Draw with Me: Ladybug Owl School Bus | September Drawing Challenge

Hello, it's Donna, and I am here with Seven Things to Draw for the month of September, and this month we are covering the aster and morning glory for flowers, the hazel tree, or also the vine. There's sort of a modern and Celtic tree for September. And then we also have the owl and the hawk, both of which I have visited in previous months. The owl was the bird of January, and one of them was the bird, one of them was the animal, I don't remember which is which. But right now, the animal of the month of September is owl, and the bird of the month of September is hawk. Both of those we've visited before, so I'm going to test myself a little bit to see how much I remember on those. And then there's also a ladybug, which is the insect of the month. I'm very excited to draw the ladybug. And then for seasonal, I chose the school bus. So let's get started. I have with me, in addition to my iPad, with the references, and you can find the link to all of these to this spreadsheet for all of the monthly drawing prompts in the description. And in addition to my iPad, I have some pencils. These are the Blackwing Matte and Pearl pencil. I'm not sure which one I'm going to use today, but I'll try them out and see which one makes me happy. I have some blending stumps in case I want to get fancy. I have my trusty kneaded eraser that I love so much. If you have a little box for your kneaded eraser, they don't dry out as much, so I keep mine in this adorable little tin. And then I also have here a list of notes for topics for voiceover so that I can write down a quick little note about things that I want to talk to you about when I do a voiceover. And away we go. We are starting September with the aster, which are these beautiful flowers. And of course the references I pulled are all purple and pink and pretty. And I decided to take some notes this time so that I could remember what I was thinking about at the time when I did this voiceover. And I noticed that the petals had these like elongated oval shapes to them. They didn't taper off at all. They were the same size basically at the base as they are at the tip. And then there were many layers of them. And the whole center part, I'm always interested where the petal connects to the flower itself, the center part of the flower, and what that looks like. That feels really important to me. So I always look at it when I look in flowers. And I noticed this time that you could not see that connection point because of the way the center of the flower looked. So now I'm studying the bigger group of them just to see how the leaves looked. And I couldn't resist at this point reaching over and grabbing colored pencils, which I have here. And I grabbed a couple different colors of colored pencils and I realized that I don't have any purple. So there I tried to mix them with pink and blue. I reinforced my observation of the shape of that centerpiece. And then I wrote down my very first topic to talk about this video, which was my self-portrait. I know you probably don't care, but I care that I told you I would show you my self-portrait this week. And it's just simply not done yet. I had some physical challenges this week. My knee, which is a recurring injury, was bothering me. So I couldn't stand and paint for a couple days and I fell behind. And that's life. But since I did promise you, I decided that I would at least mention it this time. Now I'm on to the Morning Glory and I noticed that these had a beautiful star shape in the center. And right here I noticed that my yellow pencil was pretty dull. And I pulled out this Afmat pencil sharpener and I just want to sing the praises of it for a little bit. It does a really fantastic job of sharpening your pencil to a really nice point. I note that they have these really lovely yellow and white centers and that their petals were ombre, leading towards white in the center. So I capture all of that when I have an idea of what the next thing I should talk about is my car repairs. Now I had a really dramatic week last week and you can hear about that in last week's video, but it included a $17,000 car repair bill. Thankfully one of my friends, shout out to the amazing Fernie, she gave me the number of a mobile mechanic who came out and repaired it for $300 plus the cost of the part, which was another hundred bucks. So significantly cheaper than the $17,000 for the dealership. And here is a quick note here as I finish up this beautiful Morning Glory vine, is that the next time I do this, despite the thought that I'm going to just stick to graphite, I better bring my whole set of colored pencils or at least one that has all the colors that I need because I got frustrated having only two dark greens and not having purple and then there's this random assortment of colored pencils that I have here. So now I'm looking at the leaf pattern and I noticed that the leaf pattern in the Morning Glory had two different shapes for the two references that I had. So I'm really going to have to investigate this one a little bit more. So next up on the topic list is talking to you about Inktober, but first I'm going to get started on the next drawing, which is the hazel tree. Now here in September, I am tired of drawing trees because they all seem to look alike and the hazel tree was no exception. From a distance, it just looks like a tree. You remember the shape of it and you have a good sense of what a hazel tree looks like. I did find this fantastic video and I linked it in and it's in the description and oh look there's me and my chin. That was really flattering. In this video, there is a wonderful description of a year in the life of hazel tree and it's lovely. So then I decide that I am at least going to draw this one image of the leaf and the hazelnut. So while I'm doing that, let's talk about Inktober. Inktober is this yearly challenge that happens every October. There are a bunch of them that happen in October, but Inktober is kind of the main one. Inktober is hard. The Inktober prompts are concepts and verbs and action words. It's not just a bunch of nouns. So a lot of people shy away from the Inktober challenge itself and choose one that has sort of friendly nouns so it's easy to just draw the thing that's in the challenge. But because of the nature of the Inktober prompts, I have embraced this idea, so many of them are action words or concepts, of turning them into a book. And for the last two years I have made children's books with my characters Lulu and Pal. So this year I'm doing the same. I'm about halfway through the, well I'm all the way through the kind of first draft of the book, but it needs a lot of polish, and there are some transitions that I haven't figured out yet. But it's called Lulu and Pal and the Flying Contraption, and I am really, really excited to share it with you throughout the month of October. I'll be doing that in shorts every day for each part of the drawing, and then I'll do one final video where I tell the whole story, and maybe a video along the way of a slower down process of how I'm handling Inktober. But it is a big drawing challenge. I'm very excited about it because I just love my Lulu and Pal characters. And next up we're going to talk about why I do this, why I do these seven things to draw challenges. One part of it is just it was something that I wanted to do for my own practice and also have content for YouTube, so that's why it's a video. But why do I do it in the first place? Well I am an artist with aphantasia, which means I don't have a visual recall at all. I don't have mind's eye. There's a whole continuum of the way we can visualize things. Some people have very sharp specific hyperphantasia, really great imaginations, and when they visualize something they can hear it and see it and smell and taste it, and it's really sharp and very very clear. Other people see just blackness. I see sort of a fuzzy image that darts away when I try to look at it, a bit like trying to focus in on a dream. Even now as I say that it makes me wonder if everybody else has that experience of focusing in on a dream. Maybe that's just my dream experience too. So to help me with aphantasia and to feel more comfortable with drawing and doodling, I need to memorize what things look like. So I didn't really, learning to draw for me is about learning to see and memorize and remember shapes. So since I had done the owl and the hawk in previous months, I decided I would first spend a little bit of time writing down what I could remember about each, and then also going and drawing what each of them looked like to me. So I remembered that the owl had great big eyes, but now I'm wondering were they oval or were they round? I don't really remember, and I know they've got these horned feathers. I don't know how much detail is in the eyes, and I'm not quite sure of the positioning, but I feel like the positioning is right here. And I remember that their heads are wider, and they've got that diamond beak, diamond-shaped beak. And here on out I'm kind of making it up. I do remember I saw this image once of an owl where they had lifted the feathers of the owl's body, and it had really, really long skinny legs. So I wanted to remember that as well. Over on the hawk side, I could remember that when soaring the hawk's wings were an ellipse, because I remember contrasting it to an eagle that has more of a v-shape. And it's got a head like an eagle, but I couldn't remember what the beak looked like. I assume since it's a bird of prey that it's got sort of a longish hooked beak. So here I am attempting my hawk drawing. I don't think it looks very much like a hawk, but remember at this point it's from memory. And I'm remembering that they have talons and claws. And in fact, during this practice, I pretty much realized all birds probably have talons and claws, just in different sizes and severity. And then I tried to remember about the tail of the owl, and I couldn't remember whether owls had tails. And I thought that the hawk had this even tail where they were all the same length, versus the eagle that I compared it to previously that has a tapered tail as well. And my next topic is commissions. So I'm going to go in sketching the actual version of the owl and the hawk so that I can learn what's right and increase my knowledge. So I started with it's got big eyes and horned feathers and a diamond beak. And then I thought about the things that I didn't really know. So the first thing that I notice is that the eyes are round. Now this observation that I'm having has been so freaking invaluable because I have started doing commissions. And one of the first commissions I took, even though I said to myself I'm not going to do portraits, was in fact a portrait. And the image that I'm using, the reference image for this portrait, is an old photo from like the early 80s, I think. It's old. It's grainy. It was taken in bright sunlight. There's not a lot of information. Every artist would tell you it's a terrible picture for a reference. But I wanted to capture this memory for the person who ordered the commission. So I took on the hard challenge. And being able to recognize and memorize things really helped me as I was trying to construct facial features out of nothingness because this snapshot was so lacking in information. It's this kind of study that helps me see what's not there or what's only there in just a couple of pixels. So I have commissions available now. If there is a photo that you would like memorialized into an oil painting, you can find the link for my commissions in the description. No question that this monthly drawing practice has helped. Now here I am checking my work on the hawk and notice the shape of the ellipse wings. I got that right. Yay. And I make another little note here about the pattern that the wings have. And then I go looking for a better photo because the reference that I had didn't match the words, Donna, didn't match the kind of hawk that I drew. So I go find a reference here and see that I have made a lot of mistakes. And the kind of the biggest mistake I've made is the length of that beak. Look how tiny the hawk's actual beak is. It is much more like the beak of a parrot than it is the beak of a big bird of prey like a raven. And I was kind of drawing a raven's beak. So I correct myself about the beak. And then I make another observation of both of these birds, which are both birds of prey, is both the owl and the hawk had eyebrows, which I imagine help them hunt because it provides them with shade from the sun in the same way we can put our hand up. I've never actually seen an owl or a hawk lift up their wing and shield their eyes. They have eyebrows to help them. So that was a discovery that was interesting and makes sense. And then I take another couple of notes, but I noticed that I was right about their even tail. I was right about the shape of the wings. It was a hooked beak, but much more like a parrot. And I'm ready to move on to the next thing. And up next we have the insanely adorable ladybug. And since I've been doodling ladybugs my whole life, I decided to start with a ladybug doodle. This is the ladybug that I draw whenever I have to draw a ladybug. It's got a little eye that's darker than its body, a bunch of spots, and I think about whether or not it has antennas. I add those I think later. And of course I pull out the red. This is, in my opinion, the perfect little ladybug. I've been drawing it my whole life, maybe with legs, maybe not. I decided not to add them to this one. So now let's see what a real ladybug looks like. As I study the reference, I realize that the size and shape are pretty much the size and shape of the previous ladybug. Round body, cute little round head. Probably all of these marks are related to this specific ladybug and not every ladybug in general. So if I needed to draw a specific ladybug, I would look for a reference just to make sure that I got it all right. I decided that ladybugs look an awful lot like VW bugs and I wanted to study them later, thinking about them. I also noticed that these spots are not round. They're sort of round-ish. So I thought that was really important too. I tend to and always have made ladybugs with absolute round marks, but they're not round at all. And then the last thing I wanted to observe was that male ladybugs are the bright red ones. The female ones are sort of like a brownish gold color, which is also pretty, but not as flashy and showy as the male. Speaking of flashy and showy, the ladybugs have these incredible and amazing butterfly doors. The red parts of the shell are a hard shell coating that lift up into the air just like doors on a Lamborghini and out pop their wings and then they go flying. And I just think that is the coolest thing ever to have their own little protective armor that pops open just like a pair of fancy doors in a sports car. So my last ladybug drawing really captures these adorable little butterfly doors on the ladybug. And I always choose one seasonal entry, something that we'll draw every September or want to draw every September. And this time of year, I think about back to school and school buses. So I wanted to draw a school bus. And first I'm going to start drawing in just some rough grid. Now, I made a mistake from the very start. I should be drawing in a box, a long rectangle box, and then build my bus inside the box. And I did not do that. If I had built a long rectangle box in here, that would have greatly helped my drawing. But I don't ever think to do that. I don't ever think to put my objects inside the space that I know that they fit. And boxing is the way to do that. So that is one area that I really need to work on my skills is boxing out a drawing. It's nice to eyeball it. And the course that I'm taking, they recommend eyeballing. In fact, they've never gridded anything with a perspective grid at all. But I would like to be able to use that to help me because it's so hard for me to remember between looking at the reference and looking at the paper, that image doesn't stay with me, which means I always have to kind of figure it out. So I need to learn and get in the practice of using perspective grids. Now, for the rest of the thing that came up for me, and I didn't write this down until after, is I've been thinking a lot about this business training that I used to do on the four P's of business. And the four P's of business are product, process, people, and promotion. So product for us artists is the artwork itself. And that's largely what I've been focusing on for the first part of, well, really for the last couple of years. Since I've asked myself the question, what would my life look like if I were a professional artist? I have been focusing on getting the skills to create a good art product. And last year, when I decided that I might want to be interested, actually, it was a couple of years ago, when I decided that I might be interested in being a professional artist, I decided to start my YouTube channel. And that was me finding people, starting the process of finding people. So for businesses, people are found in your list, they're found in your social media followings. You create content with the hopes to attract people and start to attract a buyer's list. In this bus drawing right now, I am spending a lot of time trying to get the windows right, because I know that there is a formula to draw something that repeats at a regular interval in perspective that would get all the sizes right for me. However, I don't remember what that formula is. So I spend a lot of time trying to make those windows just a little bit smaller as they go back in and recede into the distance. And here, this bus has a broken axle. Look, it's ridiculous. It is very, very bent. And I try to correct the perspective a number of times, and I really don't notice how bad it is until I get up and walk away from this drawing. So word to the future Donna, make that box and stick to it and get up and walk away a little bit more and gain your own perspective on the perspective of your drawing. Which is another smart P by the way, but it is not the next one. So we've talked about product, which is the artwork and people, which is starting a social media following. And then process is a very important thing to me when it comes to running and setting up a business. And it's probably more than most people would. The next one is promotion. So I probably focus on process more than I should and promotion less than I should. And most people probably do it the wise way, which is the other way around. But since I love systems and processes, since I hate wondering and rethinking and redoing work, I like work that when it's done, it stays done. I focused on processes. So I set up my website, I set up my merchant accounts. I've got my social media. I started thinking about branding. I started thinking about what my content pillars might be. I automated much of my activities so that I could do more. These are all processes and systems, and that is a very important P, but it's almost more sophisticated. And I think it's why I'm upside down. The fourth P is promotion. And I have pretty much ignored promotion. God, it is so painful to watch me draw this bus right now because the perspective is off so badly. So anyway, promotion. Promotion are things like telling people that I have something for sale. So even though I've been making my product, my artwork, for the last couple of years, I haven't actually tried to sell it because I haven't made any promotions. I haven't even said to my audience, my artwork is for sale. Not until very recently. So I've been stressing out because my business isn't making money, but I haven't really been promoting. Sure, I have YouTube videos, but my YouTube videos talk mostly to artists, not collectors. So, and I haven't even asked for the sale then until very recently. Shame on me. I'm a terrible marketer because I haven't been doing any of the marketing. And I think that that is part of the burnout that I have been experiencing. I just couldn't bring myself to market, even if it was for my own business. But that has to change, right? Because if I need to make money, all four of these P's need to get attention. And sure, you might build one first, and that's probably a good idea to build your product before you build anything else in your business. But at some point, your table must stand level. And right now my table is balancing on three legs. And I don't even think those three legs are particularly robust at this point. So I have a little tiny table on three wobbly legs and just a little stubby nub of the fourth leg of business, which is promotion. So that's what I am starting. And because I'm starting promotion, I will start right now with this. I'm Donna Fox, and I am on a journey to go from hobbyist to professional artist. And I plan to share every step along the way here on my YouTube channel, the good, the bad, and definitely the ugly. There is a link in my description to all of these references that I've used in this video today and the other eight months that I've done of this drawing challenge for myself. So you can drop in there to get the references absolutely free on my Notion page. And there's also a link there to my sub stack. My sub stack is my newsletter where I go a little bit deeper on some of these topics. I share some of the tools that I've been creating. I talk a little bit more about the AI and the business side of things. So if you are interested in knowing when videos come out and getting a little bit deeper on some of these topics, you definitely want to click the link in my description to sign up for my sub stack. And if you are interested in supporting my channel a little more, there are three ways that you can do so. First is always, if you are enjoying this video, please like and subscribe. It really does help me out. And if you leave a comment, you will make my heart sing because I absolutely love engaging with community. That is why I'm here. That is why I'm doing this. That's why I'm on YouTube because you can't have enough art friends. The second way that you can support me and my channel is to become a member. I have a YouTube membership open called Patron of the Arts. It is just a low level membership, not really that exciting, but it allows you to basically buy me a cup of coffee every month. And then the third way that you can support my channel is by visiting my shop, seeing if there's something in it that you love, that you want to be on your walls, or if you see something that you think someone else might love, please share my channel and let them know or share my shop and let them know. Finally, I have my commissions offer and nothing would please me more than to take one of your cherished memories and make it come to life in an oil painting. So be sure to visit the link in my description if you want to find out more about my commissions offer. I finally gave up on this bus, but here are all of the images that we did today. There's the morning glories and asters. There were the owl and the hawk. I'm really actually pretty impressed with how much I remembered from those since I hadn't studied them since the beginning of the year. And then the hazel tree, the ladybug, which was so much fun, and finally this school bus. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you again next week.