Today's lesson I have recorded in reverse and I've already completed the drawing that I am going to do for this exercise. And I'm going to watch the drawing along with you in fast time and talk you through my entire process for creating this drawing. When I first started drawing, I found it really hard to come up with my own original ideas. And for some reason, we have this preconceived notion that artists are able to just sit down at a blank piece of paper and just start drawing straight from their head. And yes, that may be true for some people that may be The way that some people like to draw. However, I really struggled with this process when I first started and I would end up staring at a blank piece of paper and becoming quite overwhelmed with that blank piece of paper staring back at me.

And I would become a little bit almost intimidated by not being able to express my ideas in a visual form. Most of the time, I would just walk away before I even started because I would become so frustrated that the ideas weren't just magically there. And I've seen a lot of students struggle with this as well because it's this pressure that we put on ourselves that creates its own creative block. And the more we stare at that blank piece of paper, the more creative blocks we create. So when I learned about the process of conceptualization that all changed for me, and learning to process your concept and turn a concept or an idea in To a visual form is a skill in itself that we can learn. And there's a process that we can follow that can help us along the way with that to be able to translate our G, our ideas into a drawing on a page.

When I decided I wanted to create a concept drawing for this final lesson, I started to ask myself some questions. What do I want to communicate? Do I have a story to tell or a message I want to convey? What feelings do I want to express? And what images resonated with me at the time? over about two or three weeks I contemplated these questions and without rushing myself without trying to force the answers to come.

I simply allow the answers to come to me. And there are some tools that we can help us to push us along this pathway and to help get our ideas out. brainstorming is a great one writing random words on a page, maybe of how you feel or answering some of those questions. It can really help to open your mind up. I really like the idea of free writing as well. So instead of just writing words, you could write paragraphs of how you feel and see where that goes.

You can do research, you can look at other references and that kind of thing. And to be honest, a lot of my ideas come when I am driving, or when I'm about to fall asleep when my mind is really relaxing. And so I love to keep a visual diary on hand so that I can jot my ideas down as I go. Whenever they come. To me, it's important to remember that every idea you have is valid. Every idea that you have is one step towards the next idea.

And even if some of your ideas end up on the cutting room floor, or end up as a dead end, it doesn't matter because they may lead to another idea and having a lot of ideas. A lot of time with dead ends is Better than having no ideas at all and just staring at that blank page. So don't be afraid to explore all of your ideas. And then allow yourself to continue to explore until you find an idea that you want to turn into a drawing. And that you want to develop further though, to address some of the questions that I mentioned earlier. What do you want to communicate?

When I first started thinking about this drawing, I knew that I really wanted to communicate how I felt about this course. I wanted to express visually, my knowings and how I'm sharing those with the world. And the first image that came into my head when I asked myself this question, was to do a self portrait and to somehow maybe draw my face and me whispering the words out or something around those lines, but it still didn't feel right. It still didn't feel like a full idea. So I continue to ask myself the questions. Do I have a story to tell or a mistake?

That I want to convey. I really feel like the messages in this course are coming from my heart space, which is why the idea of whispering wasn't the right idea for me. I really wanted to express how my knowledge has come from my heart space. So after I worked out that I wanted the drawing to come from my heart. The next question I asked was, what feelings do I want to express, and I am a very expressive person. And I wanted this drawing to express my joy and my excitement and my creative freedom as well.

I also wanted to show me in my fullness, and I often want to play down my own expression, and I often feel really vulnerable when I'm putting my full expression out there. And I find that a lot of artists that I know are very the same. It is a vulnerable experience expressing our emotions, it is a vulnerable experience sharing that with other people as well. Once I realized that I do want to share my vulnerability and my joy and my freedom, I knew that I needed to move through that fear that I was feeling and ignore that little negative voice in my head saying that I'm too much and just go for it. So the final question that I asked myself was, what images are resonating with me at this time. And this course is based in nature.

We have done a lot of drawings in nature. So I really wanted to continue with this theme, of course, and I thought about standing on a cliff with some mountains in the distance and that didn't feel totally right, but it was on the right track. And then I thought about my favorite places in nature. And I'm a beach girl. I grew up on the beach. And so I love the sand.

I love the sun. I love the water. My favorite time of day is sunset. But I still really liked the cliff idea because I feel like cliffs have a lot of solidity to them. And so I thought about the idea of actually standing on a beach with cliffs surrounding. And that felt really good to me.

The other visual images that we have used a lot in this course is birds. And I realized this in hindsight the other day when I was looking back at all the exercises we have done, we've done a lot of bid exercises, and that wasn't actually intentional. I didn't set that up as an intention at the beginning of the course. However, I am living in an environment right now that has a lot of birds in it. We have lots of cockatoos and and parrots and magpies and all sorts of beautiful Australian birds in our backyard. So that has obviously subconsciously filtered through to this course and to the topics that we have covered in this course.

And so I definitely wanted to include Birds in My final drawing. And after addressing these questions, I had arrived at my idea I wanted me on a beach surrounded Cliff's at sunset with my ideas coming from my heart. No more accurately exploding from my heart with excitement and fun. And I want my ideas to be flying out and reaching all parts of the world. Now, once I had my idea, I knew that it was complete because I felt something that I like to call the whole body. Yes.

And I can feel the yes throughout my entire body and I can feel it resonate and it feels right. And I just kept sitting with that process and sitting with that process until it came to a complete whole body. Yes. And when you feel that whole body Yes, you know you're on the right track. Original artworks do not have to be drawn from your head. I have said it before and I will say it again.

Yes, some people again like to do this and they like to draw straight from the heads. However, most of us and myself included like to work from visual references. And this is something that artists have done in the past as well. Kings and Queens would sit there for hours posing for portraits so that the masters at work could get it exactly right. And nowadays, we have one technology and we can use viewing boxes, also known as cameras and we can take photographs of things or we can use other people's photographs as references as well. pixabay and other sites like this is a great place to start looking for visual references because artists have chosen to share their works with you and share their photographs with you for you to be able to use and after looking at many different visual references for this drawing, I came up with the following.

And I have some butterflies that I'm going to be using. I have some birds, I got quite a few different images of birds so that I could get different angles and different sizes. I also found the perfect Cliff image that I really loved however, it will need a little bit of editing Because I think there's too many rocks in the foreground and there's also too much blue sky and I really wanted a sun setting with a bit more texture and mood in the sky. So I found a beautiful image of a sunset and a cloudy sky. And then I needed to find an image of me. So I went out to an oval, put my favorite dress on and took a photograph of me walking across that oval with my arms spread wide, really feeling into my excitement and my joy.

And the picture is a little bit fuzzy to work from because I was quite a distance from the camera when I got the right shot. However, it's certainly enough to create this drawing today. So we have idea, we have our visual references. And one thing that we need to do before we start is to choose our medium and our paper as well. And it's really important to combine the choice of the medium that you're going to work with, with the paper that you're going to be wearing. Working on as well.

So for me, graphite was an easy choice for this drawing because we've been working in graphite a lot. And I do love to work in graphite. However, I also wanted to create a little bit of color. And so I decided to go back to my coloring in roots and to use the artist pencils in this drawing because I haven't used them very much throughout the course yet. So I wanted to combine the use of the graphite pencil and the artist coloring in pencils. Also the graphite and the coloring in pencils have a beautiful softness to them.

And I did want to express joy and excitement but I also want to express a little bit of softness in this drawing, so I thought it was a perfect choice to combine those two together. But before I start, I needed to choose a paper and I could have gone with the standard cartridge paper, so I'll just grab some here. A cartridge paper can be quite wide and it can be quite neutral wide. It has genuinely a slightly warm tone to it. But mostly cartridge paper has a nice soft texture to it. And it's really easy to work with with most mediums.

I did however feel like I wanted to work with something that had a little bit of a cool tone. So I found this beautiful paper that I have here, which is a much thicker cartridge paper. When you look at the two In comparison, you can see that the paper that I chose actually has a cooler time than the regular cartridge paper. The watercolor paper that I used in the last lesson actually has a much warmer time to it. And you can see there, the difference in the two. So I chose to go with the color paper.

And when I started to do my test drawing on this, I made sure that I tested the graphite, the colored pencil and a china graph pencil that I'll show you later as well. And what I really loved is that the China graph pencil, which is a white waxy pen So came out really strongly on this paper. So it was a good choice to begin with. What I didn't do was chair test the level of detail that this paper would allow, and the paper has a little bit too much texture for it. And you'll see what I mean. As I get through the drawing.

There's a little bit of detail that's quite difficult to get with this paper. So to help create cohesion in your drawings, I recommend doing a test drawing first, and this can be done fairly quickly, and it will help you to get the composition of your drawing correct before you start the final artwork. You can play with the placement of the elements, the angle of the sun or the lighting, you can edit out or combine your inspirational images together until you are happy with what you see. And when it's right. You will feel a sense of harmony in your work. You will feel that right feeling and you need to trust this feeling so composition and proportion is in a way, a very personal thing.

And what feels right to one person may not feel right to another person. And there are rules that you can follow. However, I do believe that following your heart in relation to your own sense of proportion and your own sense of composition will be your best option at this stage. So before I create my final drawing, I have set myself up in my drawing space. And I have all of the visual references that I need set up around me and I also have the test roaring, sitting in front of me so that I can accurately start the drawing based on the proportions that I've already decided. I have also created a test page in color already.

So I have drawn a couple of little graphite elements on the page. And then I have started to add color to see What sort of colors I want to use for the cliffs and how I'm going to get them to look that beautiful brown and yellow and also how I'm going to create the contrast in the shadows. And what does it look like when I do the graphite first, and then when I do the graphite after, and how does it look when I layer these two mediums together, I then do a little bit of a test on the water and make sure that I know what colors I'm going to use to get that beautiful gradation of darkness off into the sunset. And then I add a little bit of color to what will be my dress on a fabric in the final drawing. I also start to experiment with how the graphite will create the shadows in the fabric, and then how will I create my rocks.

So I've got a good understanding of what I'm going to be doing for my main elements. When I start my main drawing. I am going to start by outlining the cliffs and again, I am looking At my test drawing very carefully so that I know the proportions. However, I haven't gone to a lot of detail on the background, what I like to do is start with the elements of the drawing that I find the most difficult. So I've blocked in the cliffs just to get an idea of where things are going on the page, then I have come in and I have started to draw myself in detail, because getting that part of the drawing right is quite difficult for me, I find figures and faces to be really difficult. So I'm starting with the hardest part.

I'm also starting with the parts that are in the foreground. So obviously myself and these little butterflies and birds that I'm going to be drawing are going to be in the foreground of the picture in front of the cliffs. So I don't want to create too much darkness in my graphite work, if that's going to interfere with the front elements of the drawing. And because I've already done that test already, I know where they're all going to see it so I can confidently They go ahead and place those elements on the page. And now I'm starting to look at the visual references of the butterflies and the birds and to create a bit of an outline and a shape and detail the direction that they're flying in so that I know that I get the wings rise and the little pigs fried and I can come back and add a little bit of detail later.

But for now, I am really working out exactly where they are. I am editing you can see that I'm using an eraser, and I am making sure that the composition feels harmonious to me in the detail as well. So the angle of where the birds are flying is really important. I'm adding some little extra ones in there making sure that they go off into the distance and making sure that I get some really large elements in there as well. And just playing With the proportion of the detail once I'm completely happy with all of the placement of my beds and my butterflies, I've gone back to do some textured detailing in the cliffs in the rocks and I'm starting on the left hand side of the drawing and working my way across so that I avoid smudging with my hair and I find it much easier to work from left to right.

So I'm going through and I'm using those texture techniques that we learned earlier. Right now I'm doing a lot of scumbling for where the trees are. And I am adding a little bit of shading and a little bit of cross hatching to where the cliff areas would be because when I look at the visual reference, I can see that there's a lot of sort of vertical and horizontal line detail in the cliffs. I'm making sure that I add shadow depth and dimension as I go as well. And you can see that even though I'm working from left to right, I'm still looking holistically because I create detail in one area. And then I go back and I create a little bit more detail if I've missed out on the other side of the drawing.

And I'm just casually working my way across with that texture, constantly looking at my visual reference, and constantly trying to draw what I see, so that I can get the most accuracy in this drawing. However, I am also allowed to maintain a little bit of artistic freedom. And so therefore, because we're drawing nature, I can create edit and you can See, the I am typing the clips a little bit differently to what they are in the picture. I'm making sure that I block in my water. And then for the foreground rock images, I've really reduced them a lot from the original image, there was too many rocks in the foreground of the original image. And so therefore, I am reducing the use of those rocks in this actual drawing.

I'm going through making sure that I added add a little bit more detail to myself there. Because I obviously was drawing the rocks and decided that I needed to go back and draw a little bit on myself. I do find that I get quite distracted with my own drawing. I get sort of delved into one area and then I start looking across at the drawing and I think I better go back and fix that. So I really am Looking over the entire drawing at the whole time, the whole time. So just finishing off the scumbling on the rocks there.

And once I have finished the scumbling on the rocks, I decided I needed to walk away from the drawing. And I put that little clock there as a reminder to talk to you about the process that we learned in exercise, one with the mountains of stopping, drawing, walking away, and coming back to reevaluate what you have done. And in the first lesson, we did that just to create a little bit of confidence. However, that process in itself is something that we can use to help develop our drawings a little better. And I find that when I walk away from a drawing and then come back to it, I'm seeing my drawing with fresh eyes. I'm seeing it in a different light.

And for that particular step I actually lifted overnight and so I came back the next day. And when I started to look at the drawing again, I realized that I wanted to change the composition a little bit. So I felt like I needed to vary the area of the rocks in the background there so that I could create a little bit more of a very blind to the sort of sweeping horizon. I also wanted to block in the clouds, which I hadn't done the day before. So here I am, looking in that sort of stormy look to the sky. And then adding a little bit more detail to the birds.

There was some of the birds that needed a little bit of a touch up there. So I'm still looking at the visual references for the birds here and just creating a little bit better detail. The other thing that I then started to do is think about the angle of the sun in relation to the birds. Add a little bit of shadow on the ground for where the birds are. And now I have decided to go back and do a little bit more testing of the color. So here I'm working out what colors I would like to use in the sky.

And then I'm going straight back to my drawing with those colors and laying down the lighter areas of my sky. So I'm starting with that really bright yellow, and then moving on to using a pale brown and I've just realized that I have a lot of graphite that I am smudging with my hand. So I have got a little bit of paper, just to block out where my head is mainly going because then I don't have to worry about smudging my drawing underneath. And so I've laid down the yellow and the brown and now I'm going back and adding a bit of depth and dimension With a warm gray, and that warm gray is going to start to filter up into the darker areas of the sky. And again, I am still looking at my visual reference and seeing where I want the colors of my sky to go because I want them to graduate really beautifully from that warm area of the sunlight into the dark areas on the left hand side of the page, so I've started looking the dark areas.

And now I'm coming back with my blue. And you can see that I just drew a couple of arrows. And those arrows are again an edit that I am going to pay attention to. So I've decided that the drawing in itself is not the right proportion. So I've just cut off about an inch from the right hand side of the drawing there. And so the drawing Ours are denoting, where I'm going to cut that off at the end.

So going back now and adding a lot of depth and darkness to my sky, and I'm going to spend a lot of time on this sky really shading in all of the dark and the light areas and making sure that they are beautifully blended, yet also varied. So we can create softness in our blending, but we can also still create visual interest by varying the different areas and creating a bit of contrast. Now I am simply looking in my water and just creating a little bit of depth and dimension there. Now when I'm drawing water, I like to exaggerate the depth into the horizon by creating darkness in the background and I also like to create a little bit of softness in the waves so I make sure that I do a bit of degradation or shading towards I am also then going to go in a block all of the color of my cliffs.

So I'm starting off with the grain of the trees and just working across the drawing with all of the grain. And you will see as I'm drawing the cliffs, I'm going to leave the color blank in front of where my body is because I really want my heart to look like it's glowing. So I'm going to avoid all of the detail of color in those Cliff areas that near the front of my chest because I want to come in and do those later. But I've chosen an army green for the rocks. And I'm also using the same grain in the trays a little bit and then really testing out all the colors together with the clips as well. Now with the clips, I've decided that I want to put down the color and then come back with the graphite over the top, because I feel like I'm losing a little bit of detail.

So With a sharp pencil, I am now going to block in with a really dark brown the detail in the cliffs and because I want the detail to taper off into the distance to create advancing and receding with the, with the detail level, I have started the detail of the clips on the opposite side of the page to what I have started all of the other elements. So this time I'm working from right to left, and I bring up the detail as it gets further away from me. So sort of just reversing the order of drawing there and still looking at where I put the shadows in with the graphite and enhancing them with the darker brown. And then coming back and blotting in that beautiful sort of gold orange color to make the cliffs glow a little bit as if they're in the sun. And because I have blocked in my birds already, I know that I don't need to put any color there I can avoid the area that I am in so that I'm not adding too much color.

So coming back now and adding a lot more detail to my birds. And one thing that I would like to introduce you to is the use of graph pencil. So China graph pencil will pretty much draw on any surface you will draw oversaturated areas because it's more like an oil pastel or an oil crayon. And it contrasts beautifully to that cool paper that I am using because it's a really warm white. So I've been able to highlight all of my birds in a beautiful warm tone with that China graph pencil and now I'm adding some color around my heart area. And I'm actually going to flick my China graph pencil out to create some lines and see if that sort of hot exploding technique is happening and I just added a little bit of graphite pencil to those lines as well to create the contrast that I need to show off the China graph.

And here is a little technique that I love to use, I've sort of looked at the clouds and decided that they're a little bit too wide in comparison to the other areas. So I have drawn off on a separate piece of paper, a little bit of graphite, and then I have rubbed it over the cloud areas. And now I'm going back and adding graphite to all of the cliffs and making sure that I create definition in my shading and definition in my detail. I haven't colored in the lower rock areas because I would just match them. So I'm going to leave them until a lot later. But I am going back now adding graphite detail to the face area.

And I find it really tricky on this paper to get some good detail in my face area. However, I can still Add a little bit of highlight with the China graph pencil. And you can see in the folds of the skirt I have added a lot of shadowing into the folds and into the areas to make them look a little bit 3d. Now I'm ready to block in the color of the rocks. And I'm doing this as quickly as possible. But what's really important is that I add darkness and three dimensionality to these rocks.

They are in the foreground so they need more detail than the background areas. So I'll spend a little bit of time on them, making sure that I get depth and dimension and showing off those curves and the imperfections in the rocks as well. So here I have actually taken some time to walk away from my drawing and come back and I decided that I need a lot more detail in the base of where the cliffs are because I felt like the cliffs and the rocks were joining closely together. And so I need to separate them with a bit of shadow to make it look like the cliffs are going behind the rocks. I also need to add a lot more shadow to the ground and to sort of clean up my shading in the ground areas to get a little bit of more three dimensionality. I then am going to add some final touches by fixing up some areas of the fabric that I don't like creating a bit more o shape around my buttocks area and a little bit more detail in the face there as well.

And then we have the completed drawing. I am really happy with the result. I think it has beautiful softness it has really achieved the story that I wanted to communicate and the concepts that I wanted to communicate. I understand that this is not necessarily the type of art that everybody will want to hang in there. house or it would maybe not be sold commercially. However, it is an expression of myself.

And that is what is important here. That is what this whole course is all about. When you are following your heart and when you are expressing yourself, you will always be happy with your own work. And then it doesn't really matter what other people think. So, thank you so much for coming on this drawing journey with me. I'm completely honored to be a part of your drawing journey.

I have loved creating this course and I hope you have enjoyed what I have had to deliver to you. Please check out the bonus lecture. As there is a little bit more information and some links that I'd like to provide for you there. Remember to download the support documents so that you can review at any time and let me know if you have any questions. Thanks again and happy drawing.