New Shoes, New Sketchbook, New Acrylic Markers

Hey there, it's Amy. Today's video is a little different than normal. I haven't done one of these in a really long time. This is going to be really like a draw with me where I am testing out the Artex acrylic marker set. Artex reached out and asked me if I wanted to do kind of a tradesy for them and I said yes very quickly because I have been wanting these markers for a really long time. I've seen them all over my Instagram and my YouTube and they seem so juicy and they come in so many colors and I really like the brush tip. For the past month I've been testing them out in my sketchbooks, in my Hobonichi, and even on a craft that I made for Mother's Day. Isn't that fun? You can see the full version of that by the way on my Instagram so please go look at that. Please like that. So here's what we're going to do in this video. I'm going to show you these markers. I'm going to pick out my favorite colors. We're going to swatch a couple so you can kind of see what coverage looks like and then we'll change views and you will see me actually use these markers for a drawing and or for lots for four drawings technically but of a lot of a few different types of things. While I'm drawing I'll do a little bit of a voiceover kind of walking through just kind of chat. I also haven't done that in a while. I also haven't recorded it yet so let's hope that it doesn't go off the rails and yeah I think that's it. So let's get started. First let me show you these gorgeous markers. So looking at the specs of this box we have 60 colors. They were all organized very nicely by color by the way but as I got into creator mode order just kind of went out the window so apologies there but the box is really handy actually. I was thinking like oh maybe I'll just pull these out and stick them in my like in a jar on my desk but I really like the structure of the box. It just is very smart. The color range is rich and diverse. There is sort of no color you're missing. You get a lot of each color, a lot of yellows, a lot of pinks, a lot of blues, and greens. Even like the browns and grays are really robust which is exciting because you know I like to do a lot of portrait work so I'm interested in playing with those a little bit more. It's a direct ink system which means there's no clogging or splattering. You shake the pen before you use it to make sure that the ink is well mixed and it comes out really like a dream. You can see sometimes you might have to tighten yeah sometimes you have to tighten where the this part connects with this part. I don't know. I don't know the correct names but once you get that twist on it's really nice and secure and when you're shaking nothing is coming out either which is really nice. Like it's juicy without being a mess which is great. The ink is really high quality. Look at that. Oh my god it's gorgeous. It's nice and opaque. Really good color saturation and even on this really thin hobonichi paper it's ghosting a little bit which is common of course but it's not bleeding through on the other side which is really good for me because I like to add a ton of color when I'm drawing. There's zero color deviation so what you see is what you get. I mean come on. I'm just addicted to that. The nib is soft and flexible so that means you can get really thin lines like this or go for something a little bit thicker just depending on how much pressure you're applying and of course you're seeing me kind of turn it over to the edge too. That's something I really like to do to get these kind of fat strokes but if you wanted to do more traditional calligraphy you could pull that off too. Let's go for a different color. Let's do... I've been really like very attracted to this color lately. They all have a number system which is handy when you're putting together color schemes and you don't want to forget what you've done. I mean come on. It just gets so thick. That's so nice. As I mentioned it does really well on this thin paper. It's done really nicely on my sketchbook paper which is heavier weight and I even used it like I said on this frame which I'll show you here. I, like the big box of color for the most part are acrylic paints but I outlined everything with these pens so like the grid pattern and these dashes here are all done with the pen. These little extra details done with the pen and that's just one pass at it. I mean it's incredibly opaque. I'm just, I'm really impressed. They're odorless, they dry fast, they're waterproof. There's kind of nothing that you need to do before you sit down to work with these aside from shaking them which is nice. I don't want to do like a ton of setup when I just want to sit down and create something. Ugh, gorgeous. They also layer really nicely so if I wanted to come back and do, let's choose another color, and do a little coloring on top it's totally fine. You'll see me do that a lot in the upcoming drawing. And the box is also doing double duty because these markers are best stored horizontally so I'm just gonna stick it in here, put it in my art cart, call it a day. I think my favorite color right now, you know I'm addicted to this like lime green color and again here's, there's a good look at the nib. It's definitely the green, I'm definitely in like a purple era as well but like a specific type of purple. I don't do like mauve-y very well. Like these, these four colors here, let's add another one just for fun. Because I'm like why not, let's add one more color. Okay, hold on. Actually this is like, this is where I've been lately. I'm loving like a reddy orange, all of these greens are working, and then adding a purple in there it's just the best. All right, enough talking about it, let me show you these in action. I challenge you to not try to order these before the end of the video. I don't think you're gonna be able to do it. And if you do want to order you can check all the info's in my bio. All right, let's start drawing. Testing, testing, can you hear me? Hello, can you hear me? Okay, honestly I'm gonna leave that in. Uh, hello, welcome to the voiceover mode. This is gonna be one take. What you get is what you get and I apologize in advance. So, I also meant to cut all this part out here. While you're seeing me, sometimes you just have to sharpen your pencil in that time. So, I am trying lately to do a little more sketching and being a little more intentional about keeping a sketchbook. I do a lot of art in my Hobonichi Cousin, but I want something like... I want a place where I can like experiment a little bit more and challenge myself and sometimes I just want to do it on thicker paper or I don't want to have it in my Hobonichi because what if it looks ugga? And I've been following a lot of people who keep a sketchbook and I'm really inspired by that and I'm really inspired by the sketching that they do of like places, right? So, not just people but like storefronts. Like, I follow this one person. I'll have to put them um, I'll have to put them up so I don't lose track unless I can think of their name. No, I'll put it up. Anyway, I follow this one person and she does these amazing like multimedia sketches of these storefronts and I'm just like in awe of her layout and her layering and I'm... So anyway, this was my attempt at like just trying something a little bit different. This is something I found on Pinterest apparently. When I saved it, it told me it was in Toronto. I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true. I don't know why I would say that, but anyway, I loved... I was just really attracted to the green color and the red and the sign and those little three chairs out front. So, I started sketching with the Irojiten colored pencil. That is a Tombow colored pencil. Um, I pulled just like that neon green that is again just like a color I'm addicted to, but when I am doing sketches like this or doing any type of like underpainting, I'm always doing it in a light color especially one that is near yellow because those are really easy to cover up. Those are colors that you can like... that won't show through you know even like a pretty thin layer. So, it was good in the end because I I got the spacing wrong on those chairs, but again this is just kind of a study so it's not like I'm sweating it. Um, and because I was so attached to like the chairs and the green and that's what attracted me to this in the first place, I overlooked that I'd have to be like drawing glass and that's actually really difficult. So, do I think this is like a crazy successful drawing? Like no, but then again I learned how these markers worked. This was like my first big um I say only like these markers only sketch and kind of drawing and so it was a really good way to use a bunch of colors and just try some stuff out. I'm doing a lot of layering as you're seeing and honestly the markers can take it so that's very cool. It's drying super fast too so I'm getting to experiment with a lot of like weird colors on top of each other without them mixing. Um yeah, so I'm just kind of having a blast with that. I uh what was I listening to? I was listening to um some YouTube video about Instagram growth at this time and you know everybody's always trying to grow on Instagram. That's something I'm really trying to actively do right now and it's so hard. So if you're watching this and you're not following me on Instagram, please go over there and follow me. I'm so much more active over there. That is something I'm trying to change too where I'm trying to put a lot more effort into YouTube but obviously the time it takes is like often you know triple, quadruple, five times as much as it would normally take me to do something for Instagram. So YouTube tends to be the one that falls by the wayside for me which is a huge bummer because I get a lot of joy out of putting stuff out there and like interacting with people on YouTube because you know if you're watching this like 30 minute video you might actually like me so that's pretty cool. So here it gets a little buck wild and I do realize in the reference that like the building is green but my view of the building we're seeing like so much more green than probably actually exists. I wasn't really thinking about like inventing other storefronts around this store so if I were to go back and do this again I would probably try to be a not just sort of like cloaking it in green but you know you live and you learn. You live and you learn. This is a Tombow Mono Drawing Pen. I don't, I think it might have been the zero five. I'm addicted to these pens lately. I was forever a Fudenosuke hard tip person. I mean I still am. Also please don't dog me for the pronunciation of that. I'm trying my hardest um but lately I've been picking up these Mono Drawing Pens and they're just so good. Highly recommend those if you are um feeling like a little stale with what you're using lately but I mean I'm like using them for everything. I'm kind of not leaving the house without them. Um what you, I just noticed that I like picked up a pen added more texture in the ground and then went like right back in with my drawing pen and there was absolutely no issues with that so when they say it dries fast they these pens really do dry fast so that's pretty cool. I mean you know at this point in just like content creating I think you know that like oh we're given these three things and we're meant to sort of sell them to you often for nothing in return like I'm not getting paid for this and I don't even think this is like a money-making opportunity uh but I wouldn't do this and I wouldn't tell you this if it wasn't actually true so I do think these markers are worth it. What's that? They probably don't like me to say that but I mean at the end of the day it was a compliment like I do think I do think they're worth your money. I just happen to also be glad that I got them for free. Um okay so done with this one and now we're moving on to a different sketchbook and like a more vertical situation instead of horizontal and these are imagine you're learning for the first time this is a flower. I didn't mean to say that. What I meant to say is I've been asked a lot about how to draw flowers lately so I am working on getting a sub stack out that's just going to kind of break this down for you but here's what I'm going to recommend when you're trying to draw anything so the first thing I did you saw me grab this yellow and I'm just I literally blocked out with basic shapes rectangles and circles and then sort of like football shapes for the leaves where everything is. This is going to help me kind of anchor myself in space and then I'm going to go in and add a little bit more details but I'm still doing it with a light color because I intend to just like build on top of this right so after I get the basic shapes in of where everything is then I'll go back in and I'll look at the contour line which is just that surrounding line you know what I mean that's like the outline I guess is what you would say of the flower and then I'll kind of add detail from there I'm still picking out light colors putting my horizon in by putting the table in and then I'm coming back so you'll see me try a couple different things here so then I've taken this red and I'm drawing individual leaves and I'm making sure that there's like texture in there I'm drawing oh you can't see my mouse I was about to be like I'm drawing this flower right here but you can't see it and then I picked up a pink and I wanted to put in that like outer pink color I will be honest with you the pink I picked up was like too dark and I kind of realized it a little bit too late I was also listening what was I listening to I was watching a YouTube video of Anna she's a bookstagrammer I forget her name she's so fabulous anyway I was watching a video of hers anyway so I got a little carried away but you see me kind of layer because I want to bring back all of the lightness into that flower on the bottom left that obviously is going to be a little bit easier if you leave it there with the paper and not try to layer it with white on top this flower that I'm working on now I tried to do like swatches of color first and then do the outline of the petals and I do think maybe it was more successful hold on where is that it was like I'm thinking more about like shapes and shadows yeah it's probably a bit more successful but again I got kind of carried away with the pink that dark pink that I keep picking up is not the right color but what are you gonna do this is what studies are for this is what sketchbooks are for um so then I'm thinking about the middle parts too I'm adding the texture in there I'm doing like choppy little lines oh I've picked up okay onto the leaves I'm moving faster than I'm talking so here I've got all of these leaves and stuff in you might not can see it with like a really light almost like neon-y aqua color and I've gone in with just something a little bit darker and I'm trying to get the actual like volume of the leaves in and I'm still leaving some bits because I want to keep layering I'm not the type of person that does like okay we have a leaf we're gonna do we're gonna fill in the whole thing with light green then we're gonna come on top and we're gonna do the whole thing with light green like instead I'm kind of and layering in like little bits instead of like full floods of color I hope that makes any sense I think the real MVP of this drawing painting is this color I have in my hand right here that like wine color I have it in the center of the flowers and it makes them it just like brings them to life so much I really like it I put it in a little bit of these purple flowers too um I do a lot of layers in these green leaves and also this thing fully gets away from me in a little bit and I think I even added more after I turned the camera off but again that's what a sketchbook is for I'm not here to show you my most perfect drawing or painting we're just kind of learning together so I wanted to do a like light side and a dark side and because these markers do have such a range of colors I was able to do that pretty well I think I really like the way that looks um it even kind of came in while they were wet and tried to blend a little bit more to make it a little bit more cohesive um so that's fun I love the little shadow down there and what am I doing what am I doing yeah so and here I've added too many stripes or too many grids I just I don't know what happened I things got weird and that's okay I really do like to do like a colored outline in my art especially my ceramics especially a blue um and so I had to of course finish one with a blue and then I was clapping at the end I don't know if you saw that I was just so thrilled okay moving on to my hobonichi this is um if you're unfamiliar I'm shocked if you're here and you don't know what a hobonichi is um it's kind of like my whole thing but the paper is really thin it's called tomoe river paper it's beautiful I love it um and it can actually stand up to like you know acrylic paint markers so I got two new pairs of shoes today actually is my five-year anniversary of going to my gym it is one of my most proudest proudest accomplishments and so last week I decided I was gonna treat myself to a new pair of shoes for the gym and also walking shoes um you know which if you haven't spent 350 dollars lately that is an excellent way to do it and I went to the store and it was so amazing and the guy that helped me was so nice um and it was the best and I told him later I was gonna put this in my journal and here I am doing that so I sketched everything out first with a pencil and then I I got those erogetin colored pencils again and just kind of blocked out some of the uh silvery gray so the problem with like white shoes is that they're never gonna actually look white in the drawing and I did want to showing through to like symbolize or like mimic or stand for whatever I'm trying to say um the white of the shoe and of course it gets away from me because I just can never stop and the markers are so fun to use I'm like I'm using blue here is there blue in my shoe absolutely not uh but that's okay we're just gonna have to go with it um and if you're curious what I'm listening to I'm listening to Exploration Live with Charlie Bardet and Natalie Rotter Leitman it is a hilarious hilarious comedy podcast of just two best friends bringing ideas to each other and I love them I've been listening for years and I'm so happy for them because I think they're getting a little bit bigger anyway um this purple outline does nothing to again symbolize that these shoes are white but boy do I love the way that it looks I love how 80s this color scheme turned out to be um and I love okay yeah so I just like that green so I wanted to do this thing where like the shoes were facing opposite directions and the lettering on each one matched the other shoe so that's what that's why I went green for this one and I'll do pink or maybe purple I can't remember lettering on this side um so this I really turned this shoe into the um kind of dream version of this shoe because there was just yeah it's gray it's gray and yeah I keep picking up like aqua and teal and bright green and even oh look yellow I just it really I just couldn't stop I couldn't stop I couldn't stop layering I think I even tried to come back later with like the white or the dark gray and turn it into like a closer version of what the shoe actually looks like and I yeah I don't it didn't work yeah even this navy no navy in the shoe but I couldn't stop that could not be stopped I also like to do this thing where I'm like kind of cleaning oh by the way I just checked that nothing was bleeding through on the back of this after layers and layers of stuff nothing is bleeding through I'm obsessed I like to kind of clean my pen off in the background um and kind of make those little marks like that so sometimes I'm just making them for fun other times I really am cleaning my pen in that way and I think it's fun I think it's fun adds a little excitement fills the page um of course I gotta outline I did sort of regret doing that afterwards but you live and you learn oh my desk fan that's funny I probably should cut that out but yeah I recommend getting a desk fan this is the fan fan this is a fan that I travel with because I have to have a fan blowing my face when I sleep um and when I'm not traveling with it it lives on my desk and it comes in really handy when you're having a very intense journaling session or you need something to dry a little bit faster and again I had just put so many layers on this thing um and I was about to break out my beloved drawing pen so I wanted to make sure nothing transferred to the nib um and here I'm kind of adding details I'm outlining I can't not outline something it is something I'm sort of trying to work on that's that that's not true I just lied to you I'm not trying to work on that um yeah I just think it I just think it makes everything look better I think it makes everything look finished I think no matter how bad your drawing is if you can put a confident bold black outline on it you're good to go that's just sort of my style that's sort of my mo I think if you see something not outlined I would love for you to comment and say you're so brave I'm so proud of you um I know that was really hard for you oh I just love that little shadow on the bottom that was fun and then here yeah just outlining outlining my shoe that does not look anything like the shoe I purchased and also they're not here yet I did have to special order these from the brooks website and I do wish they would come because I would like to be wearing them what else what else what else after this I took myself to dinner Elaine my girlfriend was working and um I had been drawing for a while catching up in my journal and I was famished and so I took myself to dinner and read and it was nice I'm reading Lord of the Rings there's I think there's only so many things I can say about outline so I'll tell you I'm reading Lord of the Rings I haven't read it since middle school I'm a huge fan of Lord of the Rings I have a Lord of the Rings tattoo which you might can spot um it's on my arms on my one arm not oh my god no I have two arms you know what I'm saying I only have one it's on one arm and I'm just having a great time with it it's been really exciting okay the video is nearing to an end um oh look another outline I can't be stopped I can't be stopped okay thank you for listening that went way better than I expected to be honest with you I thought I was gonna ramble about something ridiculous it's the best we're gonna get