
like art assignments so I was never in an atmosphere where I had to draw for
someone else and I think what I create definitely shows that I don't know if
that's necessarily a good thing that that's the only thing I was exposed to
you because exposing yourself to like all different ideas and art styles and
critiques is what evolves your art and like all of those things you learn over
time are incorporated into your style and so I definitely would be in a
completely different place if I had gone in any other direction and oh that's
kind of like just a deep thought like every choice you make leads to more
choices that you might not have had if you didn't make that choice
[deep thought]
what is
today's video?! I don't even know.
and every once in a while I kind of feel
guilty about it and then I like try to do what I think other people want to see
or I try to create things that I think are considered more socially acceptable
and that never brings me as much joy as just creating you know because art is
still art even if only the artist is getting enjoyment from the creation you
know that doesn't-just because someone else doesn't like it or someone else
doesn't find joy in looking at it doesn't take the value away from the
Creator you know and personally I like making art but I don't really like
looking at what I made so I honestly don't even find joy in the end results
as much as I do in the creation of it which is why I'm so glad that YouTube
exists because I can show the creation of art and not have to just
post a finished thing you know "well here's what I made and then what do you
think?" instead I can show the start, the middle, the the near-the-end-where-it-
starts-getting-a-little-tough, and then the end! and like you can see the way
that rises and falls, like what goes into it and that is what I
find enjoyable about art like if you could go to a museum-Oh Man! okay like
imagine if you went to a museum and then there's like the art but then to the
left of it there's like a time lapse of the art being created and you can see
the artist's hands getting dirty and creating that thing like Ooooooooooh imagine if
we had records of that like ya'kno we have some pretty old art, imagine we had
records that art being created - I would die even if it was just like a drawing
of it being created like imagine if there was an artist that was sitting
at the bottom of the Sistine Chapel watching Michelangelo work and he's like
sketching it out to document it!! now that is my kind museum - I could
get lost in there for sure
now when I'm sketching with pencil one of my favorite
things is like the texture of the pencil and when you like do cross hatching or
hatching and you get that texture and you know you like you look at it you're
like "wow somebody drew this" that's like my-that's my jam
you'll see in some places I'm not even trying to like hide it but the direction
of the hatching just changed because I just I love the way that looks I don't
know if you've ever like zoomed in on one of your sketches but you can like
see all the different layers and like you can kind of see hints of like where
you erased and it's just so so pretty I love it
now when I draw like
big floaty swirly characters I like to add a big swirl in the background that
kind of just you know remind me that this character's not just standing there
and so in this one in particular I decided to actually draw in that shape
so I'm just defining that a little bit more adding in a couple extra where I think it
needs a just you know drawing the embodiment of a swirl behind her and
because I like took some of-and because some of her clothes I actually drew
floaty as well so like her sweatshirts kind of billowing and like her little
ties from her sweatshirt aren't just laying flat that helps it look floaty
and then when I add this like swirl in the background it looks like some the
wind is like kicking it up and creating that texture and then that just makes
the character look even more floaty - it just contains the art into the paper
in a shape and yeah that's a lot of fun to do
and then nearing the end of the
sketching process I can usually see where it needs a little bit more
contrast so I just darken up some areas, try to lighten up some other areas, but if I've
already darkened a lot, erasing usually isn't that much of an option so
I'll just try to darken the areas around it unless I get to a point or like ya
can't erase anymore you've reached a limit and then this is what it looked
like after a pretty thorough sketching session
if I get really close you can
see all the sketchy bits I don't like to erase all of them like you'll see I've
left a few here and there even if they're like outside of the sketch but
yeah I love those things! anyway I do want to thank you guys for watching I
hope you enjoyed watching me create some art with only a mechanical pencil and
(obviously a piece of paper) I hope it proved to you that you don't need a ton
of art supplies in order to create something and art will always be there for
you, you just need to pick up the pencil, hehe
anyway thanks for watching I'll see you
guys all next week, and I hope you have a delicious evening full of waffles!!!!
BYE!!
♪