Learning to Draw

Some of you know I have a lot of coloring books. The first one I bought was by Secret Garden, Johanna Basford.  I think it's the book that started the coloring craze.  I have most of her books, not that I have colored them all.  When I heard she was publishing a new book, I was excited until I saw it was a how to draw book titled How to Draw Inky Wonderlands.  My first thought was that I have a ton of books to color- why should I draw my own pictures?  Then I saw on her Instagram page she was going to do a free 10 day course as a companion to the book.  That sounded amazing, so I bought the book and signed up for the course.  (The course is closed now, but if you get her newsletter, she offers free tutorials from time to time)
I have no affiiation with her;  I just love her work.

So I've been spending a lot of time with pencils, paper and ink lately.  I know I posted a couple of these last time, but here's the whole story. 

 On Day 1 we learned to draw some basic flowers and a simple wreath.

 On Day 2 we added blooms and a bee to a page in the book.

 On Day 3 we drew a lovely grid of different flowers to use in our own inky garden.

 On Day 4 we moved on to the ocean part of the book, and made some cute fishies. 

 On Day 5 we learned abut creating symmetrical designs.

 On Day 6 we added fishies and seaweed to a page in the book. 

 On Day 7- the day before Halloween, we used our symmetry skills to create sugar skulls.  I copied mine onto another page and colored him in to use as a holiday decoration in my office!

 On day 8 we moved on to the forest section and drew some sweet little birds.

 Day 9 was another symmetry lesson, where we created a leafy bug.

On the last day we learned to create a lovely circular design that could be adapted for use in greeting cards, invitations, thank you notes....  I goofed up the lines in the center on this one, but the beauty of her technique is that you copy the original design using thin paper so you can change the details if you want!


So, since the course ended, I have kept up with the drawing, and have been following along in the book to gain skills she didn't have time for in the 10 days we had. 

I loved this little drawing I did during some down time at work so much...

...I colored it right away!












A lot of days are just practicing different basic components, or trying new designs. 

combinations of flowers and leaves

simple borders

Posies

Bugs

 More borders

This is a page in the book where she had drawn the simple leafy wreaths, and the reader is invited to add details.  I had fun with it, and colored them right away.  

 I tried a full page drawing the other day.  When I traced it, I realized I had left a sort of path through the middle.  (OOPs- sideways.  My photo editor and I are having disagreements lately.  Sorry)

 So I went back to the pencil drawing and tried again. 

Still not perfect, but I learned something and have a nice picture to color!

Think you could never draw pictures like these?  I did too.

A week or so after the course ended, she announced she was going to attempt to do the world's largest drawing as a way to inspire everyone to pick up a pencil and draw something .  She asked Instagram followers to draw on post-its as a way to show support for her.  These are the ones I did.

 

 She succeeded!  On November 18, in 12 hours, she drew a picture over 5,000 square feet.

I should be knitting socks, or Christmas gifts.  But for now, I'm enjoying my daily doodling time. Like the coloring, it is meditative and relaxing.


I am grateful for:
A new pastime that is giving me great joy.
My family.
The beast is almost finished!!  (Stay tuned)
A day with my BFF.
Any day I wake up without a headache.