Exploratory Sketchbook: Find Your Drawing Style

Exploratory Sketchbook: Find Your Drawing Style

“We’ve already reached the end of this course, and now it’s time for you to put everything I talked about and showed you into practice. The first thing you need to do is find a sketchbook, different materials and play around with mark making and layering the different materials. Don’t be afraid to get messy! After this, start with drawing from observation. Here you can already let your own personality, interests and surroundings shine through. Draw your favourite objects with your favourite colours for example. Think of things that you like and how you can incorporate them in your drawings (You can think of your favourite colours, patterns, objects, hobbies, favourite foods/books/movies.) It’s always good to practice drawing people. So find yourself a magazine, or look at stock pictures online, or look out your window and sketch some people in different positions. You can use different materials and colours for this to make it more fun. It is time to start thinking about your self portrait. Where will the illustration be set (a room in your house? outside? at your favourite cafe? etc.)? What time is it (day/night)? What are you doing (reading, sleeping, drawing, dancing, walking)? What kind of mood/atmosphere do you want the illustration to have (happy, sad, excited, tired, concentration etc)? When you know all these things, it’s important to decide how you are going to realize them in a drawing (with colour, composition, contrast, objects, posture, etc.) For your final project make a few sketches first and don’t forget to create a colour palette. Practice drawing people and objects form your surroundings. Then, make a rough composition of the scene you would like to draw. Once you have a sketch that you are happy with, sketch it out very lightly, apply the first layer of paint, let it dry, and add the details with coloured pencils (and markers and crayons). Don’t forget to share your project!

When you’ve finished an illustration it’s always good practice to create another drawing with the same subject but changing it up a bit. For example, change the composition or the atmosphere you want the illustration to have. I hope you’ve enjoyed watching this course. I look forward to seeing all your amazing self-portraits and don’t forget I will answer all the questions you might have in the forum! ”

Partial transcription of the video

“So guys, you've already reached the end of this Domestika course, and I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I did. Now it is the time to practice and make your own illustrations. I hope I've left you with some new ideas, some new ways of working, and most importantly, inspiration to create your own unique illustrations. Before saying goodbye, let me remind you of some of the main tips that I gave during this course that you can apply during your final project. Remember to try new things and mix up the composition and the colors that you are using. I would like to advise you to take your sketc...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: Exploratory Sketchbook: Find Your Drawing Style

• Level: Beginner
• 99% positive reviews (2377)
• 71588 students
• 5 units
• 16 lessons (2h 34m)
• 12 downloads

• Category

  Illustration

• Areas

  Creativity, Drawing, Gouache Painting, Sketchbook, Sketching, Traditional illustration, Watercolor Painting