 to just show you guys how I've been creating some of these things in this Tone Tanned sketchbook that I've been working in that have recently garnered a lot of attention on social media. Now this is a Strathmore Tone Tanned sketchbook. I think this is the soft cover and I think it's five and a half by eight and a half I think. Now I will say I love the paper. The sketchbook, yeah, I had to quote unquote condition it to get it to even sort of lie flat. And what do I mean by that? I mean like do this and bend it back on itself like every single page because it doesn't really want to naturally lie flat. So that's probably my gripe and I'm not a huge fan of spiral bound notebooks or sketchbooks so I kind of wish that they had created one that had sort of a cover but lay flat I don't know. If anybody has any ideas about sketchbooks, ones that open in lay really flat so you can sketch on both sides of the paper. I especially love the Strathmore Tone Tanned paper. Let me know, leave something in the comments below. But yeah, now that I've bent every single page now it does much better but I started out in the sketchbook just sort of messing around to be honest and doing sort of these things and then COVID happened and I started playing with faces and seeing what kind of other mediums besides gel pen would work in here and messing around still withdrawing. And fun fact it really doesn't like like Sharpie. I think this is Sharpie. I don't think it's a paint pen. I think it's a Sharpie pen. Anyway it doesn't like it so it bleeds through but all the other pen it seems to take really well. This is a little bit of water soluble crayon on this penguin and it actually did very well. You can barely you see it through the other side. It takes different kinds of gel pens and ballpoint pens and pencil brilliantly. So I did this. We went right before the fire started in Oregon. We went on a drive just to get out of the house. We drove around the area and the different counties and we ended up in Mount Angel and there was a store sign. I'll put the picture here. I think that they sold honey and things. I think it was it might have been a tea shop but anyway they had this cute bee on their sign so I came home and drew him. Another day we went literally the day the smoke and fire started getting bad here in in the Oregon area where I live. We went to the Japanese gardens in Portland and we I love the koi pond so I drew a koi fish and then they had a bunch of bonsai trees so I had a little tiny bonsai apple tree so I drew that and then I started doing these. So these are inspired by nature pictures that I've taken either recently or in the recent past. They are a lot of fun. I'm not attempting to exactly copy the nature. I'm just being inspired by said nature piece even this one and then this one now my friend Mike Deakin posted him his vlog today and in it he talks about one of the flowering vines in his backyard and he showed it a close-up of it on camera and I did what I could to get a screenshot of it because I really wanted to be inspired by that to draw it so we're going to do that today first I need some water so hang on okay so let me pull the picture up on my pad so this is the flower I'm not great with names of flowers so I don't know what what that is but we're gonna be inspired by that sometimes I'm inspired to use the exact color of the flower sometimes I'm not for the most part I use gel pens these are just jelly roll gel pens I have the number six I have the tens which is just different nib size oh there's a few eights in here too I really kind of just go by the colors um they have some muted colors and some bright colors I have a lot of there I even have the metallics but honestly the metallics like sitting here I rarely use them I probably have way too many of them because for how much I use them because I just really don't I should probably rethink even having them here to be honest with you um okay so for this flower I think for the moment we're going to stick with we're initially going to pick a couple of purples I'm going to want a green because it has a green center and I think I'm going to want to pick a blue we're going to pick out a couple of blues and we're going to try them on a scrap of paper which is something I always do let's try this purple too I don't think it's going to be the right one but let's try it and see so sometimes they use white paper sometimes they use this paper I just whatever's handy I've got scraps of paper in here so let's see um no that's too gray I think I'm going to want this one for the light purple yeah I'm going to want this one for the dark purple yeah I think I'm going to want this one for the green yep and then I think I want to add a blue the question is which blue I don't think that one maybe I think this one's too bright I think we're going to go with a light pale blue the only other one I would do would be maybe this turquoise blue yeah turquoise blue all right so I usually start with like the main color of the piece I'm being inspired by but I don't always and in this case I'm going to start with yeah I'm going to start with the main color no I'm not I'm going to start with the green so these flowers have a green center and again we're looking to be inspired by and we're not looking to copy I have to put my reading glasses on otherwise I can't see what I'm doing I'll zoom in for you guys right about here now this is one of their newer colors I think um um I have this is the six I do wish sometimes I had these in a bigger nib I know a lot of illustrators like to uh they like their pens but they like them in small nibs I generally like bigger nibs so not is it not that I'm a professional illustrator or anything but I tried so I'm just making sort of a funny shape circle here and I think I'm going to add a pop of another color I have this sort of dark goldy color which I think might be nice in this flower center so we're going to add some dots like tear dropy shoots I have found that the Sakura jelly roll pens do layer actually very nicely on top of each other if you just wait for the one on the bottom to mostly dry I think we're going to do that so what color was this this was I don't know number 415 and this is 432 I think that's what the color is yeah all right so then we're going to go with our light purple we're going to do sort of these long drawn out tear dropy kind of shapes you want to be careful not to stick your hand in the gel pen when you're doing this because it takes a minute to dry and it's probably still wet when you're going around sorry about the pain in the background it's my computer my art friends must be chatting and I forgot to turn it off so so far we have that it's cute huh so I'm going to do that all the way around again inspired by we're not looking to exactly copy right now I do think I'm going to turn some of these drawings into stickers for the Etsy shop I might actually make sticker flakes for those of you who are into stationary and that sort of thing you know what that means little packs of individually cut stickers printed stickers so look for that I'm not exactly sure when so if you're interested and you want to be sort of on the waiting list when I do make them let me know I like that I don't think I want to add anymore okay so now we're going to take the dark purple and we're going to do our sort of petal shapes that are part of our flower now this is let's see that purple one was 423 this one is 424 these are all sixes this one doesn't say so it might be a 10 I don't know doesn't say on there you are okay okay that's a good basic shape but I'm not done yet so I'm going to take our shape I'm going to decide where and when to thicken the lines and attach them to each other and then fill in the space and do that and go all the way around and what I will also do probably is do this uh broken lines and dots seem to be part of what I'm drawing when I'm making these maybe we think I'm not going to put those this time and then I always end up putting them anyways this is a fatter pen it doesn't have a nib size on it but it's probably a 10 so just work your way all the way around okay so then we have sort of our pop highlight color on this one I think it was the same color pen um I'm still debating about what color I should use let's see I do love the way that looks I still wonder if I should use this blue one that I dismissed the first time choices right can't take it back once you get it on there does it even need it does it even need the pop of blue I'm thinking if I'm debating it that hard maybe it doesn't even need it there is a pop of blue on the original flowers down the center but you know we could go back to using this pale blue which actually might work so then what I would do yeah this is a good color I can tell you the minute it hits the page it's there but it's not smack you in the face there that's an art thing right smack you in the face right yeah that's perfect this is number what number is this this is a 06 nib by the way this is number 425 that's what it says on here and no this video is not sponsored by Strathmore or Jelly Roll but you know if y'all are watching and you want to sponsor you know I love your paper Strathmore and I love your pens Jelly Roll Sakura I love your pens so I'm just drawing elongated ovals in front sizes at least three down the center of each pedal and look at what that does it gives it a nice pop so I share my daily drawings good or bad some of them don't turn out but I share them anyway on social media so number one if you think you can't draw I don't draw perfect all the time either I don't I'm not great at necessarily drawing so but sometimes I get lucky and it turns out I just practice a lot so if you think you can't I hope that my sharing my successes and failures with you on social media helps you give it a shot anyway and if you want to see what daily drawings I do do follow me over on Instagram or something I'm not on Twitter anymore I'm on Instagram though and I have a Facebook a couple of Facebook art groups and a Facebook page so you can follow me or join the groups but if you don't do Facebook you can follow me on Instagram I share daily drawings when I am not going on my evening walks when I'm able want to take pictures of that I share all kinds of stuff so I'll be taking a picture of this later and sending it over to Mike since it was inspired by his garden yeah look at that I love it so something simple just some paper and some gel pens it's nothing you know expensive or anything these are simple materials so there you go I hope it gives you some inspiration about what you can do and how you can do it and take it into a new unique in different way I do think we're going to be scanning some of these drawings and turning them into some kind of stickers for the Etsy shops if you're interested let me know all of them are inspired by nature pictures of some sort and probably because of the organ fires right now in the day I'm doing this and I can't go outside and I'm kind of missing my evening walks but that's okay I'm going to keep doing this because I'm having a lot of fun doing them so anyway if you want to again follow me on social media or support the free content here on YouTube or over in the Facebook art groups you can click on my link tree list of links in the video description and you'll find all the different places I am on the internet and all my Etsy store and Patreon and all of that stuff patrons usually get free copies of things just FYI either digitally or physically in the mail just FYI anyway so check that out and not just for me though go check out your favorite content creators they probably have a way to support their free content it usually is in the video description but not always if you can't find it ask them and maybe they can send you the appropriate links don't forget to stay safe stay creative and stay healthy and go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and I'll see you later I think I need to go through those metallic gel pens all right bye guys