sketchbook ep 27 ✏️ | getting back on track ✨ | October’s theme announcement 🎃| sketching everyday | why am I so stubborn - is cliché always a bad thing? (Patreon)

Hi!

It’s been a while! I haven’t been that sick in YEARS.

Honestly, I don’t even know how can I summarize this month.

I was just sick, mostly rooting in bed, fever dreaming and sometimes feeling bad for disappearing from the internet.

I’m not at my 100% yet but at least I can form full sentences and just function.

It feels nice, I must admit. You know that point of being sick when you feel like it’s going to last forever? Yeah, me too! I’m so grateful to feel better after these terrible few weeks.

What I’ve been up to?! As I said, not very much.

I was sketching every day though. Okay, I skipped one day (for a good reason!) but other than that, no matter how bad I felt, I sketched something.

Today I’ll show you just 3 pages (out of around 20) to not overwhelm you with sketches!

I’ve been also thinking a lot about October’s theme. The obvious choice would be pumpkins, right?

You might remember that I drew some pumpkins even back in September. I sketched even more of them later on but for some reason I was just too stubborn to decide on this theme.

Correction. I wasn’t thinking a lot about the theme. I was overthinking it!

Instead of just following the first instinct, I tried to come up with something more “original” (as if “original” is really a thing – it isn’t).

So I tried with autumn berries (still think it’s a good idea!), rose hips, pears, Virginia creeper, colorful leaves… yet I KNEW I didn’t have enough energy (being sick) to really properly develop any of these ideas.

Actually I think all of these ideas are good and I’m going to use them at some point, but maybe not necessarily now.

Well, a few days ago I just came to terms with being a cliché. Pumpkins for October? Groundbreaking. What’s so wrong about that? I don’t even remember what I was thinking.

Anyway, let me show you some pumpkin illustrations! :D

You might remember the illustration on the right side from my previous post.

The left side is still in a “clean sketch” phase – I really wanted to draw some pumpkins with leaves (and show you something that isn’t fully finished yet).

I’m not sure if I like the composition of the elements on this page (it was very spontaneous) but I’m going to turn these designs into stickers anyway, so it doesn’t matter that much!

Okay, more pumpkins!

I finished the right side first, then did the left side about week or two later.

Am I being delusional or the illustrations on the left are slightly better (technically) than on the right?!

My attempts on finding the right color for pumpkin leaves.

 I found a scrap of paper from one of my old sketchbooks and used it for these little test illustrations!

Some sketches I did on the loose sheet of paper - I'm going to trace them to my sketchbook later!

I figured I need more designs for stickers, plus I wanted to draw not only just single pumpkins but small compositions, like stack of pumpkins etc. (I sketched a few more on this page!)

I wasn’t drawing only pumpkins.

The day I felt like I was getting better (I wasn’t), I made some tiny illustrations of soup ingredients!

I wanted to fill the whole page with a few more different ingredients, the pot and all these full soup themed stuff, but got too tired after this short drawing session.

I’m definitely going to finish it at some point!

First attempts on drawing colorful leaves of Virginia creeper!

The version on the top were very first attempts, these on the bottom were second attempts.

I hope you can see a subtle difference in colors and how much more confident I felt drawing these leaves in similar color schemes for the second time.

Yet another thing to be finished soon!

Let’s finish today's post with some sketchbook pages.

As I said before, I sketched everyday and today I’m going to show you just a few pages, there’s muuuch more of them (which I'll show you in next posts)

Sunflowers, pumpkins and backpacks full of plants!

 I used to draw such backpacks quite often. Another theme to develop further soon!

Pumpkins and flowers. That day I was thinking of making a series of illustrations around pumpkins and some flowers.

What do you think about this idea?!

Plus, the quote from Queens of the stone age “...Like clockwork” – one of the songs that I’ve been listening on repeat lately. I'm obsessed.

Guess what, more pumpkins!

Some of these shapes are really wonky and weird but it was an absolutely fantastic warm up exercise!

It’s definitely not how I imagined October going (not only Patreon-wise) but it is what it is. It’s only going to get better from now on, am I right?

I don’t want to overwhelm you with super long post, so I’m going to finish here.

Since I wasn’t posting this month, I want to just thank you for sticking around. I truly appreciate that.

Now when I have even more to catch up on, you can expect seeing my posts here more often (not only these chatty posts but also just overdue rewards!).

New video is coming this weekend! (sunflowers drawing process)

I hope your October was better than mine, lol.

How have you been?!

Love,

Marta