Before today’s tutorial…

BREAKING NEWS: I cleaned the studio Friday in advance of Saturday’s zoom call…not that anyone sees my space but ya know, company in the house and all. 🙂 When I walked in Saturday morning I was SO EXCITED to get working! The counter and desk had both been so covered in rubble from past projects….I was working on so many hex charts lately that ALL the pencils were still out, the charts had to go into my binders, stray supplies were just all over. IT FELT SO GOOD to walk in to a clean space. Not that it’ll last long, but hey, it’s a good feeling!

While cleaning I found a bunch of pens that have been here for eons! A number were dried out since they sat so long, which was sad. We had a wake.

But a three-pack of brush pens caught my attention. I think I got them in an art store, from my recollection, but did find pens that look just like it on Amazon -stay tuned for more assessment of this pen vs other aqua brushes you might know.

Tutorial: Composition in doodling – with custom brush pen

Watch the video below and scroll to the end to leave comments or questions — or click HERE to watch it on YouTube and leave comments over there. I read both dutifully!

DIY accordion sketchbook

I paired the brush pen exploration with making a new sketchbook (I need one like I need a hole in my head!) but thought it’d be good to remind people you can make your own book if the one you love isn’t available. I scored 9×12 Canson XL paper at 4″, and made a few zigzag pieces that then were attached to each other. You can glue a front and back together, or tape them on the back. (I’ll draw out one side, then put clear tape on the drawn side and remove the white tape from the back and be able to draw unimpeded.)

What this brush pen can’t do

You might be well familiar with aqua brushes/water brushes. Those are generally the soft plastic into which you can put water, paint, or ink, right?

Well these brush pens FEEL like a fountain pen The casing is more of a hard acrylic like those are. Which means I switched to a pipette to drop the ink onto the paper; you can’t squeeze it to expel a blob of liquid like an aqua brush.

What this brush pen can do

The hard acrylic shell also means you won’t accidentally expel a LOT of liquid when you least expect it. That accidental overflow is one reason I don’t like aqua brushes, because they bloop, but this one doesn’t do that. It also means you can get some drybrush with it, which I’m excited to explore in another drawing sometime.

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Composition

I’ll be thinking more deeply about how to talk about composition – ways to use white and dark space to create direction, directional lines in the art, and more. But for this one–flowers unified the design first. Much of the rest of the work was trying to join the dark blobs that were there from the start so they seemed more like chosen areas of darks rather than accidental blobs.

I wasn’t particularly articulate about it all, but lots is just in the beginnings of my thinking at the moment; when it occurred to me that you might like a course on creating these kinds of beautiful abstract doodles, I realized I need to start paying more attention to the thoughts running through my head while I’m working! Filling this sketchbook should help.

Is this a course you’d be interested in?

And are there specific questions you’d like answered? I can keep those in mind while playing in this sketchbook and developing a class. What are the moments you find yourself challenged in creating this kind of drawing?