A week in my studio: everyday drawing, exploring creative ideas & new watercolor and acrylic art

Hi friends, thank you for joining. Today I'm interrupting my regular filming pattern because I planned something slightly different for this video and I just wanted to quickly pop up and explain to you what I'm up to today. So October was a little bit of a weird month, so it was somewhat disruptive. I made a lot of traveling, I went to the Creative Con and I was on vacation, then I was having my birthday celebration. I was also busy with some design work, which was on a tight time. time schedule and of course I was doing my mail club. This being said I didn't have a lot of time left for some other projects which are not work related projects and I feel like it's very important to have these little pockets of time which are dedicated just for some fun things you know which you do just for yourself and not for some commissioned work. And if you follow me here or on my social media you may have noticed that Starting from spring, I was trying to maintain this regular sketching routine. I make some small sketches in my sketch pad and experiment with different materials. In part, it was because I wanted to break from my perfectionist obsession with detailed and refined paintings. So that's something that I always do for my fine art paintings and for the illustrations, but I felt like with the sketches I can be a little bit more free and experiment with different techniques and it's just not so demanding. So, and as I said, October was a bit disruptive, so I stopped doing it because I didn't have a lot of time to do anything outside of my work projects. So yeah, I decided that like this last week of October will be dedicated specifically For that, I made a goal that I want to draw something in my sketchbook every day and I decided that I will not be picking just like one sketchbook because I have several of them in different formats and that allows me to experiment with different materials and different stuff. So, the goal is just to do it every day and I'm gonna take you with me on this journey and we see how that will work out. So, okay, shall we? And just like that, the first illustration of the week was done. For the next few days, I was mainly cooped up at home, drinking a lot of tea to keep myself warm and spending time in my garden in between work. There will not be much time left to enjoy the sunshine outside, so I was trying to make the best of it before it gets too cold. During those few days, I managed to finish a small illustration of a whimsical mouse, which was absolutely not inspired by the family of mice living in my garden. I also sketched a two-page cozy tea time spread in my A5 sketchbook using a steaming teapot on my desk as my main reference. That one took two days in total to complete. Then the view from my studio window finally started changing colors, so I sat down to make a sketch of the rooftops scattered among the autumn trees. It's day 6 and the stream of ideas has been thinning Luckily, I knew just the place where I could replenish them. I'm starting to speak now. The final day of the week I searched for inspiration in one of my favorite scenes in the world – books. I went on a book-buying spree in October and ended up with a hefty pile of new reads. And honestly, nothing is as inspiring for an artist like myself as all those gorgeous covers. Recently I also tried page folding for the first time. If you don't know what it is, it's basically folding pages in a certain sequence to form 3D text. I started with the simplest design, one that doesn't require cutting or double folding, and was totally fascinated by the result. And just like that it was time to draw again. Joy to the one who loves to hope. Thank you guys for staying until the end of this video to see this little experiment to the end. So I'm happy to report that I'm quite pleased with how it all worked out. So I actually learned a lot from this one week of everyday sketching. First of all, I realized that I can actually be quite productive, you know, because it's always a big concern for me that I'm creating the illustrations in a very slow pace. So it takes a lot of time for me to complete one piece. Partly because I'm very obsessed with details and I'm a perfectionist, so I really wanted to look like exactly the way how I see it in my head, you know, until I can say like, okay, it is done. I was actually quite glad that I can still step away a little bit from this like perfectionistic vision of mine and, you know, create little illustrations which are not entirely perfect, which do not have maybe the amount of details which I normally add to them, but I'm still kind of satisfied with the result. It was also good to know that I can actually push a lot of illustrations in a relatively short time, you know, so it makes me hopeful. Another thing that I figured out was that it's actually not all that easy to organically integrate this everyday drawing routine into my creative flow because I have like a lot of projects which I have to prioritize and especially if I want to create like another illustration for like a little spontaneous project and complete it in one day. So it still will take It's going to take a lot of time and I think that maybe In the future, I would better be splitting it into like smaller parts, you know, like making the outline first, and then like putting the basic colors, and then adding the details. So then... I see it as a more realistic scenario how I can add this like everyday drawing practice to my creative routine without disturbing the other projects I'm currently working on. So because this week was a bit of a disturbance, you know, so I couldn't spend as much time as I normally do on my regular projects because I still had like to keep a few hours a day dedicated specifically for like this little sketchbook illustrations and sketchbook drawings. But what I also figured out is that, like, if I have this little separate project every day, that actually keeps me quite motivated, and it makes it easier to create new concepts for the illustrations and generate new ideas, because, you know, your brain is like a muscle. So if you have to create new ideas for the new illustrations, like, every day, you keep your brain working, and then it comes much easier and more... natural to you so yeah that was good to know and I was like happy with the result so yeah all in all I was really enjoying it guys I managed to stay much more focused um I procrastinated less because I knew that I have to have at least like few hours for this like a little drawing session so i didn't have any time to lose which yeah again helped me to stay less on my phone to dedicate more time to the creative things which is always good i managed to create a lot of art in only one week so very happy with how it worked out and i will try to keep on uh the practice of everyday sketches as i said i I will probably not be doing like an illustration per day, but I definitely want to. draw more, especially now when I feel like I can do it. So it's realistically possible, just not at the volume I was doing this week. So anyways, that was fun. I really enjoyed it. I hope you also had a good time watching this video. Thank you always for supporting this channel and please do not forget to like and subscribe. And special thanks goes to the amazing people on my Patreon. By the way, I shared the first watercolor tutorial on my Patreon. So I was mentioning that in my previous videos that I'm now going to introduce some of the educational materials on my Patreon, and if you are interested in those, please check it out. The first tutorial is all about the watercolor materials, so everything that you have to know before you go and buy yourself a watercolor set, or what kind of paper you have to choose for different techniques and different purposes. So if you are curious about that, please check it it out and now I'm going to start working on the illustrations for my November snail mail club. So again, if it's something that you like, please subscribe to my snail mail. I'm sending a card, two stickers, and a little surprise something every month together with a beautiful illustrated letter. So for November I'm going to add all the holiday related items because I want you to be able to get them before Christmas. So yeah, if you are up for some beautiful stationery, Please check out my mail club. And yeah, as always, thank you for being here and for spending this time with me. I'm sending you a lot of love. Goodbye.