 Hello there, it's Sandy Olmock and today I'm going to do this sketch of Yellowstone, beautiful waterfall there. And this video includes a few minutes of sheer vulnerability and awkwardness. Stay tuned. A few days ago, I shared a comparison video where I talked about craft versus fine art types of aqua markers or water based markers. And these are the fine art ones. So I will refer you to that one. And if you want to see the video on the crafty markers, then click on the links in the doobly-doo and that will take you there. And this one though is going to be the Albrechtur markers by Faber Castell on Arches Cold Press. If you watch the other videos you probably noticed that I recommended not to use Arches Cold Press or any kind of cotton paper. With good cotton content in it because markers tend to get stuck on cotton papers. They like to sit on the surface in general and then be movable. And when you're talking about a cotton paper, it absorbs enough of the color, I guess. I don't know the science of it, but my mind pictures that they absorb the color into the fibers and then they don't want to let go. And that happens real quickly with the craft types of markers that I've used for decades. And these are new to me, so I was curious to see if I could do a drawing like this using these markers on the good paper. Because one of the things I like about a good cotton paper is getting these beautiful edges. Like that spot where the yellow kind of bursts out into the orange and then toward the gray looking over to the left. It just gives all kinds of beautiful effects on this paper that you can't get from a cellulose paper. I wasn't sure whether this was going to work at all. I was filming just in case, but I wasn't sure it would work because when I did my testing in one of the previous videos, I had swatched these colors on a piece of arches because I thought, okay, they're fine art markers. I should be able to use this. I swatched them late at night and I came back in the morning and started adding the water to them and the marker didn't want to move. It moved a little bit, but it wanted to leave that hard edge where I had drawn the marker the night before, which means that you can't leave a project like this half done and then go back and expect to move it again. With crafty types of markers, I found on cellulose paper, I can do the drawing one night and come back the next day or come back the next week and still be able to take a wet brush to it and move it. But on this, I just did it all in one sitting so I wouldn't have to deal with that since I was liking how this was coming out. I just kept moving and getting the drawing done. I also found that I really liked the pigmentation of these on the arches paper. I think any marker that you can get to draw on paper like this is going to be more pigmented just because the color is going to hold onto the paper better rather than when you take your brush to it, your brush often just picks up and sucks up the color on the paper and then it ends up in your water. That's why your water gets dirty. But in this particular case, the cotton paper holds onto enough of it that I think it stays more pigmented. And again, this is me making up my own science as to why these things work. There's probably somebody who could tell us why things work or don't work in one way or another, but I'm just going to believe what I believe about this because that's what I experience when I'm actually doing the artwork. And here, just being able to move these colors and see them blend the way that watercolor does, the way that I'm used to, was really nice because I had the control of being able to make marker lines that look like trees and leave them there for a second and be thinking about, okay, how am I going to blend that into whatever's going on around behind above, below it? And it wasn't going to move like when I'm painting watercolor. So this is a medium that allows you to have that kind of freedom to work in stages and not have to panic that something's bleeding into the other until you're ready to start making that happen. Once all the marker work was finished, I could then begin on the pen and ink. And I know this is backwards for how some people tend to work. They tend to draw the picture first in the pen and ink or at least in pencil and then pen and ink, and then they start working on adding color. And what I have found, and I must not be unique in this because a lot of people have started to do the same thing as they've been taking my wash and ink class, is if I were to try to do all the drawing first and then do the painting, then everything starts to try to fit into the lines that I've drawn. And I end up being really careful. I don't do fun splashy washes. I'm afraid to go over a line if the area's supposed to stay white, like, oh my gosh, what if I mess that up? And everything gets very tight. But when I do it in the reverse order, I start to get all of this beautiful loose washiness underneath of the pen and ink work that I would not get. I just can't seem to paint that way when I already have lines down because I'm trying to color in between the lines. So this has worked out great. The wash and ink class that people have been taking has been loosening more people up. And I love seeing that to the extent that I also have developed and launched just this week a sketching class. And this is for sketching national parks. So thus the Yellowstone that you're seeing right now and the whole class is all about doing exactly what we're doing here, except I'm using crafty markers instead. And I'm also using cellulose paper. And we turn these pictures that are about the same size, we turn them into a sketchbook so that hopefully people can take the lessons they've learned, the techniques, the ways to draw trees and mountains and all the different elements that are in those scenes and then draw their own vacations. That's my hope for it. So if you're interested in that, there's a link in the doobly-doo. And now for the awkward and vulnerable portion of this video that you were promised in the title. That is the admission that I am not superwoman. For some of you that might seem like a ridiculous thing to be all stressed out about admitting, but I have an independent streak that is a mile long. Years ago I had a foot surgery and just as an example of this crazy independence, a friend of mine came to pick me up at the hospital and bring me home. And her husband went with her. The two of them wheeled me in the wheelchair up to the front stoop of my house. And rather than let her soldier husband, big burly guy, let him pick me up and carry me up the stairs. I insisted on getting on my hands and knees and crawling up the stairs to take my own dang self in my own dang house on my own power. While he was standing there and yelling at me and saying, just let me help you. And it was just not something I could do. I just needed to do it for myself. There's a lot of times when I have done stupid, stupid things like that. And there's a lot of times when I've just worked really hard and tried to muscle through things to do it on my own. But there comes times here and there when you have to admit that no matter how hard you work, no matter what time you get up in the morning or stay up till at night, there's just no way you can accomplish what needs to be done and you need some help. So I'm here to ask for some help. There are many things in the economy you may have noticed that are troubling right now. There's gas prices that are crazy, food prices that are crazy, everything is going up. And during times like this, your artist friends are the ones who get cut first. We're the ones who are considered the extras. We're the luxuries. So people aren't taking classes. People aren't buying jewelry from the gal who makes jewelry on Instagram that you love so much. Or the ceramicist is not selling mugs anymore because those are considered extras. Because everybody's trying to figure out where to put their budget. We totally get that. But if there's anything you can do for any of your artist friends, I would highly recommend seeing if you can find a way to support them. And one way you could support me that if you can't afford classes, absolutely, I totally get it. But some of you might be in a position to kick in a dollar a month on Patreon. Because you can get into that for a buck a month. That's not much. And if enough people do it, then all that money gets pooled together and Sandy can pay her health insurance. And I know that sounds like a really weird kind of comparison to make, but literally my health insurance bill comes just before the Patreon payment comes through every month. And the only thing that keeps me from going to bed and just crying at night to figure out like, what am I going to do? I just depleted the bank account for that bill. What am I going to do? I know Patreon is going to come through because those payments are very consistent. So if that is something that you think you could handle slipping into your budget, just a little bit of some kind, I would appreciate that a ton because my patrons have been the most stalwart supporters I could ever imagine. I have known some of them for years and we have exchanged cards. We have exchanged messages. They answer questions for me. I get them sneak peeks of stuff like they get first access to classes and to videos. They just, they're wonderful, wonderful people and I trust them and I love them. And we've had a rash of people lately, unfortunately, and some of them are my longtime bigger donors who have had life circumstances happen. One actually passed away from COVID last year. A couple others, we've had some deaths in the family. We've had a bankruptcy. We've had somebody lose their house and they've written me just tragically. They were feeling horrible that they had to cut out their support and I totally, totally get it. Like you don't have to make a long-term commitment to this, make it as long as you can make it. And anytime you need to leave, I'm okay with that. But if you're in a place where a little bit every month fits into your budget, it would mean the world to me. So there I am being vulnerable. And in a second bit of vulnerability, the camera is about to cut out right about now. Yep, it cut out. It stopped filming. But we saw the other rocks. So I guess it's okay that we miss the last section. If you're interested in purchasing this piece of artwork, it's for sale over in my shop, along with lots of other things at both high and low prices. And you can support that way. You can go to Patreon and check out the different levels of support there. And you could also consider taking a class like the travel sketches class where you can learn to create a sketchbook full of other national parks using water-based markers. You can use regular watercolors if you want, pen and ink. Have a good time doing it. And if you can't afford either one of those, then I'll see you here next week with more free videos. All right. I'll see you guys later. Thank you so much for your support. I love you. Bye-bye.