 Hi there, I'm Sandy Alnok, and I wanted to start off today's video by saying thank you for your responses to Friday's video. Even though at the time I'm filming this, Friday's video has not launched because that's how I work. I work ahead, but I know this community well enough to know that I can trust lots of kind and sweet and graceful comments came in, and I will put a special timely message after having read your comments in the description of this video, so please do see that for my in-the-moment reaction. And in the meantime, I'm going to get started on today's project, which will be done in sketch markers. I was reminded when I used the sketch marker aqua pens last week that I have not really updated anybody on what's going on with the alcohol pens and I was going to be working on a hex chart. Like that was going to happen and I got most of a set, but I didn't get the full set and I'm still waiting on some of the other colors. However, there is this whole war in europe thing going on and given that this company is in that region of the world, I am giving them much grace because they've got a lot going on and trying to figure out what they're doing and keeping their people safe, etc. So I'm just going to have some grace for them and wait to see what happens, but don't worry. When that hex chart comes around, I will be letting you know. And what I'm doing here, I figured I would show you a couple of the colors that I thought are ones that that suitably could be added to a copic collection. If you're looking to supplement with a couple extra colors, these dusky blues are really cool. They're very light and they're a bluish gray. And some of the copics, when you get into the light colors, they either get like pansy happy blue or they get so pale that you can't see them. And these, they have a little bit of beef to them, but they're also very desaturated. So I happen to like them. You might not need those colors, but whatever. Once I do the hex chart, I will give you more ideas on colors that fit in between the copic range. So if you're trying to add to that, but also like, I'll, I'll tell you what I think would be good starter colors. If you're only just getting started in alcohol markers and you want to use these, but these particular colors made me happy. If you're interested in potentially getting a couple of markers for free to test out, I have a peace love and art challenge that I'm running right now in summer of 2022. So if you're watching this later than that, I'm sorry, but the peace love and art challenge is my way of helping to encourage people to keep their art going during the busyness of summer. So giving you some fun challenges to work on. I'm releasing new classes. So like I said, last week, the aqua markers were featured in a new class that just went live. So if you want to check those out, you can, I will put a link in the doobly-doo to all the new classes. And one of the things that I do during peace love and art is give away prizes each week. And one of the prize packs is going to have some duplicate markers that I have that I don't need to have and I'll share some. So if you want to potentially get in on the goods, then please do join in link in the doobly-doo. The clouds in this particular picture were so cool, they all leaned down one direction. Like the windblowness of them was really nice in that they got, they were big at the front, like right overhead at the top. And as they moved into the distance, they got thinner and thinner and more grayed out. So I was trying to replicate that look with just loose marker strokes and not just making straight streaks, but breaking them into cloud chunks here and there. Just making a few strokes that crisscross that direction so that it looks like there's some individual clouds without trying to go around every single cloud and outline it because that tends to make clouds that don't look very real. So next up is drawing the tree itself and an acacia tree, which you could turn into whatever kind of tree you have in your yard. You can make an oak tree. I generally recommend for people who are new at drawing to draw something in a light color first because that's going to help you to set your boundaries and figure out where this branch comes out, where that one goes, especially if you're looking at a picture you're trying to replicate. It's easier to do that without the freak out of, oh my gosh, it's a black pen. So you can do that. I generally don't at the point I'm at, but you could certainly do that. And then you can go in with the black pen afterward and tidy all that up. Now I've taught how to draw trees a number of times and I've taught it in YouTube videos, taught in classes, and I'm going to try a couple of things in this particular video that might be helpful because I get a number of students who email or message and send me a picture of whatever they're working on in a class or they're working off of one of my YouTube videos and they're like, my tree looks like a kindergartner drew it. What did I do wrong? And in general, the thing that I see is that the branches at the top are kind of the same size as the branches at the bottom in the trunk and trees don't grow that way. Trees get skinnier and skinnier as they get further and further away from the ground. So the top branches, and I shouldn't say every tree does this. There might be some trees that don't, but in general, trees are going to have smaller and smaller and smaller branches as they branch out further and further and further. And a lot of people try to make a consistent line. And I think some of that might be because a lot of us are stampers. And when you're a stamper, you're used to having every line on the stamp is the same weight. But in reality, like reality doesn't do that. Nature doesn't have the same line everywhere. So make sure your lines are getting lighter, use lighter pressure, use just barely the tip of the marker to make those branches at the top. Now, before I go any further, I'm going to just add the grounding of this picture because I wanted to have a good sense for how much black was already going to be in here from the ground. Because this picture was very strong on all this contrast at the bottom. And then this lacy top to the tree that had some density to it. But I wanted to know what I was balancing the picture against. And if I just focused on the tree alone and then added this big, hefty bottom to it, and then realize the whole picture felt black, that would be sad to go through all this and then realize that that was going to be too much. So here's another idea that I thought I'll try and see if it helps some of you in the drawing of the canopy of a tree. In a particular tree like this, there are some dense areas and those are the areas that I kind of blocked in here for now. And then there's lacy areas with all the little leaves, the tiny branches, all that super fine detail. And I've made those blobs away from touching the branches, they're just kind of in that canopy. And then I'm adding all that detail in between so that all of this starts to morph into one tree, but leaving some areas that are dark, because they're dense, and some areas that are open. And when I did this, I kind of went through a mental exercise where I was trying to squint at each of the blobs and see what marks I needed to put around all the sides of it to make it not look like it was just a blob added the way that I added them. Because if you end up with looking like you've got a bunch of blobs with a bunch of dots in between, then you've not gone far enough. So you want to add more branches in between, add some areas where there's unevenness in the amount of light coming through. That's what's going to make it look more realistic because Mother Nature does not make everything look even by any stretch of the imagination. So I'll go back through this a couple of times to keep adding a little bit more, to pull some of the areas together, to add more branches, lots of different details that can be added to this. And you could noodle around with it forever. I could just tell you that. So I'm going to add branches. There's a lot more in the picture. So I was looking at the branches to see which ones cross each other. When you make tree branches, they don't all just like go out to the left and the right and straight. They crisscross each other and in reality, this is a silhouette, but in reality, some are in front of each other, some are behind each other. And when you're doing a tree in color, you have to pay attention to that. In a silhouette, it doesn't matter, except for making sure some of them are crisscrossing each other. And then they're going to crisscross some of the open areas of the leaf work at the top too. So down in the bottom, I decided I needed more whimsy in the grass, because this was feeling way too too top heavy, too top interested. So I made my grasses taller, made some of them flop left or right, just a little bit and crisscross each other again. Now you can picture using a stamp underneath of this, a figure or a rabbit or something sitting under the tree. So don't feel like just because Sandy's teaching you how to draw a tree that you can't add your stamping to it as well. Because if you can turn your stamps into silhouettes, you can actually get a lot more life out of your stamps by using them in a totally different way than you're used to. Make sure you tune into my social media all week long, because I'll have more ideas for different kinds of elements you can put in silhouette scenes in your artwork. And on Friday, I hope to have this one finished. It's in progress right now. Make sure you hit the bell when you subscribe to my channel so that YouTube knows to send you a notification when that is posted. And the Peace Love and Art Challenge linked in the doobly-do. Go sign up for it, see if you can win some goodies and hit the like button on your way out, because that's an awesome thing to do for any YouTuber whose video you stayed this far into. And I will see you again Friday here and social media all week. Bye guys!