30 Ways To Fill a Sketchbook In A Week!

I've currently set myself the challenge to fill all of my unfinished sketchbooks by the end of the year. Now that is going to be its own separate video because I have 222 blank pages to fill over 25 days or five five-day weeks. So we'll say five weeks. And I thought for this first week, I would use my old 30 ways to fill a sketchbook series to jumpstart that challenge. I'm going to be doing all the drawings in this leuchtturm that you might remember from old videos such as And it's just this beautifully crafted stunning yellow little book. It just makes me want to fill it up with all these lovely things. And yeah, clearly didn't end up filling all of these pages because there isn't actually much else in here apart from those couple of paintings. I do have in here 71 blank pages I need to fill. So I'm aiming for 45 this week at least. So I better get to it. So hang on, 30 ways over the next five days, that's six ways a day plus 45 pages to fill is nine pages a day. Right, so starting with portrait painting practice, sketch dump, live drawing, line contour, buildings and fan art today. I suddenly started to doubt whether this will actually even be possible. If anything, it's definitely going to be a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Oh boy, where do I even begin with this? The first day of a new challenge is always the hardest. You're finding your feet, establishing your pace, figuring out if the goal you've set is even doable. I was already fretting about the lighting because the sun was in and out and it's winter which means I only have a limited amount of sunlight anyway. I don't like working in artificial light but I know I'll have to if I want to get this all done. I just like to keep it to a minimum. What was extra hard with this was that I've only drawn faces once since the 100 head challenge which was eight months ago so I was a bit rusty, plus I dove right into attempting the style that I've been aiming for in my work but not quite been able to achieve and I just don't think I was ready to execute it, especially without practicing that style. It's just an idea that I had and imagined working and let me tell you, it didn't. Another hurdle I invented for myself was using watercolours for the painting portion. I actually thought I was making life easier for myself here since they're a bit simpler and a bit more forgiving than gouache but since I haven't used watercolours in a couple of months, it was a bit of an adjustment. And the icing on the cake was realising that this sketchbook is awful for watercolours. I don't know how I managed these gouache paintings in here. It was so difficult to do anything once the page was wet. I tried to work through it but to add insult to injury, I had chosen a really complicated reference with complicated lighting and that just threw me all the way off. Eventually, I had to accept defeat with the first painting in this challenge and mark it off as a warm-up. So I switched sketchbooks. Another really old one. This one actually appeared on my channel before the yellow one, around this time four years ago. I tried again with my sketching underlayer with watercolour going over the top. Basically, what I've loved to achieve is a more layered look to my paintings, more depth with pencil showing through and that dynamic and lively look that I can usually get from my sketches, combining that with smooth washes and colour. But I still felt quite rusty at this point, both sketching and painting. The next one went a little better. I wanted to see if a lighter coloured pencil would make a difference to the overall look and it didn't really give the effect that I wanted. At this point, I was already starting to feel a bit defeated. I always have this at the beginning of a challenge but this time more than ever, I started thinking about giving up. No one knows that I'm making this video, I can just quit now and do something else. Something where I don't have to fail or over-exert to try and get things right. But that's the point of a challenge, I'm pushing myself to grow. And to grow, I need to recognise that there are areas of my work that need work. I can't always fall back on what I know I can do well, so I trudged on. And the third painting went a little bit better. I slowed down a bit, tried to be more intentional and less rushed. It's still nowhere near what I want but it's a nice bit of practice and that's the point of this page anyway. The video I'm following is called Portrait Painting Practice and that's what I did. I was so glad to move on to the sketch dump page. I went back to the original sketchbook and just started sketching. I'm using references from Pexels for most of these drawings by the way. I love sketching and the more I did here, the more I felt like I was finding my stride again. My sketching style is the foundation for the art that I want to make so it makes sense to put some practice into that. I don't know if I struggled at first because it was a drawing of a hand and hands are notoriously difficult for me, but as time went on I really started to settle into the process and see some nice stuff shine through that I really liked. By the time I got to the plant, I don't know if it's because I draw plants so much anyway, but I got into more of a flow state and the work just made itself for a bit. Another thing that helped was I started thinking realistically about how much I'd be able to get done that day. It was already getting dark, my hand was cramping up just due to me not drawing much in the last couple of weeks, so instead of thinking about getting six ways to fill a sketchbook done or nine pages filled, I just focused on going on for as long as I could. I took quite a few breaks just to get away from my desk and clear my mind for a second and that definitely helped. And I started to think that maybe I could do this for six or seven days this week instead of five just so I could get fewer drawings done each day and then have time around that to get on with the other life stuff. Because today was an easier one. Ozzy was home so he made my lunch and my dinner and did all the household stuff and popped out to get some shopping, but he's working the rest of the week and I have my own chores and obligations and orders to ship out in the shop and videos to finish and all that jazz, so I think the key going forward will be balance. And I'm taking some pressure off, I'm going to do as much as I can but not at the expense of quality. I don't want to rush through this because the whole point is to learn something, to figure out what I'm doing with my art and what I want to do. And one of the main things I want to do is really pay attention to what I'm doing and make an effort to translate what's in my head onto paper accurately. I finished off with some life drawing. The Croquis Café YouTube channel has been all but shut down by YouTube but they still post on there to link you to their Vimeo where you can still get the life drawing classes. I liked how my sketches looked last time with the and I picked up where I left off much earlier the next day. Now this may be considered cheating to some but I personally love sticking loose drawings and sketches into my sketchbooks. It took me about half an hour to find and dig up these life drawing sketches and now they have a permanent home. These of course did the job of filling a couple of blank pages, although I still have to draw something on the blank covers they've left, but also they help to cover up some of the pages that I feel are wasted in here with just a few light nonsensical scribbles on them. I don't think all unfinished sketchbook pages need covering up, especially if you can really see an idea being developed there, but honestly I just don't see a huge amount of value in this paid real estate being taken up by a few wispy lines that led to nowhere. Anyway, these sketches are from an in-person life drawing class that I went to earlier this year and I'm glad they finally have a permanent abode. And I finished off my life drawing practice by drawing over the top of the folded pages. Also, I'm sure you've noticed Tim insists on making us both as uncomfortable as possible by any means, so I knew the blind contour drawings would take some pressure off and just be a bit of fun. I was still in warm-up mode for this day so I just went with it. So here I am just drawing without looking and still actually using references, just trying to stay as accurate as I can without seeing what I'm doing. It's a good warm-up for your hands and a good way to get yourself to look more at your reference than at your paper. I crammed some of these in on some of those rougher looking pages to fill in some gaps and after posting about this the first time, a follower shared their version where they had coloured them in and I loved the look of that so I attempted it myself. Then it was time for a break, something that I really neglected the day before. I just had a bit of a walk around the house, had a drink. One thing that had been nagging me on day one was feeling like I hadn't much improved since the original 30 ways to fill a sketchbook series. In fact, I kind of felt like I'd gone backwards. So today I wanted to remind myself what I'm capable of when I slow down and really try. So with that warm-up and break out of the way, I got round to buildings and it was time to really push myself, forget about doing things as quickly as possible and filling as many pages as I could, just draw houses. And I know I keep going on about it but the decision to take my time today made such a difference. I was able to just settle into the process of drawing which is something that I don't get a huge amount of time to do anymore, especially just drawing for the sake of drawing, not to make something, just to draw. And I think my change in mood comes across in the building drawing style and I also attempted a more modern building or like a vignette of one but I think you can just see the difference in how I draw when I'm enjoying it and when I'm not. I just love the little quirk and details of old buildings and I still love my harsh lines and angles in brutalist architecture but those buildings have their own charm like the stains on the concrete and the geometry of it all. I forgot to press record for the sketching portion of this one but it's very loose and barely visible anyway. It took me a while to figure out what I was going to do for the fan art page. I really had to take a minute and think, what am I even a fan of? And then I thought about what I did last time, painting a kind of newer version of Muriel and Courage from Courage the Cowardly Dog and I decided to go down a similar route, redesigning a character from my childhood. So I loved Powerpuff Girls growing up. I ummed and ah'd between him and Mojo Jojo and eventually settled on Mojo Jojo. I loved how this sketch came out. I really felt like I fell into my stride. I'm falling back in love with sketching with a biro and the style of this is everything I wanted. I always planned on going over it with watercolours. I guess I forgot that water in this sketchbook really don't go and I had issues right away. Unfortunately, I wanted to do a light wash of local colour over everything but the paper started to pretty much dissolve with even the slightest bit of back and forth with a brush so I just tried to go really light and subtle in most areas. I didn't achieve the look I was going for but it still looks pretty cool. For the border, I laid it on the paint much thicker with less water and it worked a lot better but wouldn't have worked on the face and body as I wanted the lines to show through from underneath. Lettering was next and I was already well prepared for this one because I've been planning on working on my penmanship anyway recently. I have this book that I printed out and I plan on going through doing all the exercises in angles and ink flow and hand-on paper positioning but before I start really studying my penmanship, this will be a good benchmark to look back on for where I started. At the end of the book, there are some example passages that you can copy to practice so I decided to try a couple of those. The fountain pen was pretty easy, we had to use fountain pens for all our writing at school so it was nothing new but then I decided to make things a bit more exciting with a glass dip pen that was sent to me by a subscriber a while ago. It's such a beautifully crafted object and it just made the whole experience that little bit more fun and charming. I decided to skip landscape painting for today. I could feel myself getting tired and I knew I wouldn't have the attention span to commit to painting properly so I went ahead with some more fun sketching in the tattoo design prompt. I don't really know where this idea came from. I'm drawing a fox by the way, maybe because foxes are quite common as tattoos. Well, more wolves. But you do see fox tattoos and it got me thinking about how people love foxes and find them so cute. And I, like most Londoners, see them as such a nightmare. I mean, I do like them. The house I grew up in, we had a family of them that lived under our shed and every year or so there'd be new babies and they were so cute. My parents always thought about laying some proper foundations under the shed so they couldn't burrow under there anymore but I think we all just had a soft spot for them, especially seeing the little ones playing in the garden. However, there was always that time of year when they would be mating and that noise. My bedroom looked onto the garden so I'd be woken up night after night thinking someone was being murdered outside. I looked out once and actually saw them doing it, so weird. They do it back to back and I ended up looking into it because I was a curious kid and I found out why they make so much noise. Interesting. Also, they were always digging up my mum's plants and going through the bins. It makes me think of raccoons, like we don't have them here as far as I know, but I know they're seen as pests in the US and wherever else they are. But because I haven't experienced that, I do see them as being as cute as the one from Pocahontas. Anyway, so I painted a screaming fox because that's how I see them. I should have done it all mangy too, because London foxes look nothing like the lovely lush ones you get outside of the city. And then instead of drawing flowers around it like a typical tattoo, I did scrunched up bits of paper like it had been rummaging through the bins. And I like that idea. I like that I had that idea. I'm feeling the creative flow starting to come back and new ideas starting to form. Realising that when I'm in an idea slump, it's usually just because I'm not doing anything. Anyway, for some reason I thought I could just freehand scrunched up paper. Turns out it's pretty hard to draw. Who knew? So for making mistakes, I knew I had a bit of a bleed through after adding some ink splatters as embellishments to the lettering page. So I thought I would cover those with post-its and draw over them. But by that point, I had decided I was done for the day. I still had other things to do and I felt confident I'd be able to breathe through the next few prompts tomorrow. Which is now. So what I'm going to do today is start with the landscape paintings I skipped yesterday and then kind of fast forward and do the portrait painting in detail. Just because I know that those two are going to take the most amount of effort and attention from me. And I know that my motivation levels do start to taper off as the day goes on. And then hopefully after that, I will have time to go back to making mistakes. And then it's animals, facial expressions, maybe I'll have time for illustrating words and potentially the artist study today. But we'll have to see how I get on. There's been a lot of talking, so I think it's time for a montage. Sometimes everything just gets hard. Sometimes everything just gets harder. Feeling like I'm missing some parts. Days just keep on getting much darker. Even when I'm down in the hole. I remember what you were saying. Sometimes all you need is a spark. Maybe just a better kind of bitter, bitter. Lose gravity. I'm swimming in the quicksand. Up to my knees. Keep loose and sleep. I'm at a dream at midnight. So hard to please. Negativity is getting closer. Part of keeps the human. It gets colder, you know. Sometimes everything just gets hard. Sometimes everything just gets harder. Feeling like I'm missing some parts. Days just keep on getting much darker. Even when I'm down in the hole. I remember what you were saying. Sometimes all you need is a spark. Maybe just a better kind of bitter, bitter. It keeps coming out loud from the touch, baby. So here we are, the final prompt. I did not think I was going to be able to do it. It was so hard. My willpower, my motivation were really tested this week. And I, again, I think on day five, had that moment of, I really don't think I'm going to be able to do this. I should just and plan another video for the week. I really also started questioning the point of this, why I was doing it. I did start this, A, as part of my challenge to fill all of my unfinished sketchbooks by the end of the year. I have actually passed my 48-page quota for this week, thank God. I think I've got up to about 47 now, pages filled. But B, this series specifically, because I knew it would test me on supplies and subject matter and styles, I wanted something where I'd have a range of things to do so I could figure out what I liked and what I didn't like, and what I wanted to take forward in my art into the new year. And on the days where I was rushing, just going through the motions, or just devastatingly bored with the art I was making, it was easy to lose sight of that goal. And I would think, I know I don't like this, I know I'm not enjoying this, so why don't I spend my time instead working on things that I am interested in? But then I would come to the next prompt, something that again, I would have thought that I wasn't going to enjoy, something I was just going to rush through just to get past it, and out of nowhere there'd be this spark, something that I had lost, whether it was using a supply that I hadn't used in ages and just kind of put down and forgotten about, or I don't know, using a technique or painting a certain thing, something that somehow along the I discarded or moved on from. And just rediscovering that was amazing. I felt so excited and happy and I'd feel so inspired and enthralled by it. And yeah, it could be so fun. So I struck up a balance then of giving everything a chance. Even if I thought it might be boring, I would start it out with the best intentions. And if there was no spark, if it did just feel like a waste of time, I would finish it still, but just literally finish it, just get it done. And then anything else where something just sang out to me, I would give it as much time as I wanted to. And it made me so happy, so excited about making art for the first time in a long time. I feel so inspired. I feel so ready to carry on sketching. I've learnt that I work best first thing in the morning. I absolutely hate working once it gets dark. I need to be more decisive with my line work. And I really miss the more kind of journal-y side of making art and just doing that for myself rather than trying to make a really pretty cohesive spread, just writing things down and cutting and sticking. That was so much fun. So I feel good. I feel pumped. I feel ready. I am going to take a day off from drawing tomorrow, probably, get on with catching up with the life stuff that I've missed out on. I'm going to see my mum. I'm going to leave the house because I genuinely realised last night I have not left the house all week, which is kind of scary. So I'm looking forward to just regrouping, becoming more of a normal person again after this. And then the sketchbook journey will continue. So stay tuned for that. But otherwise, thank you so much for joining me on this little adventure. And I will see you for the next video. Bye.