sketchbook ep 44 ✏️ | pencil studies + marker illustrations🌼🍃 | the importance of making ‘boring’ sketches 🤓 (Patreon)

Hi!♥︎

I hope you’re doing well! No long intro today, let’s just jump right into my sketchbooks!

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First, pencil sketches.

Initially I wanted to share three pencil sketchbook spreads each week but today I’m going to share four since they’re kind of connected!

When I don’t feel inspired to draw anything, but want to practice regardless, I just make sketches of a plant I’m already familiar with.

One of them is germander speedwell.

This flower has such an interesting shape - one petal is smaller and more elongated than other 3.I’ve made an illustration (like a full colorful illustration, not just a sketch) of this plant only once and I’d love to make more of them soon!

Another plant with interesting shapes is geranium! The leaves of this plant are unreal!! (see the leaf on the bottom of left page)

The next day I thought of another plant with small flowers - common wood sorrel! (right page)

I tried to look for a photo I took on one of the wood walks but I couldn’t find it.

Maybe this year I’ll be lucky enough to spot this plant and take new pictures. I really enjoyed making these studies!

Oh, and here’s the sketchbook spread just after being scanned.

While my illustrations and even sketches are quite neat, I think the editing also adds to that effect!

I just adjust levels, mostly to make grays darker and to add more depth (not the best explanation, sorry in advance to all the photographers that are reading this, lol)

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On the next spread I went back to the basic! Or at least to the comfort zone.

This is the warm up I did before working on the berry illustrations I shared in the previous post.

While strawberries are something I’ve illustrated probably million times already, I still feel the need to practice drawing them!

Notice how many shapes I sketched at the bottom of the page.

Each strawberry is a little bit different. Often times I just draw from visual memory, but sometimes I don’t!

Ahh, I feel like a post about using references, pros and cons of some sources and ways of how to use them without just redrawing photos, could be a nice idea??

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Another day, another strawberry studies!

Being able to draw a leaf from different angles and perspective is such an important skill!

And definitely something I keep practicing!

As you can see most of my sketchbook pages are just boooring studies of the same things sketched over and over again.

I’m not saying it’s the only ‘right’ way of practicing, of course it’s not, but it works for me! Sometimes I'd sketch some random things or more loose ideas, but this is the best way to learn how to draw something specific!

I can’t believe I used to be terrified of an idea of making ‘boring’ unoriginal art. So what if the idea isn’t original? (‘florals? for spring? Groundbreaking’ iykyk) The execution is!

Wait.

Actually most of my illustrations look painfully similar, so it’s not even that! Then what? The joy of creating and the dedication to practice. That’s it. It's such an important topic for me but talking about it feels somehow corny, uhh!

Annyyyywayy!

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The last one for today:

On the left I was sketching out some ideas for summer themed sticker sheet. Think about summer snacks or cozy picnic!

The next day I sketched kiwis in a similar fashion. I couldn’t think of more fruits to draw! I know there’s plentyyyy of them but none of them made sense.

Then I remembered about pomegranates! Remember the first page from this sketchbook? (shared in the previous post) It was half of the month already and I haven’t decided on the theme yet and all of the sudden the pomegranates seemed to be an obvious choice!

The only ‘problem’ was that I didn’t have a lot of experience drawing them. So I started practicing…

I think you can already guess what’s the next spread of this sketchbook all about… :D

but I’ll share that in the next post!

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Now for the colored illustrations!

I haven’t done much this week, other than making daisy illustrations for the rewards. I think I’ll be able to finish them by the end of the week.

I’ll then make a public post showing the rewards! For now, let’s see some work in progress:

Okay, this one is actually finished and already edited (cleaned up, colors are adjusted etc!)

I needed a few more designs, but I wanted to play with the layout a little bit!

I reallllyyyy don’t like the color swatches on the left, but everything else is pretty nice! The entire page on the right will be filled with blue!

and the last one:

While working on this one I came up with the name of this month’s theme: pastel daisies.

Theses colors are a little bit softer than the colors I’d normally use and I really like them!

I’m really struggling with the layout of the left page of this spread.

The illustration I made is a little bit too big and now I’m left with this awkward space on the bottom. I think I’ll make some washi tape style designs there! Or maybe two small designs similar to the ones on the right page? We’ll see!

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That’s it for today!

I feel like I touched on some topics in this post but mostly was just rambling about some stuff, but I hope you enjoyed reading it regardless!

If there’s anything you’d like to read/listen to more of or have any questions, I'm all ears!

Even if you just quickly scrolled through the post to see the images I really really appreciate you.

See you on Friday in another catch up post!

Love,

Marta ♥︎