5 Easy ways to fill your sketchbook

Whether you are a beginner or an expert we all have those days where we sit down to create but our mind goes blank, or maybe we just don’t feel like painting what we had intended to. When that happens to me I like to use one of these 5 techniques to create something quickly. I have put them in order of easiest and quickest to more challenging.

1.    Simple patterns and texture

Play around with brush marks and create a pattern using just a few colors. Pick a limited palette of 3-5 colors, paint loose strokes of solid colors next to each other and let the marks bleed into each other. Simple shapes include thick lines and circles. (Idea From Peggy Dean on Skillshare).

2.      Blobs and Ink

Lay down random square and rectangle shapes in different colors (not too dark) in your sketchbook and let dry. Once dry you can add doodles in pen, you can add darker watercolor on top, whatever your heart desires! You can add abstract lines, dots and other marks on tops of your dried paint to make an abstract sketchbook spread. Or you can draw simple things like flowers and leaves over your paint to add a cute little flower painting.

You can also make it a little more challenging by painting your blobs in shapes somewhat recognizable shapes and add intricate details in pen after.

Examples below are by Rosina Moya (left, purple) and Wendy Solganik (right, pink).

  3   Color Mixing/Creating Palettes

When you are stuck on what to create but know you want to paint something the easiest thing to start with is color testing and color mixing. Below I formed variations of greens, purples, and oranges by mixing different primary hues based on the expanded color wheel using CIELAB chromaticity plane which you can read more about here. This very meditative activity is also a great future resource for when you are making palettes for paintings in the future.

4.      Wildflowers

One of my all time favorite thigs to paint is wildflowers (big surprise lol). And for me one of the easiest ways to paint wildflowers is to grab a small rectangular piece of watercolor paper and paint a row of wildflowers along the bottom. My favorite part of this is that the flowers you paint don’t need to be real or based on anything! I take a lot of inspiration from artist Anna Lau on these paintings and focus more on color compositions.

Another option is drawing a circle and filling the circle with wildflowers and greenery which is another favorite of mine!

5.      Draw this in your own style

Why is it that when you finally get a chance to sit down at your desk to create your mind goes blank on what to draw? When I don’t know what to create I like to search for “draw in your own style” prompts on Instagram and Pinterest (also search DTIYS). Artists post original art encouraging their followers to copy in their own way and post, so this is literal permission to copy another artists work! This gets me to paint subjects I would never choose on my own and pushes me out of my comfort zone in the most comfortable way possible. Be warned - there is a lot of anime so you may have to find your own niche.

 Comment below which one you want to try, or tell me your way of filling your sketchbook when you hit a creative wall!

As always, if you are here thank you so much!!! Sending lots and lot of love,

Katie