Each week, along with the Sketchbook Skool students, I am doing the homework assignment from the kourse called “Beginning”. Except for last week, because I taught that klass myself. We’re in the third week now and this week’s teacher is Prashant Miranda. From India, he inspires the klass to draw the sky – no matter where in the world you are.

I did my homework in Amsterdam, looking out of my living room window and up to the clouds. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing with my watercolors and I don’t even know if I particularly like the art that I made, but it was great fun to play with my watercolors and step out of my comfort zone for this one too!

The post Painting the Sky appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

Last Friday, the new term inSketchbook Skool started, and it’s pretty exciting! Not only am I teaching my class on sketching food, called ‘Draw It Like It’s Hot’, also the 6-week kourses ‘Beginning’ and ‘Expressing’ are happening as we speak! And it’s not too late to sign up!
This week’s teacher in the kourse called ‘Beginning’ is Sketchbook Skool’s co-founder Danny Gregory, and we’re off to a great start!
His klass is all about how drawing makes us feel and that we all are creative – in our own way.
As Sketchbook Skool’s head master and head mistress, Danny and I alternate doing the homework assignments along with all the others in the Sketchbook Skool Kommunity.

So here’s what I came up with this week, for his homework called ‘Draw And Feel’

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Draw Tip: Do you have no idea what to draw? Draw people! It’s a great exercise on drawing features, hands, gestures, postures and shadows, and to try out all kinds of art tools. And: you will never run out of subjects because they are everywhere.

The post Drawing People appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

Welcome to Draw Tip Tuesday!

Do you have a favourite dish or recipe? Why not draw it then? It can be very simple to do.

What’s your favorite food? Draw it! And if you are hungry for more, make sure you don’t miss out on my online workshop ‘Draw It Like It’s Hot!’. Four weeks of delicious art making and fun!

Click here to learn more and sign up today!

The post Draw Tip Tuesday: Draw Your Food appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

I am a big believer that outside of the comfort zone is where the magic happens. I don’t just believe it does, I know it does.

Here’s a little example of a recent experience in facing creative fears:

The other day I had a delicious meal and ate Dutch asparagus. Those white asparagus come from the south of the Netherlands and can be harvested only for a very short season so every year. So these beauties are celebrated on the plate. All the more reason to draw them too!

So I did.

Although that comic-style recipe illustration doesn’t quite match the rest of the page, I loved working on this and it could be the basis for a version 2.0, an illustrated recipe to send to They Draw And Cook for example.

The eventual purpose (if any) didn’t matter, because I was just enjoying the process of drawing in my sketchbook.

Now it definitely needed color, that was for sure.
So my brush hovered over my color palette, deciding whether to go for a safe color or something different. I wanted a contrasting color and looked at the red watercolor in my palette and thought: red can be quite aggressive, it’s kind of scary.

If something is scary… Do it anyway!

All the more reason, actually.
It might surprise you how much you can accomplish, when exploring the unknown or unpredictable.
And besides: what is the worst that could happen?
My father taught me something valuable, which he learned from his mom: to remind yourself that “your life doesn’t depend on it”. This is especially true when it’s just a drawing!

So I decided to make that red paint bleed all over the page and then also added a layer of red color pencil to deepen the color. And I love where it brought this page.
It may be too bright, and the red doesn’t reflect the delicate flavor of the dish, but it looks great as a sketchbook spread.

What scares you? Go and do something with it. Today.

Oh and if this asparagus drawing tastes like more: join my 4-week online class on illustrating recipes in June. Click here to learn more and sign up!

The post How To Face Your Fears appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

Beginning a new sketchbook can be quite exciting and a little bit scary. You don’t know what the paper will be like, how it will combine with your favourite art tools, whether or not you’re going to like it as much as the previous sketchbook you just filled and got kind of attached to… and above all a lot of people fear that first blank page. WHAT to do with it? It has to be meaningful, because it’s a new beginning, it should be a great drawing because it’s the first page of many to follow. Really?

I mean, really really?

No. It’s just the first page. Go for it, if the drawing isn’t as great as you hoped, there is a whole sketchbook left to make up for that flawed drawing. And does it HAVE to be meaningful? Says who?

I got this Stillman and Birn sketchbook on a trip to New York and dived right into it. I sat on the couch and my husband was playing the banjo so I thought I’d draw him. A nice way to practice gesture drawings, hands, faces. as soon as I put the first lines onto the paper I knew things were going to be out of proportion, but I went along with it anyway. To fix things a little, I kept adding things and used hatching lines, and added a bit of blue watercolor. Then I just flipped the page and went on with the next one, not really thinking about it that much and leaving the left page blank.
Then, in Sketchbook Skool‘s kourse ‘Polishing’, we have an amazing Mixed Media artist: Juliana Coles. I am so happy for her to join the Fakulty! What she does is a different style of art journaling than we’ve covered so far in Sketchbook Skool. She layers her pages with drawings, paint, collage, lettering and anything she can find and feels the page needs. she uses writing to spill her thoughts or emotions onto the page and by adding layers of colours and lettering and photos and more paint, she builds very personal, emotional and just beautiful sketchbook pages. She keeps polishing the pages, getting back to them again and again, sometimes over the years. A page is never a finished piece – it can keep evolving and that is so interesting!
It is so different from what I do, and I need to take a big step out of my comfort zone to actually do this mixed media stuff. But outside of the comfort zone IS where the magic happens so I love that challenge! And this is one of the beautiful things about Sketchbook Skool. One week you may be completely inside my comfort zone drawing a meal following Matthew Midgley‘s lead, and a week later you’re exploring and discovering a whole new approach to making art!

So Juliana gives the Sketchbook Skool Students a piece of homework to do the same. She suggests you can look for a page in your sketchbook that you don’t like so much (or that you DO like), and start spicing it up.
So I took out lots of art tools, even ones that I hadn’t used for quite a while and dusted those off, took that page above, and this is what I made:

I also made a video to share my process with the Sketchbook Skool Students, and this is it:

The post How To Fix Flaws appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

As a kid in school, I was never really great at doing homework. I mean, I did it – oh yes I was quite the miss goodie two shoes, but I never managed to get super high grades for the subjects I wasn’t into that much. The only homework I never procrastinated on was for art class. Nothing much has changed over the years. I really enjoyed doing this week’s Sketchbook Skool homework in the brand new kourse “Polishing”, in which Danny Gregory shows us how to use everyday things and conversations to create pages in your sketchbook graphic novel style.As headmaster and headmistress of Sketchbook Skool, Danny and I want to learn from the amazing fakulty, so each week, we alternate doing the homework assignments from “Polishing”.

As headmaster and headmistress of Sketchbook Skool, Danny and I want to learn from the amazing fakulty, so each week, we alternate doing the homework assignments from “Polishing”.
You can, by the way, still sign up for it! Sign up at Sketchbookskool.com

The post Homework appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

Welcome to draw Tip Tuesday!

Here’s today’s tip: always carry a sketchbook with you, and use it. You will create a treasure of memories for yourself, capturing things photos or videos could never do.

Want more videos? Subscribe to my Youtube Channel!

So – use your journal and make awesome art.

The post Draw Tip Tuesday: How To Make Your Drawings Count appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

Welcome to Draw Tip Tuesday!

Today’s draw tip isn’t mine, and it’s also a bit different from what you may be used to.
By popular demand, here is the video I made for Sketchbook Skool with my dad showing his fabulous invention: the Watercolor Watch!

To make your own watercolor watch, here’s the manual my dad made for you:

Don’t miss out on other great stuff happening in Sketchbook Skool: sign up for a Kourse over at www.sketchbookskool.com

The post Watercolor Watch: Draw Tip Tuesday appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

Life drawing sessions are fantastic to practice drawing people, and actually, I’d like to attend them more often. Studying proportions, shadows, staring at a person who gets paid to be stared at during 20, 10 or 5 minute poses, being surrounded by others who are also focusing on the same model… it all adds up to a wonderful experience and great practice. However, unplanned drawing and sketching is more my ‘thing’. I bring my sketchbook with me, everywhere I go, because there will be sketching opportunities on many occasions, even if it was just for a few minutes.

Lynne Chapman‘s book ‘Sketching people‘ has reminded me of how much I love drawing people, and I am enjoying filling my sketchbook pages while observing the people around me.

The best places to draw people are where people are pre-occupied, focused on their phone, ipad, laptop, waiting in line for something, or in converstaion with somebody else:

Using a bold, cheap rainbow pencil makes it easier to work quickly and the blunt tip won’t allow me to go into detail.

I often choose an aisle seat when I travel by plane or train; so I can get a good view of my fellow travelers – even when it’s from the back

When people stand in line, they will stay still for a little bit, but you know you need to be quick. Sometimes, if I am not fast enough, I just combine two, three or even four persons into one. If people are sitting down in a coffeeshop, cafe or restaurant, check if they have something to drink or eat. Usually you will then know if they will be there for a while and you can get into more detail when drawing them.

Sometimes it’s a bit scary – I feel like a stalker, watching someone intensely for a while, when I draw them. Most of the time, people don’t even notice at all, but if they do and I feel that it annoys them that they’re being watched, I stop and focus on someone or something else. It doesn’t happen often but sometimes people come up to me because they noticed me drawing (them) and they want to see. Then I may feel hesitant to show them because I often don’t go for the likeness, but rather focus on posture, shadows, gesture and line. But it doesn’t matter to them either – they will recognize something about them in the drawing and are flattered to have been the subject – they won’t judge me for not drawing them perfectly!

The post How To Draw People appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

Because January is now behind us, let’s be honest to ourselves. How are you doing on those new year’s resolutions? Are you still sticking to them?

Last Monday, my online workshop ‘Awesome Art Journaling’ has started. Some of the participants are there because their new year’s resolution was: make more art. They took action by taking the class!

Struggles I see a lot in my classes are things like:

‘I really want to make art, but I don’t have time’, ‘I procrastinate, even though I know I feel happy when I make art’, ‘I think of sitting down to draw, but then I don’t’.

Is any of the above slightly familiar perhaps?

Here are 3 tips to give yourself that extra push and take action

1. Take responsibility

You can wait for something to miraculously happen, like the week suddenly turning into 8 days, life getting less busy, or an hour consisting of 80  instead of 60 minutes. But who are you fooling anyway?

I can THINKabout going to the gym, but that’s not going to make my butt any thinner, is it?

The only person who can make it happen is YOU. Don’t blame circumstances or make up excuses. There is always a way.

2. Stop being scared

Now, of course I don’t know what kind of challenge you are aiming for on tackling, but assuming it’s related to creativity: step out of that comfort zone and go for it. You need to follow new paths to learn and grow. And after all: what can REALLY go wrong? It’s just pen and paper. Or paint and canvas, or whatever your poison is.

3. Just Do it.

With every step you take, you will get such a great feeling of accomplishment. Another result: you don’t need to beat yourself up for making excuses. Because you don’t make them anymore.

Need an extra kick-in-the-butt?

Be quick then! ‘Awesome Art Journaling’ started last Monday, and if you haven’t already, this week will be the last chance for you to join in a whole month of making art every single day!

Click here to join now!

The post 3 Tips To Give Yourself a Kick-In-The-Butt appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

Welcome to Draw Tip Tuesday!
Last week I showed you how to make a colorful background wash ,using your watercolors. Today, we’ll draw on top of it, using colored pencils.

The post Draw Tip Tuesday – Colour Pencils on Watercolours appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

Occasionally, in my online classes or in reaction of my Draw Tip Tuesday videos, people ask me questions that start with: ‘What is the secret to…’. Or comments like ’You make it look so easy’.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the simple answer would be: “If you buy this pen by Brand X, you will be able to draw everything you want”. But, as you already suspected – that’s not the case.
Maybe if we were studying on Hogwarts we could make it work, but even then you would need to really search for the right wand that fitted your needs best, before even starting to learn the first small steps towards making magic happen.

Walking the Path
As a kid I had this image in my mind of me behind a beautiful piano, playing music as if it would flow right out of my fingers. Even though I kept hoping I would some day magically be able to play complex classical pieces, I learned that just attending class each week, wasn’t going to get me there.

Practicing every day was the only key to moving forward, learning a piece bit by bit. Eventually I gave up, believing I was lacking the talent, but in fact I was lacking the motivation, endurance, patience and, well… ‘passion’. I wanted to be that piano player, but I didn’t want to walk the path to become one. It felt like an obligation rather than something I really wanted to do, all the time – like drawing.

Years of practice
When people comment on my art and say: “you make it look so easy” or “you are so talented”, I feel quite honored and I take it as a huge compliment. But what they often don’t realize is that what I now draw in half an hour time, took me years and years of practice. And I’m never done learning – which I love!

There are no Shortcuts
Enough about me. What can you do to develop your art skills?
With any form of art, and with developing a creative habit or any habit at all, there are no shortcuts.
You need to take one step at a time, make mistakes, learn from them, explore different tools and techniques and find out if they fit you and your needs. lowering expectations helps on the one hand, but you also need to keep challenging yourself to accomplish new goals and stay motivated. You need to find the balance by not setting the bar too high.

To boil it down for you, here are 5 ‘Secrets to Success’:

Now get your creative habit going!
Starting February 1, in my online art class ‘Awesome Art Journaling’ I will guide you through the weeks, and together we will fill our journal pages with awesome art. You can learn to make memorable daily journal entries with the practical tips and tricks I give you, and through experimenting with materials and techniques. Develop creative ideas and make every day an Awesome Art Journal day.
It’s only $69 for a whole month and at the end of class you will receive a workbook to keep nurturing your art habit for another month. If you haven’t joined already, what are you still waiting for?
Click here to join today!

Whatever you do, I hope you will enjoy walking that path – no shortcuts, just a lot of fun making awesome art!

The post Shortcuts And Secrets For Your Art Skills appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

Last week, on Sketchbook Skool I shared a video I made of my dad because he invented such a clever thing. I posted it on my instagram account and got more likes on the one post than I ever had, and still people are sharing and liking and commenting – it’s amazing. Whenever `i ask my dad ‘what time is it?’, he’s not showing me the time – just red yellow and blue! And to be honest, that’s a lot better than ‘a quarter past 10’, isn’t it?

Because of popular demand, here’s the video once more. You can find the free manual on how to make this watercolour watch on the Sketchbook Skool blog.

The post Time To Paint appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

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Sometimes you just don’t know where to start when you are somewhere and you want to capture the scene or the vibe, or all the colours that you see… Well I learned a fantastic trick from Miguel Herranz: capture parts of the scene in frames, and fill your page like that. 

If you draw a scene, but don’t have time to fill the whole page with all the things you see in the background, add lettering instead. A great way to document things and make notes so you won’t forget.

Or if a scene overwhelms you, you could just use a tiny sketchbook, and make a quick, tiny drawing. When it’s small, you can’t add too much detail, so the size helps you to filter them out:

Here’s another way: to capture different moments all on one page:

What I also really like doing, is to use a grey brush marker to add quick background shapes – it adds a certain sense of depth to a line drawing.

The post Travel Journal pages #4 appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

As I am getting back into working mode after 12 beautiful days in Thailand (of which I will share all my drawings here soon, promise!), along wit the Sketchbook Skool team I am getting everything ready for the launch of the brand new Sketchbook Skool Kourse called ‘Expressing’.

I am so excited about this new Kourse, and about all the amazing artist’s who teach in it! One of them is Felix Scheinberger. His watercolour sketches are so juicy, it makes you want to whip out your watercolours and start creating colourful sketchbook pages. He’s a master at watercolours, and although many people find watercolouring tricky, he manages to talk you through the essence of it in this short video I made with him this summer when I visited him in Berlin. At the end of the video, he tells you to burn your painting! Really? Yes. Well, just a little.

Felix has a lot of other tricks up his sleeve and you can learn them all in Sketchbook Skool. Klass starts this Friday! Don’t miss out, click here to sign up now!

The post Burn your painting! appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

You can make art with any kind of tool. Even though buying art supplies is so much fun to do, you don’t need that $80 fountain pen or an expensive art journal. You can make art with a simple ballpoint pen or a cheap pencil for example.
What is important though is to keep ‘sharpening the blade’. By literally sharpen your pencil for example (yes, it really makes a big difference if your pencil tip is sharp – it’s amazing how much detail you can draw!), but also your mind.

Making art isn’t about the materials you use. It all depends on the artist: YOU.
I’m sure you already know that, but where do you get fresh ideas from? Or how do you learn new techniques?
Because yes: sharpening the blade certainly means you need to keep learning new things all the time. You’re never done. And that’s a good thing! To let your art evolve and see your skills grow as you learn is part of the fun and not only is it refreshing, it’s kind of addicting. A very healthy addiction to have.

That’s why I am very excited to give you these two tips below!
Let’s forget about boring new year’s resolutions like losing weight or quitting some bad habit. Instead, start a new habit and start off your new year in a creative way:

1. Take the brand new Sketchbook Skool Kourse called ‘Expressing’

2. Get a little kick in the pants to get your creative habit going.
Starting February 1, in my online art class ‘Awesome Art Journaling’ I’ll give you and your online classmates daily art prompts, helpful tricks, practical tips and step-by-step instructions in videos and images. You’ll definitely catch the drawing bug, and don’t ever want to loose it again.
No need to be afraid you won’t pursue the new year’s resolution of losing a bad habit. Instead: add a new habit!
Click here to join today!

Whatever you do this year, let’s make awesome art!

The post Tips To Keep Developing Your Art Skills appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

Happy New Year!

Today is the day a brand new year has started. To reset, or to go on with all the good stuff you were already doing.
Any new year’s resolutions you made, are starting now. And it’s all so exciting!

I don’t really ‘do’ new year’s resolutions – I like a little shorter term goals. But if I would share any of those goals, they would be: keep on going to find the right balance between work life and private life, teach a live workshop in spring, make the best use of my new studio, and above all: keep doing what I love most: make art and share the inspiration.

Today is also the day our brand new kourse is available in Sketchbook Skool!
The new kourse we are launching today is called “Expressing”. It’s about using your sketchbook pages to document memories, stories, experiences, feelings and emotions.
Often, a picture can say so much more than words.
In Sketchbook Skool, everyone gets to hang out with inspiring artists from all over the world. When you take a 6-week Sketchbook Skool Kourse, each week an new artist shows you his/her approach to sketchbook keeping. That means you get 6 different teachers in 6 weeks!

Every Friday a new klass is released, featuring a new Sketchbook Skool Fakulty Member. You’ll get to watch a bunch of videos in which you get a peek over the artist’s shoulder in their demos and sketchbook tours, they talk about art tools and styles, so you can learn some new techniques, or find out about art materials. Your fingers will start to itch and want to grab a pen and draw! Plus you’re not doing this alone: you get to do your homework along with all your klass mates, and if you upload your work on the kourse website you all get to see what you’re making and I can tell you: the Sketchbook Skool Kommunity is like a huge cheerleader team and an inspiring creative group of people from all over the world!

Since Danny and I partnered up to start Sketchbook Skool, we get to meet fantastic artists from around the world, learn so much from them and share it all in Sketchbook Skool.

With the new kourse called “Expressing”, these fabulous artists are joining Sketchbook Skool’s Fakulty:

Felix Scheinberger
I am such a big fan of Felix’s work! The pages of his book ‘Urban Watercoloring’ look so juicy, it always makes me want to start splashing around with paint. But also his book ‘Mut zum Skizzenbuch’ (meaning Courage For The Sketchbook), which for some mysterious reason hasn’t been published in an English version (yet), is so inspiring to try different techniques and styles. I can’t even begin to explain how happy I was to spend time with him in Berlin to film his klass!

Jill Weber
Danny introduced me to Jill’s work, and I fell in love with her art right away. Jill is an artist as well as a book designer and illustrator. She lives with her husband on a farm called Frajil Farms and also blogs about this magical place. Her colourful paintings and illustrations each seem to be individual stories full of imagination. And her sketchbooks! Wait until you see her sketchbook tour in klass!

Michael Nobbs
Michael is an inspiration for so many people. Ever since I took my first plunge into the world of blogging, I’ve been following him. He found a way to build an artistic life around the obstacles in his life. He gets things done. Like writing books, making art and mentoring and guiding people from all over the world.
Plus Michael is a wonderful person to be around. I’m sure you will agree when you watch the videos we shot in and around his cottage in Wales.

Penelope Dullaghan
She was on my list called “collaborate with some day”, long before Sketchbook Skool was born. I found out about Penelope via Illustration Friday, the community website for art that she initiated. She’s an illustrator, designer and painter and lives in a beautiful house in Indianapolis with her husband and daughter. I love her style! Colourful, Her patterns and paintings are colourful and whimsical and I can’t get enough of awing over her pattern designs.

Sabine Wisman
Another Dutchie, like me! Sabine is a writer who turned into an illustrator. She’s a real fun person to hang out with. With her husband, two sons and a dog, she lives in Haarlem, which means she’s located perfectly in between city life of Amsterdam and beach life at the North Sea. Her work is whimsical, funny, clear and bright and she sure knows how to add a storytelling element to her drawings in a straightforward way.
Another fun fact: Sabine is also a student in Sketchbook Skool!

My humble self
I am honored to be joining this awesome group of teachers this term in Sketchbook Skool! My klass will be about hand lettering, and using it to make your sketchbook an even richer document of your life. Even when you think your handwriting sucks, you can add text to your pages without the fear you will ‘ruin’ your drawing. I can’t wait to get started!

It took us a while to straighten things out and to work our way towards the future of Sketchbook Skool. Finally, the new Kourse is available NOW, and the first klass begins on Jan 15. Click here to sign up now!

I am pretty sure that being creative is a new year’s resolution you will want to keep – and in Sketchbook Skool we can help you with it. Go to www.sketchbookskool.com and join us!

The post 2016! Happy New Year! appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

At the end of the year, there’s always a moment of looking back. I’m sure you’ve accomplished a lot in 2015, and that you made awesome art!

Now let’s start looking forward: What’s new?
I moved to a new studio and I am excited and looking forward to working there in the new year! It has a lot of light and a lot more square meters than my tiny, dark-ish home office space.

Even though I already had a lot of projects on my hands, I started looking for a studio-away-from-home and found it a lot faster than I had expected. I took the opportunity and just made the move. I put my computer, a table and a chair there, so I could work. But then of course, an empty room isn’t very inspiring – and that was the point of moving: having a bright, inspiring place to work and make art.

This could have become a longer term plan but I wanted to finish what I started as soon as I could – and make it happen! I’ll admit I had to trade some hours of sleep to get it done before leaving for some travelling, but it was totally worth it.
I set a goal: creating an inspiring work place. I found the place.
I set a time: before Christmas. Got my act together and found some furniture to put in there. It took some creative thinking around Ikea stuff, driving back and forth quite a few times, but I made it happen, just because I kept that goal in sight.

Why am I telling you all this?
What I am trying to say is that as long as you have a clear goal, and a good reason, you can accomplish a lot. even in a short amount of time.

What’s new in 2016 for you?
Goals don’t need to be big, like moving. They could be: ‘make one drawing a week’ (or a day). Or ‘find a life drawing class’, ‘find an urban sketchers group’, ‘finally use the crayons I bought months ago – just because I am addicted to buying art supplies’… I think you catch my drift.

In my last email two weeks ago, I wrote about new years resolutions. Have you set your goal(s) yet? Shared them with anyone?
It’s easy to make a promise to yourself, but committing to it can be tricky sometimes.
Then again, starting is half of the work.

So. What are you still waiting for?
Let’s get started on those plans – no matter what they are: they are exciting!
If you haven’t already, sign up for my workshop ‘Awesome Art Journaling’ that starts February first! It costs $69 for a whole month of art journaling, in which I give you tips, tricks, tutorials and drawing prompts – it will definitely get you going! Then at the end of class, you get another month worth of drawing prompts and motivation in the free workbook. To _keep_ you going.
Click here to find out more and to sign up!

Whatever you do in 2016, make awesome art!
From my new studio, I wish you a creative and wonderful new year!

The post 2016… what else is new? appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

It’s busy at the moment, over here; I am moving my workspace, moving my website, working on material for the new Sketchbook Skool term in January 2016, while also moving and shaking things up inside of Sketchbook Skool to make things even better. Through busy times I discovered that whether you have just five minutes or a stretch of hours to make art, it’s still important that you take your time. If it’s a busy day, that’s no reason not to take out your sketchbook for just a quick sketch, even if it was just a few lines, just before going to bed. It might actually help you take your mind off of those to do lists, worries, or any thoughts racing through your head. Making the time to draw, and then taking the time for the process, is the best treat you can give yourself!
Lately on Sundays, I often enjoy the treat of a few hours of drawing in a row. Then I will make a more elaborate drawing, like this one, in my grey Strathmore art journal, using pen and colour pencils.

The post Taking your time appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

I was going to write a blog post here, to update you about what’s coming up in 2016, in Sketchbook Skool. But I’ve got something better. Danny and I made a superfun holiday-themed video that says it all:

Sketchbook Skool is all about the Creative Community of both students and teachers- more than 10.000 people joined. Supporting each other, inspiring and nurturing each other’s art habits.
In 2016 we will offer new kourses, but also a lot of free stuff like ebooks, webinars, sketch challenges, artist interviews and videos, online and offline events and much more.

The post A Christmas Karol! appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

Don’t wait for someone else to take the lead

You want to develop this art habit. You may feel inspired by other artists to do this. But don’t wait for others to give you permission to make art.

The post Make A Plan and Stick To It appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

I am so excited about the new Sketchbook Skool Kourse, which will launch early 2016. One of the new Fakulty members is illustrator, water colourist, art teacher, and wonderful artist Felix Scheinberger, and I was lucky enough to visit him in Berlin this summer to film his Klass for Sketchbook Skool. Here’s a little video I made when we went outside for a stroll and some filming.

The post How it feels to be portrayed appeared first on Make Awesome Art.

I could complain about it, but I’d rather see it as an advantage: I can enjoy being in my apartment, warm and cosy, and while I snuggle under a blanket with a hot cup of tea, I make sure to have my sketchbook in reach. Because I want to do what I love, as much as I can: Make art.

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