I Drew Every Day For 7 days - Here's What I Learned

Today I'm drawing in my sketchbook for one entire week, including the weekend, so seven days. And basically, my goal for this challenge was to just see what I would create and just try to get into the flow of using my sketchbook more often. And actually, lately I have been using my sketchbook a lot more often, so since I was already on a good track with that, I thought I would try to push it a little bit further and draw every single day for seven days in my sketchbook. And here's just like a little preview of some of the stuff I've been doodling over the last few days. This isn't part of the video, this is sort of like some pages that have led me to this point. I've been having a lot of fun in my sketchbook, honestly. I feel like I've really gotten into the groove, so this video was a lot of fun for me to do, and I'm almost done my sketchbook now, which is always a really exciting point to be at. So, this is day one. You can kind of see how many pages are left. I think there's about like eight spreads, so like 16 full pages front and back. And I wanted to begin by sort of warming up and coloring around some sketches I made a few days ago. I think this is a really great way to sort of settle in to a drawing session, and for this challenge I didn't really set myself any hard rules. The only rule I had was do something in your sketchbook once a day for seven days, and that's what I did. So, some days I didn't draw that much. I just sort of did some sketches and called it a day, but other days I really got into it and had a lot of fun. So, I purposely made it an easy challenge to do, because I think that's sort of how I want to approach things. Like, I don't want to force myself to fill a page if I'm not feeling it that day, because I'm just going to end up in a worse mood than I started. So, the point is to just sort of do something every day, just to sort of stay warmed up, stay on a roll, like not be afraid of a blank page. I think if you do a little bit every day, it really adds up to a lot. So, you'll see that some days I drew a lot more than others, and I think it's pretty interesting to see like when you can tell that I'm sort of hesitating, or I'm feeling not as warmed up, or I'm feeling like stiff that day, and other days where things just kind of click and you can sort of tell I'm having a much better time. The first day here, you saw I sort of worked on a page, a spread from before. I like to go back and forth to old pages and add stuff here and there. I think it's a nice low pressure way to get into sketching for the day, because you're not starting on a blank page, you're starting on stuff that you've already made in the past, and you're just sort of adding on to it. Your hand is actually like physically getting used to the- your actual hand is getting warmed up and getting like physically, like it's moving around, holding the pencil, like doing circles and stuff. And then, I wanted to draw this cute bird that I saw on Pinterest, and I think this was a- I don't know, I don't want to say a bad way to start the day, but you can kind of tell I'm already not really like warmed up. It looks a little flat, a little stiff, I'm kind of like forcing it. So, at a certain point, I just sort of decided, okay, this is gonna look how it's gonna look. I'm not gonna obsess over this too much. I think I actually like had a pretty good time using markers on this guy, and if you want to know what that opaque paint marker is, it is the Molotow- no, Molotov. Molotov? I think that's how you say that brand. I find their colors are pretty opaque, so I like to keep a white one handy for highlights. And for that nice gray marker, it's this Faber-Castell watercolor marker. I love it a lot. I want all the colors, but I'm not gonna buy them just because, uh, I don't spend too much money on that yet. I have so many art supplies and, like, one of my goals this year is to use things that I already have to make art. Like, if I already have a similar supply, I really want to get use out of it before I decide to buy something new. So, that's sort of one of my, like, 2026 resolutions. Like, of course I'm going to be trying out some other new types of supplies. Like, I'm trying out oil painting for the first time in, uh, March. You'll see a video about that at the end of March. And that has been a lot of fun. So, like, obviously I don't have any oil paints, so I had to get some. Well, I got them sent to me, but you'll see that in another video. And as usual for the markers, like the main markers that I'm coloring a lot of stuff with, with the little labels on the cap, like you can see that purple one there, those are Ohuhu water-based markers that I've had for years and years. I use them all the time. I have so many colors of them and they're just, like, my old reliable sketchbooking markers. They're water-based, so they can be a bit streaky, but I don't mind. It's just for sketching. And they kind of allow me to play with color in a really fun and simple way. So, I really love using them. I have a whole bunch beside my desk and they're just, like, so easy for me to grab and use. And, uh, I try to make sure to do a mix of, like, more detailed stuff, but then remember that I can do simple stuff too. And sometimes doing simple, quick gestural sketches are the ones that you actually learn the most from. And I feel like your true style kind of shines through more when you do these, like, fast little doodles. And they almost, like, feel better to do because you're warmed up and you're just, like, quickly capturing the energy of some kind of, like, whatever reference photo you're looking at or something from your from your mind. I feel like these little doodles are where, like, my style comes through the most. So, I try to remember to, like, not do these, like, big heavy-handed studies. Like, I want to do more doodles, more fun stuff, capture the energy of stuff. I want to simplify things more in my sketchbook because, like, that's my favorite way to sketch truly. And I think when I'm using a watercolor book like this, I have this pressure in my head to, like, like, okay, if this is a watercolor sketchbook with really thick paper, I have to do nicer stuff because the paper's so nice. Why would I waste it on these stupid little doodles? But, um, I don't know. I feel like I need to get away from that that line of thinking. And I think what will help me is my next sketchbook. Um, I can't decide what I want to use. Like, I have all these sketchbooks sitting around and, um, I'm not sure if I want to use any of them. Like, a lot of them are ones that got given to me, like, a long time ago from, like, various brands. So, maybe I should sort of take inventory and decide to, like, fill one of those instead of buying a new one. But I also really want to use another Royal Talens sketchbook because I loved that one and there's so many pages in it and I feel like I can really just, like, be free in there because I'm not worried about wasting the paper because it's, like, thin and it's also really durable, nice quality paper. So, I'm still deciding what do you think I should do for my next sketchbook? Let me know your thoughts. Should I try to use one that I have as, like, a challenge for myself or, like, get a new one? Obviously, I should use what I have because that's sort of my goal for this year. And I actually have this really nice, big, square sketchbook. I think I'm going to use that one next. I really want to use up what I have. I have this weird stone sketchbook as well which is, like, I don't really like it that much. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Um, I heard that stone sketchbooks are kind of, like, greenwashing as well. I don't know. But here's the end of day one. Nice little bird spread. I wasn't, like, super thrilled with what I did this day. I felt a little rusty and awkward in front of the camera but at least I drew something. Now for a quick break to thank this video sponsor which is Squarespace. I use Squarespace to host my portfolio in my about page and also to sell digital downloads. I like to keep my digital downloads separate from my physical store just to sort of have a separation there. And Squarespace was super easy to set up. I sell two Procreate brush packs that I made myself. I scanned all the textures myself and I really enjoy designing the page on my Squarespace site where I actually sell them. And back when I first made this page I was really having a lot of fun playing around with their, like, image tools. You can crop them in different shapes and sort of, like, tweak the settings to make it wavier or pointier. It's really fun to play around with and I think it just adds a nice little stylish element to your page. And of course being an artist it's essential to have a portfolio somewhere and my portfolio is also on Squarespace. They're really useful gallery tools where you can just upload all your images at once, drag and drop them, rearrange them, and it will be displayed all nicely in a grid. If you would like to try out Squarespace head to squarespace.com for a free trial. When you're ready to launch your site go to squarespace.com slash gelarts to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Now back to the rest of the video. Now for day two I wanted to kind of keep it a little more loose and fun this day so I grabbed a blue Muji pen that I've had for, I don't know, a long time. I don't even know if it's my pen. I think it is mine. And I just wanted to doodle some birds. I did one from my mind and now I can't remember if I used references for these guys. I think I did for some of them, like probably for this one I did, but I was kind of focusing on simplifying the birds this day and I wanted to use something that wouldn't let me erase because then it allows me to be more decisive with my lines and think a little more carefully because if I'm using something that can erase then I sort of allow myself to not really think that hard and just kind of like draw whatever, erase, and I try to like perfect things too much. But when you use a pen there is more room for error or is there less room for error? You sort of have to be very decisive with your lines and accept any imperfections. So that helped this day and I just really like stylizing birds and finding different ways to draw them and oh yeah I was looking at a photo of a chicken and I was pretty happy with how I was depicting all of these little birds and just like I was trying to really observe the reference photos and decide what parts I wanted to draw and what parts I wanted to simplify more. And I also didn't want to go too crazy with the mixed media stuff this day. I think I limited it to like this blue pen and some marker. I did use some acrylic marker later on like there was one sketch that I did that I just like really didn't like so I covered it up which you know I let myself do that for peace of mind. Like I like to accept certain imperfections but there's a point where if something makes me feel like really like ugh when I look at it I like to cover it up just for my peace of mind. I don't think there's anything wrong with that but you should be able to accept a degree of mistakes and imperfections because it's a sketchbook. It's for playing around and I really like using a colored pen to do lines and sketches and then taking a similar colored marker so I use this like nice vivid blue to add the shadows. I think it's a nice exercise in being decisive with your shadows and how you want things to be depicted because sometimes it can be daunting to use a dark color on a really light canvas. I think a lot of artwork benefits from a good range of values so there's nice dark blacks and grays and then lighter highlights and I think a lot of people are scared to add the really dark shadows especially when I'm drawing like I don't know say like black animals so like black cats or like a chicken that's like a dark color or like a dog or some kind of animal that has a dark colored coat. It's really hard to commit to that first initial dark wash of color because you want it to be you want it to appear as a dark colored animal but you you're almost afraid to like go too harsh and it just feels so permanent when you're laying down a really dark shadow. So I think sort of forcing yourself to do that sometimes can make you realize that it's not as scary as you think and it can actually really benefit the piece to add those nice harsh contrasting shadows because it really just makes the lighter areas appear even lighter. So if you want your piece to have a degree of bright light sometimes you really need those dark shadows because it allows you to compare the light colors to something. It gives them a point of reference because if the darkest color in your illustration is a super light gray then nothing is going to look light because everything is light if that makes sense. This is really dependent on the style and the vibes of your piece and like what you want it to look like in the end but that's just sort of like a general rule of thumb that I try to keep in the back of my mind and a good way to check your values is to well one thing you can do for traditional art is to take a picture of it bring it into photoshop or a program with layers make a new layer on top set it to some kind of gray or black and then set the layer mode of the gray layer to color and this will allow you to see your piece in black and white and I think using the color layer mode takes into account saturation a little bit better than just like desaturating your layer so that's a good way to check your values and if you don't have a program you can just take a picture with your phone and just take it into the editor and desaturate it all the way that will also give you a decent idea of your lights and darks. I had a lot of fun with this page it was nice and easy and fun and I like everything that I drew and I also just loved using that blue muji pen I think sometimes just picking one supply that you just love the way it feels on the page is a great way to sketch and be successful. I also added some doodles to the left side as well because I felt like it needed a little bit more stuff on the page. I did not film day three but I did draw I did all these little bears I think it took me 15 minutes I did it right before bed and I was like yep that's enough for me and then I went to sleep and the next day I actually drew a lot more and filmed it. Of course my initial plan was to film every day but I also knew that there would be days where I was really busy and just like did not want to set the camera up but I made sure I still drew that day and that's the only day that I didn't film and I think that's sort of almost like a break day and it gave me something to look forward to the next day because I drew all those bears and then I was like I haven't drawn bears in a couple years and they're really fun to draw they are so cute I find them really challenging so I sort of became obsessed with bears for the rest of this challenge and I think it was a lot of fun and I also did some watercolor I did some marker I did some pen I used a new pen that I haven't really used in this way before you'll see what I mean by the end by the fifth day or or sixth day I'm not really sure but I find bears really tricky to draw there's something about their their body shape and their legs like I think I understand their head for the most part but the way their legs connect to their body especially their front legs just really stumps me so I feel like I need to do a lot more doodles and sketches and maybe even look at a bear skeleton or see how other artists draw them because I'm like determined to crack the code on drawing bears and I want to make February's Patreon package bear themed because I have all these bear sketches now and I wasn't even like specifically drawing any one type of bear I was just kind of drawing like whatever bears I found on Pinterest and trying to like simplify them and interpret them in my own style and I tried to draw a few without using reference and I'm probably going to continue to draw bears even like after this video just so I can like really figure out their anatomy I feel like bears are one of those animals that I always forget about that I know people like I think like the most popular sticker and print in my store is my salmon bear sticker and my salmon bear print and I just really love the concept of those and I want to do some other kind of bear character what kind of bear character should I do I might already come up with the sketches by the time you see this video but we'll see and that is a nice short and sweet day three and four but also very productive pretty happy with these sketches they're not perfect especially the one at the bottom something just doesn't look right about his front legs I don't know what it is but I tried my best day five was a Saturday and I had a nice morning walked my dog made my coffee and then I think I sat down and started doing watercolor on the bear sketches I was torn whether or not I wanted to color them or leave them as pencil but I thought you know this is a watercolor sketchbook let's do some watercolor practice and use the watercolors that I'm less familiar with which are the Schmincke Horeden watercolors and I decided to do wet on wet for the base colors because for some reason I forgot that I used to paint like this all the time I would wet the entire thing let it like seep into the page and then drop color in and let it like softly all blend into each other and then do a few layers of that and then start to add details I completely forgot that that used to be my technique like all these years because I've just been doing like like dry watercolor like wet on dry for like a long time in my sketchbook recently like that's been my go-to technique but this time I was like wait a minute I used to just like wet the page and just drop colors in like why am I not doing this anymore so I did and honestly it kind of unlocked something in my brain I was like yeah this is how I'm supposed to be doing watercolor like I used to do it like this all the time and it sort of made me want to do like a large scale watercolor piece but I'm not sure if I uh have that kind of time I should make the time though because like literally art is my full-time job like I should have time for that so maybe I will before I do any traditional piece though I really need to plan it out digitally and I need to do a colored sketch so I need to have the general colors planned out and then I print that off and use that as a guide for my painting that is honestly how like pretty much every artist does it I shouldn't say every artist but I feel like most artists have a plan going into their traditional pieces probably not all of them I shouldn't speak for everyone when I say that but it's a really common workflow to like have everything planned before you jump in and it just makes it so much easier you have a much higher success rate because you know exactly what you're doing where all the colors should be and you just have to focus on making the art supplies behave mixing the colors and managing all that stuff as I mentioned I'm using my Schmincke watercolors and what I really like about these watercolors is that they are very transparent at least the colors that I have I know with certain watercolor brands some colors might be transparent some might not be it kind of depends on the pigment and like if it's supposed to be transparent or not like they might have a really transparent yellow or more opaque yellow but I think my yellow is very transparent and the cool thing about transparent watercolors is that you can see the paper texture more easily and this kind of gives the illusion that sort of like a light can pass through like they sort of have this luminescent quality to them and it just kind of gives the the painting this nice ethereal feeling it just kind of feels more like it's actually water it's sort of hard to describe but the reason why watercolor looks so different from say acrylic paint is because you can see the paper texture I've seen really skilled watercolor artists do paintings of say like a a nighttime scene on a street where it's raining and there's just reflections everywhere and it just looks like the painting is actually wet like they have such such an eye for capturing that sort of atmosphere and the watercolor lends itself so nicely to just showing wet pavement reflections puddles and you can see the paper texture if you did that with oils or acrylic paint you usually can't see the paper texture but oil paint also has like a luminescent quality to it as well just just because of the nature of the paint but with like gouache and acrylic it doesn't necessarily have that look to it because it's thick it's opaque you're doing layers on layers and it's just a different type of medium and that's why I really like watercolor it just has this movement to it this energy this like rawness because you're literally using water to paint you're literally using colored water to paint there are techniques in watercolor painting where you would go more opaque I haven't really played around with that much like um some watercolor kits have white and I always had it in my head that if you want there to be white on your painting you should leave white areas on the page that's sort of my preferred style because I find once I start introducing white into the watercolor it's gonna lose that transparent feeling and it's going to start becoming muddy just because of the way like I'm just not that good with using white in watercolor I like to use it more as like um an accent to go on top to add highlights I think that's how I like to use it if I mix it into the color I have a danger of making it muddy and if I'm gonna do that I might as well just um use it like gouache like I I do sometimes squeeze some white gouache onto my palette and kind of do some more opaque layers sometimes I would like to be able to achieve everything I want to achieve without having to use white because that's just like my preferred style I just love the way that type of watercolor looks at least for sketches but I also am uh very much a mixed media artist so I end up going over my watercolor anyway with pencil and sometimes gouache sometimes acrylic marker but at the back of my mind I always admire the artists that can do an entire beautiful scene just with watercolor they don't need anything else I find that really admirable and it's something that I kind of strive for in the back of my head but I always end up caving and adding stuff on top anyways I don't think that makes me less of an artist it's just sort of like yeah I can't go any further with watercolor um because like when you're painting with watercolor it gets darker and darker it's not opaque at all I guess some colors can be but like generally speaking every stroke you make darkens your illustration you can't go lighter you you can't go lighter that easily like you can wet certain areas and dab it off the paper but it'll never go back to that pure white canvas so sometimes if you want to go lighter you got to introduce gouache you got to introduce a white color you have to add some pencils some pastel and I try to embrace that because it's just less of a headache and allows me to achieve the look I want but if you can really plan ahead preserve the whites of your paper use some masking fluid you can create some really nice effects just with watercolor and it has that like nice raw natural energy to it that I just love I had so much fun this day I was able to kind of slow down and just do some like nice sketchy loose watercolor like it's not perfect by any means but it was a lot of fun and I think I learned a lot too especially like dealing with browns that's always kind of tricky and the next day I will be adding on to these even more I I was debating whether or not to stick to just watercolor but since these are sketches and for exploration and just like playing around with how I want to draw these bears I felt okay going on top of them with some other media day six the second last day I had my studio assistant as you can see she's always there ready to assist me um I wanted to get out my colored pencils for this day my pencil crayons as my fellow Canadians call them I find myself switching to colored pencils just to like not confuse people but we really do call them pencil crayons in Canada and I'm Canadian so I don't want to betray my people but um I decided I wanted to mainly use my Caran d'Ache luminance pencils I don't have as many colors as I would like because my main pencil crayon brand that I have been collecting since I was a teenager which was a long time ago now are the Prismacolor Premier pencils and the cool thing about those is that they have a soft core they're very buttery smooth they lay on top of things really nicely they're very opaque and they're really great for lightening areas of watercolor while maintaining a nice texture to them I just feel like pencil crayon and watercolor are a match made in heaven it just allows you to like take it that one step further add some texture add some interest to find some areas without using a harsh pen because sometimes using ink on top of watercolor can be a little bit harsh but with a pencil crayon it's sort of this nice soft gritty noisy kind of texture and I really like it so you can kind of see me switching between a lot of different brands I had this phase last year where I wanted to compare a bunch of colored pencil brands I went through a phase where I wanted to try a bunch of new art supplies to kind of get out of a rut because I'd been using the same things for so long and I thought you know what else is out there so I went on to some art supply stores I think I actually asked for people's suggestions on what I should try but I don't really remember if I did that but I went on to like I think I mainly order them from Jackson's art supplies I just like to order from there they're overseas but their shipping is usually very reasonable and they have like a really nice stock like they have a lot of brands in stock and I think a lot of the brands I like are kind of made overseas anyways so I think I have the Holbein pencil crayons I have the Caran d'Ache ones I have some Faber-Castell ones the Prismacolor ones I tried out a bunch last year I have a video of it it's not a formal review though I was planning on doing a formal like comparison but I ultimately just like didn't end up doing that because I just started to get really tired of using a colored pencil I just think they are exhausting for my hand they're very tiring for my hand I tend to have a really tight grip on things I just can't really help it like I really should try to not do that but it's just the way I am and the way that I've always been so using watercolor is nice because I don't hold brushes really tight but I do hold pencils tight because I tend to like to go straight to the dark color instead of like building up layers because I like to sort of do lines with them and outline areas I guess that's what you would call burnishing where you press super hard and like flatten the paper texture to have a nice solid colored pencil line but um the pros will color very lightly in small circles and build it up slowly over time and I should probably practice that but that's not really what I did today I just kind of like wanted to add lines and texture and just kind of bring these bears more into focus and speaking of these bears if you got this far in this video um I'm working on my February Patreon package I actually send out a package every single month to my lovely patrons and if you get the full package it includes a brand new art print a brand new sketchbook print and the sketchbook print is sort of a collage of sketches from my sketchbook I just like scan a bunch of pages and piece them together and make it into a nice print and I will clean it up digitally as well and it also comes with a brand new sticker so it's like three brand new designs you can get mailed to you shipping is included no matter where you live it's 18 US dollars um any international patron is welcome you can get it sent to you if you just want the prints it's 14 dollars if you just want the sticker it is eight dollars and this month is going to be all about bears if you like bears you might want to keep an eye out on my Patreon I'm actually really happy with how the sketchbook print turned out I actually did it first and now I just need to do the print and the sticker and all of these tiers on my Patreon gives you access to hundreds of posts that I've in the past of sketchbook scans and newsletters and speed paints just there's so much content on my Patreon and any of these tiers gives you access to it for at least a month and if you continue your pledge you can continue to get access day seven a Monday the final day and I think I actually had a pretty good Monday because I started it by sketching and I found that that's been a really great way to start the day I often feel like I have to go to my desk like look at all my really urgent tasks and like okay I need to get this done first I gotta get this done I gotta get this done but if I start my day doing something like this and just like doodling noodling around in my sketchbook it actually like sets your brain into this really good like relaxed state and I feel like I can tackle other tasks with a little bit more like mindfulness without feeling panicked about everything it just sort of calms you down it's a nice way to open the day it gives you that dopamine hit of getting some sketches done and I'm gonna really try to do this going forward and it really doesn't have to be anything good it doesn't have to be anything that takes a long time I can like pump out a lot of sketches in a 20 minute period I just feel like that tiny bit of time you give yourself in the morning can go a really long way like I think we tend to underestimate how much of a difference like very small baby steps every day can actually make in the long run because I drew in my sketchbook every single day for a week and I got so many pages filled and sometimes weeks go by where I don't draw on my sketchbook I will draw like digitally I will sketch digitally I will make art on my iPad or just like I won't use my sketchbook very often this year I've used my sketchbook so often and I feel like I've just been in a better mood in general there's just something about it the more you use your sketchbook the easier it is to keep using it it's kind of like I've talked to like therapists about motivation and basically all of them say like motivation has to come from you like you have to get the ball rolling for it to keep rolling and it's hard like it's hard to kind of like show up every single day and do these small practiced tasks the thing you need to remember is that you don't have to do it for that long it's not like you have to sit down for an hour every single day and sketch like some of these days I was sitting down for like maximum 30 minutes and maybe you don't have 30 minutes maybe you have five minutes you can do a lot in five minutes and I just I always fall into this trap of thinking like if I don't have a set block of time for something then I might as well not even do it and wait for a day where I do have a lot of time and it's really hard to make like incremental progress because you can't really like see all of these small steps will lead to in the end once you do it over time consistently and I don't know maybe maybe this video will kind of show you that even if you don't have a lot of time to make art if you set aside a couple minutes every single day you're going to be surprised at how much you actually accomplish and at first you might feel rusty you might feel awkward but then near the end you might realize like hey this is actually getting a bit easier it's kind of like exercise if you exercise regularly say 10 minutes every day 20 minutes every day it's going to be hard at first but then eventually you're going to realize like hey I actually am not that sore this day I can actually do a lot more than I thought and that's the same for art honestly that's what I believe and I just found this final day I had so much fun like there was just something really fun about this day um my sketches kind of came more easily to me I think because I was drawing bears for so many days in a row this day I was just like yeah this is so fun like look at my weird little bear sketches and I was using some marker colors that I don't normally use I was being a little bit more bold with what I was putting down on the page and trying to not be afraid of messing up because like there's this one bear head that looks totally like horrible in my opinion because I didn't really like I don't know I went a little bit too overboard with the media and this one bear the first one of him lying down it like looks kind of weird but I know when I look back at this sketchbook I'm not going to regret drawing any of this like I'm just going to be like wow I must have had fun this day like sketching with a pink pencil and I also just really love the way that one guy turned out with all his like little feet together and he's looking down I really like that sketch and um I probably already mentioned this but I'm using Ohuhu water-based markers you can use any marker like I don't think these are that fancy at all um they're not even that expensive either just like use whatever you have and you'll be surprised at like what kind of art you can make with such like limited supplies and materials this is kind of a new supply like I literally just said use what you have and now I'm like look at this new pen I got but I picked this up because I was like really trying to find a brown pen for journaling but this one ended up being too dark you can see it through my pages I think I got this back in like January or February it was like two or three dollars but it's a Pentel EnerGel and I actually really like Pentel EnerGels um I have a whole box of them that my dad gave me once because I mentioned that I liked them he got me a whole box of black ones so it's always nice having those but I decided to get a brown one because it never occurred to me that they come in different colors and it works really well as like a sketchbook line art pen actually so if you're looking for like a really nice juicy pen to do quick outlines I'd recommend these Pentel EnerGels I got mine at Staples they have them open stock at Staples sometimes it worries me to buy stuff open stock at like non-art supply stores because you never know what people have done with them because this didn't have its like factory seal on the tip like you know how new pens will have this like rubber seal so that you know no one has used it yet this didn't have that but I just thought you know what I'm just gonna buy it anyway and uh I really like this pen because it's a gel pen you have to let it dry a little bit more than just like felt tip pens but it doesn't take that long to dry and I really like it I think the hardest part for me for this challenge was actually filming myself because I know that I draw differently when the camera is running I know that I like feel a little bit more perceived I feel a little bit more awkward when I know that the camera is watching me I feel like I'm sort of like restricting myself and I find that my best sketchbook days are when the camera is not on me because I can sit however I want I can watch whatever I want I can like draw whatever I want without worrying about what the camera sees and like I share my sketchbook everywhere anyway I don't know why the camera makes me feel so awkward I think it's like I'm always worried about what's in the shot I have to make sure that the camera is rolling I can't like move move my sketchbook around too much I can't like get my head too close to the page it is a little bit like trickier to film and draw at the same time and that's like the hardest part of this quote-unquote challenge although I didn't really find this that challenging there was one day where I didn't film I just drew at night and then I showed you what I drew the next day but I think doing this for a week has gotten me a little more used to drawing and and filming myself I mean I've been filming myself drawing for over 10 years now I I'm used to it it still just like feels a little bit different than drawing by yourself though there's something very nice about drawing alone without the camera watching you but I like to share my process online share my process with you I really hope you enjoyed this video it's a long one a lot longer than usual uh let me know like how often do you use your sketchbook do you use it every day maybe a lot more people use it every day than I thought and this is not really a challenge for most people but for me it kind of was and I want to be the kind of artist that uses my sketchbook every day that's like the dream scenario and if I just do a couple minutes 20 minutes 30 minutes five minutes every day I think it will greatly like improve my life as an artist so I really hope you enjoyed this video thank you so much for watching and I will see you in my next video