sketchbook episode 23 ✏️ | August’s theme announcement ❤️NASTURTIUM ❤️| new sketches! | what happens when the inspiration hits ✨🌠🌟 (Patreon)

Hi!

How are you?!

Today I want to show you a few new sketchbook pages and sketches for sticker designs.

It’s also time to announce this month’s theme.

Let’s start with the announcement! I just can’t wait any longer.

This month’s theme is… nasturtium flower!

I don’t know about you but I’m obsessed with this plant.

Its leaves look kind of like water lily’s and buds look like weird birds/aliens/dinosaurs (pick your favorite, lol).

I love how it climbs or creeps. So, so magical!

I always wanted to create illustrations of this flower but kept telling myself I’m not ready (not skilled enough and so on).

Honestly I was a bit worried I just couldn’t make it.

Not only skill wise but also time wise.

Today I was looking at hundreds of pictures of nasturtium.

Just to soak up the inspiration, get better understanding of this plant’s anatomy, think about colors I might use for my future illustrations.

It was during my break from creating desktop wallpapers (for you!) and I didn’t plan on drawing anything today. It was supposed to be just editing and “research” kind of day.

All of the sudden I was itching to pick up a pencil.

I know that feeling and what it could mean, so I didn’t hesitate, despite my plans.

Sketching/ drawing is my habit, something I do almost everyday and couldn’t imagine my life without it.

Usually I do it almost like brushing my teeth – I don’t have to feel like doing it to do it anyway.

Sometimes, very rarely, I get blessed with something you might wanna call inspiration.

so… what happens when the inspiration hits?

At first I made some littleeee average shy sketches. I felt like maybe I wasn’t ready? I haven’t studied this plant enough and I have a lot to do today, so maybe I should just get back to work?

I haven’t trusted.

No.

I kept sketching.

I made all of these sketches in one sitting, without using any reference pictures.

(I made kind of an border/outline for these, to better imagine how would they look as stickers.)

Honestly I don’t remember much from that. My hand was drawing and I wasn’t thinking about it.

The best feeling E V E R. I live for moments like this.

What was stopping me before were doubts, me constantly questioning my skills and abilities, overthinking, worrying about what to draw next (what an absurd?! hello?!).

With a blessing of inspiration, I could just experience the glorious feeling of being in the flow state. There’s nothing but the tool in my hand. No time, no outside world, nothing.

Oh, I wish I could describe it better. What a privilege to experience something like this.

These are quite quick sketches and they aren’t technically perfect, but it’s not the most important thing here.

(on the left side, first "shy" sketches)

I’m SO EXCITED to turn them into stickers for this month’s sticker sheet.

I already tried with one design. Here’s the result:

To be fair, after this hit of inspiration I felt butterflies in my stomach, my hands were sweaty and they were shaking a bit while drawing this.

So many emotions today, LOL! I really like the colors and hmmm... more geometric shapes(?!) tho!

Oh! and here are my first attepts on coloring just leaves:

Okay, after this quite dramatic segment, let me show you some of my recent sketches.

Inspired by the ZZ plant that’s on my windowsill.

I tried using old colored pencils instead of my regular mechanical pencil, but quickly ditched that idea.

Seems like I'm in the houseplants era again!

Summer classic – blueberries! I’m working on some future designs (not for Patreon, I don’t want to repeat themes)

A simple composition of nasturtium leaves. It was a warm up sketch, made yesterday.

That’s it for today!

You might be thinking:

Okay girl… yeah, that’s cute, but what about previous rewards?? hello??

And I know it’s been taking me 120 years but I’m really really close to the finish!

I hope you like today's post and designs for this month!

Of course I’ll also make a print design in a similar style. I'll keep you updated!

Love,

Marta