Sketchbook Drawing Ideas: Quick Autumn Doodles

Hi everyone, my name is Nia, and today I'll be packing away my watercolors, and I'll be doodling with you instead. Since I know you guys love the autumn theme, I'm going to draw a bunch of autumn doodles that you might also want to use for Inktober. I'm going to start with a pencil for each, then I'm going to outline them with a liner pen, or you can also use a dip ink pen if you have access to it. For the first one, I'm going to begin by drawing out a pumpkin. I'm going to angle it, which is why you see it's slightly tilting here. I started with a slightly squarish oval, then I indicated the point of view with the stem, and then divided in two sections. You can also be creative here with the stems by making it longer or swirl more, even change up the pumpkin shape if you would like to. Now I'm going to first outline the pumpkin sections. Here you can see that I haven't really warmed up my hands yet, so it's slightly shaky, but that's okay. As for these types of doodles, I actually prefer the lines to not be as neat, because I feel like when it's too neat, sometimes it looks less organic and kind of similar to a clip art instead. So that's just my preference, and it's really up to you how far you want to take this. For the swirl of the stem, I like to vary the thickness so it looks more natural, and then I'm adding a bit of texture around the bottom and some of the sides of the pumpkin by adding dots and small curvy lines. I'm making those markings dense where the darker parts are, and I spread them out more for the transition of valley. I also added slightly longer lines to depict a little bit of texture, then I added a swirl on the stem to finish everything off, and just erase the pencil marks once I'm done. Next, I'm going to draw out mushrooms. I don't know what types these are because I was just drawing it out randomly, but I think they look like button mushrooms, the type that we eat. I tried to vary the size and angles, and then I'm going to add the features such as the gills and the skirt of the mushrooms. These features will not only help as details, but because the gills are made with so many lines, it's actually going to help a lot with the perspective of the mushrooms. Here, as you can see, I am drawing with disconnected lines for the outline. This is because when my hands are not warm, sometimes it's hard to get smoother curves, so whenever you feel like you've reached the limit, just take your hand off, then continue to outline. Even if you leave a gap, I think that it actually gives your drawing a bit more character. I think this is a very common problem, like for instance, my students tend to force themselves to keep going when they're inking or outlining, and they create very jagged lines instead due to the shake, and even if I do enjoy those uneven lines, in this case, the jagged lines will be a little bit too disruptive because you've lost total control. For the texture, I'm using the same method all across my doodles because that's the technique I'm comfortable in, and as I add those small curved lines for texture, you can see me following the curves of the imaginary cross contour lines, which in the end will help create the three-dimensional form, even without coloring it in. For the bottom stem, I also added very thin lines. You can also switch to a smaller pen if you would like to, and then I decorated it with a little bit of moss around the mushrooms. I also decided to darken certain areas to give the drawing a bit more depth and dimension by thickening the lines to depict shadows. Next here, I'm going to draw a cup of tea. You can also do coffee or any type of comforting warm drinks to suit the theme. I'm adding a slight tilt to the composition here so it looks a bit more flowy, but if that's not to your liking, you can also draw them flat at the bottom if you choose to. For this, I want to draw out some sweet treats to go with the tea, and for that, I'm going to keep this simple by drawing out cubes to represent those small square wafers. It also makes it much easier to draw out, but again, you can substitute with your favorite sweet treats if you would like to. Now I'm ready to outline. As you outline your drawings, you can start wherever you would like to. For me, I personally never follow a rule, so here I started with this theme so I don't forget that I want to do something different for the line. For this, I use dashed lines so the swirl of the theme will not be too strong against the main drawing. Then I'm going to outline the rest. You can also erase at any time after you've got most of the outline of the shapes because sometimes those pencil marks can become a bit distracting when you're drawing out the texture and shade. You might already notice that when I draw out the pencil drawings, I don't usually add on the smaller details except for some that I might forget. So for the wafers, I kept it as just cubes as indication, but as I outline, I'm going to divide the wafers into layers with the chocolate filling. Then I switch to my smaller size pen, which is a 0.5 to add the crisscross texture for the top surface of the wafer cookies. Then I'm going to finish off by adding a bit of shadows and colour in certain areas like the tea. You'll see me directing my lines in different angles or curves in specific drawings. Essentially, it's better to always follow the shape of the object you're drawing so you have a good indication of the planes or the surfaces of those objects by drawing out those lines. And like I mentioned before, this will also help to create the form of those objects. Here I thought the composition of the wafers were a bit off so I added another one at the bottom to support the one at the top. Next, I'm going to draw another pumpkin. I think it's a pumpkin or maybe a squash. I don't really know the technicalities and the difference. I actually just made the shape up. But anyway, I want this one to have more of an organic shape and for the sections to not be as defined as the previous traditional Halloween pumpkin. So to indicate those sections, I added longer dashed lines to break the lines and lighten those sections. Then I finished everything off the same way as I doodled on the first pumpkin. When you're adding texture on white areas, be careful to not overdo them. Less is more and remember that you can't erase this so it's very important to know when to stop. There's another doodle video coming and I've made that mistake there so just be mindful when you're doodling with ink. Here I'm going to draw an oak leaf which is super simple. I drew this out like how I drew out the oak leaves in my acorn painting. I made the curves nice and smooth but I'm going to change this as I outline it so the pencil drawing will just act as a guide. You'll see as I'm outlining it, the lines I make is very jagged and I create small curvy lines to give it a little bit more texture and then I added the veins and the midrib. For the veins, I used my smaller size pen which is the 0.05 because I want those lines to be much finer. Then I also added some tiny dots here and there around those areas to give it a little bit of texture and not make it look too flat. For the next drawing, I'm going to draw a jar of jam. You can also turn this into honey if you'd like to. I've covered how to draw bottles or jars in several of my videos already and the trick is to have a line running in the middle to help as guide. This is especially useful when you're drawing it out on a slight angle like what I'm doing here to help you figure out the center point of the jar so it doesn't look wonky. I've made the composition this way with the bottle of jam and also the small bowl on the side but you can also switch up the composition if you would like to. It will also look really cute if you have the fruits around the jar of jam so like strawberries or oranges and stuff like that and it's really up to you. You can be creative with this. This is just an idea but you can always change it up to suit your liking. I've added a lot of texture for the jam so it looks a little bit darker which is why I added quite a bit of dots but if you want the jam to look lighter, so if you want to draw something like a marmalade, you don't have to draw as many dots as I did so the jam will look lighter overall. Moving on here, I'm going to doodle a pumpkin pie. You can also change this up to a carrot cake or a pumpkin cake or even muffins. I didn't really think of muffins but I think that would actually be great for this. I'm keeping this one simple with not too many garnishes as pumpkin pies look pretty simple so just the slice with the crust and a dollop of cream. The only difference with this is I made the side of the crust a bit darker just to separate the shape from the top part of the crust. For the texture of slice on the side, I added a little bit of diagonal etchings to represent the texture a knife makes when it cuts through the dense pies but just remember to not add too much texture because we don't want to overdo the colour and make it too dark. As for the texture of the crust, I decided to add curved lines near the pie itself to add a bit of shadow and the curved lines will also help with the form and dimension of the pie. This next one is very easy. I'm just going to draw two apples and I'm pretty sure you all know how to draw these. I know that this is turning more into an autumn food themed doodle except for the leaf but you can also add books, gloves, socks or beanies and things like that. I guess I can only relate with autumn themed foods from here because that's the only thing available in this country since it's practically hot all year round. For the last one, I'm going to draw a cinnamon roll. For this, I'm drawing out a very short cylindrical shape that is a bit larger at the bottom so the bread doesn't look too stiff. Then I added layers one by one. I'm trying to make the lines have a bit more volume so it looks a bit thicker and I'm making the lines slightly uneven so it looks fluffier that way. And then lastly, I'm going to draw the drips of the icing. To outline this, I decided to draw the icing first so I can focus on creating the thick gooey texture and I want the bread to look like it's covered by the icing even without using colour so I'm making different line weights and mixing dashed lines to soften the edges and make them look a bit unclear. Then finish off with the texture and shadows of the cinnamon roll. Next to the cinnamon roll, there is a bit of space so here I just drew out some cinnamon sticks to fill in that area. So all of the doodles are finished but last but not least, I'm going to add little decorative elements to round out those doodles together so they look like one cohesive piece instead of separate objects. You can add anything you want for this. I personally added some dashed lines to represent wind blowing, some autumn leaves and also random circles for added texture and that's pretty much it. So this is the finished page of doodles. I quite enjoy making doodles like this because I don't usually draw for the sake of drawing very often so my line work is very limited most of the time but I hope you guys enjoy this as much as the watercolor paintings and hopefully this can serve as inspiration for your inktober if you decide to participate this year. Anyway, like usual, all of the tools and links to my social media will be in the box. Thank you so much for watching till the end and I'll see you at the next one. Bye!