sketchbook ep 39✏️ | new colorful drawings + work in progress🌈✨🍭 | hello perfectionism, my old friend | long post ☕ (Patreon)

Hi!

I hope you’re well!

Lately I’ve been feeling a little bit stagnant.

I wouldn’t call it an art block, since I feel inspired and keep drawing!

Probably it’s because I was thrown off from my routines, it’s way too hot outside, I started to stress out about the book writing process and in general I haven’t been feeling like myself lately.

On top of that I’m slowly coming off the anxiety meds (which is a good thing and a sign that things got much better! They could got worse in this process, but so far it’s been going great)

Oh wow, why am I even sharing all of this?

Ah! It’s to admit that I feel like my perfectionism strikes again!

I almost convinced myself to don’t post here this week since I have “nothing to share” and maaaybe, just maybe if I make a post in three days it’ll be more interesting… It’s not the first time this is happening.

I feel like every few months I mentioned about these tendencies in some of my posts :D

This time I quickly snapped out of it, thinking, heyyy, it’s the weekly art update time, girl, what are you doing!!

I’ve been really enjoying sharing these weekly updates with you cause it (hopefully) shows that some weeks are slower, some are focused on a narrow theme and others I spend exploring things I want to draw.

I should go through some of the recent posts to see if that’s even true or just my wishful thinking!:D

My perfectionism tendencies show up also in the book writing process.

I work with the publisher and have a whole team of people to ask for the feedback, help, etc, yet I find myself polishing the projects (the book has a few sections, mostly techniques + step by step projects) and overthinking them A LOT, instead of sharing whatever I have to share at the moment.

I don’t have any issues with sharing ideas that are “just thoughts” or taking any other “imperfect” actions but when it comes to actual projects, with finished illustrations and my writing, ohhh that’s a different story! (and I’m ready to rewrite it – pun intended hehe)

Today I’ve made some steps to change that!

I thought my perfectionism is healed, and mostly it is, but sometimes it likes to rear its ugly head, especially when “showing up messy” is what’s required!

Well, at least now I’m aware of it and I’m not ashamed to admit that!

Oh, okay, let me show you what I actually made this week!

Let’s start with the colorful fruits (berries?! Still haven’t decided on the name)

This page is reaaaady! I had the best time using all the colors of the rainbow to make these illustrations!

Work in progress!

Actually I’ve been recording the coloring process of the illustrations on the left page!

I didn’t manage to finish it in one sitting, so I’ll continue tomorrow.

Some of these illustrations are based on the sketches I shared recently and was supposed to just trace them as they are.

Well, I made some changes and I’m going to show you the sketch vs final comparison once this spread is done.

A bigger illustration of blueberries!

It’s one of the step by step projects from my book.

As you can see it’s still the early stage of coloring.

I started overthinking on HOW am I going to explain how to color blueberries, instead of actually coloring them, lol.

While making all of these illustrations I get to use a lot of shades of green.

I think I might have found my new favorite combinations… :> (to be continued?!)

Now, the foxglove illustration I’ve been slowly working on for probably weeks.

The progress is almost unnoticeable!

This year I saw foxgloves in a park (more like a city garden?) in Warsaw and in the forest in the Carpathian Mountains!

(foxglove in the pretty garden/park vs in the woods!)

Oh I guess I need to go on the hike in a month or so, I’d love to see these flowers in full bloom in the wild!! and I’m so happy I found a spot where they grow! I’ve been looking for one for a while.

Four’o’clock flower, finished illustration.

You might already saw that one on my IG but here’s a scanned version of it!

Aaaand the bigger illustration of this flower!

It’s another project from my book.

This time I added a dark background, some sparkles (duuhh) and moon, since this flower blooms in the night!

A little bonus GIF of the initial sketch, sketch and finished illustration! (isn't this GIF too slow? I didn't wanted to make it too fast but now I'm overthinking it agaaaain!)

I’ll make an extended version (with more steps) of it and share the color palette in another post. It’s been a while since I made one of these!

PS. I’m sorry I didn’t post any catch up series update last week!

I might not be able to do so this week as well, although I’ll do my best to share some phone wallpapers as soon as possible!

For some reason I feel like this post was a bit more chaotic than usual but it’s probably just in my head, lol.

I hope you enjoyed it!

Love,

Marta