I have had a break. I've been on holiday, and I'm now back to do some art.
[Intro Music]
As always if you guys are new to my channel it is a draw with me style video,
So I will be drawing and chatting for half an hour,
please do draw along with me and have me on in the background, do some art, do whatever you want.
You can do my theme if you want which is "Secret Garden"
I will be featuring all my Patreons who have also joined in on the theme at the end of this video.
So I'm very excited about that.
Anyway, we have to start drawing because I feel weird about just chatting, chatting chatting, chatting.
I have some things to talk about and something to show you guys and share I have some exciting news.
Well, it's not news. I'm just - I can never stop myself. I'm always coming up with new ideas,
even though I haven't finished Snow Cat Prince. [Laughs]
I just thought that I would share with you guys the paper that I'm planning and using today,
which is Aquarelle Etival
So it's 300GSM and it's a very small size, it's a little bit bigger than a postcard size.
I picked this up when I was traveling because I needed something to draw on.
I actually didn't use it but the paper is really thick and nice.
I thought I would use it for today's art, and I'm going to get into that a little bit later.
I thought I would just share with you the sketches that I did earlier today.
I actually - [Laughs] - I actually gave up on the piece because I was trying - Let me just show you guys.
I was trying out this aquabord thing. I thought well, this will be fun, I've had it for over a year. I wanted to try it.
It's really hard, really heavy and the texture on the painting side, uh. It's not very nice.
So I tried to do line art and it looked horrible and it's just -
It didn't work out and then when I was doing the washes, nothing worked out
and it feels like -
It doesn't feel like paper and it was stressing me out
So this is what I had before.
I will probably share with my Patreon, that whole part of the video that I'm not gonna leave in here.
I'm gonna just continue to sketch my ideas. I'm actually not gonna leave that in.
I'm gonna sketch some more ideas because I didn't quite fully like the ones I did for the theme.
I'm going to talk a little bit about who TamTam is, do some more sketches, figure out properly what I'm doing.
I'm very happy that I've downgraded to a smaller size because this size, even though it's not that big,
it actually stressed me out a lot. So I'm gonna do a small piece for a small little friend.
So that's what I'm going to do. [Laughs]
I'm trying to get into drawing again, and it's taking me a bit of off and on today
and also because it's really hot and I'm filming late in the night
I'm feeling better now but you know when the heat us out, it's really hard to focus and draw.
So be careful everyone who's working at home and just chill, don't stress yourself out too much.
You don't have to draw all the time. You can take a break.
Take care of yourself and just make sure you have your window wide open with a glass of water.
I'm gonna probably do work in the early morning and then have a siesta and a break in the middle of the day
Then work in the evening because it's too hot in here to work during the night. Anyway...
Who is TamTam?
During my vacation, actually, one of the last few days,
I was going to sleep. I was just thinking about random stuff.
I don't really know what was thinking about.
Then suddenly I was just thinking about a cute little spirit that was finding pathways
and it was really cute to me and I thought that could be a really good children's book,
but mixed with rhymes and stuff, so I thought TamTam the Pathfinder would be really cute.
and somehow that's just stuck and I really like a name but everything might change.
I'll show you guys some of the designs that I was doing just yesterday actually
This is what I have right now of little TamTam. He might change. He's kind of like a bird/thing character.
I'm not quite sure. I based him off a magpie and I think he's quite cute.
He will probably change but since I'm so excited about it I thought well,
I can mix them in with the secret garden theme because that kind of fits his theme as well, his story.
I just want him to be a little dude, [Laughs]  who doesn't know who he really is.
He has a little bit of a problem being with people and society but is very good at finding things
and that's how he will kind of figure out who he is and what he wants to do in life.
Anyway, that's really deep, doesn't need to be deep,
but this is him and he's gonna be in the little Illustration that we're doing today.
I had a little design process as you can see haven't done much, some weird ones.
When I started doing this one, I really liked it.
So he's very tiny and I just want a lot of plants and weird plants and him to standing there with his eyes really big
and that's where I got these sketches.
They're okay...
They are fine. Well, I can try and explain some of these.
This is some weird fruits and the Sun is coming in as he's standing there.
He's standing here and then a little garden path thing in the light.
Then a bit of a kind of stepping thing here and the same here and the same here.
So I was just trying to get that to work.
However when I was putting that together in the actual illustration it didn't look right.
I didn't actually like it that much. So I'm gonna see if I can do something more interesting.
For the inspiration, I was actually looking a lot at the Heikala illustrations
just because I find them really charming. At least for this one. I just want to do something charming.
That's what I want to do.  I think the story itself probably will be Digital and not traditional
but for this one I just wanted to do a small illustration.
I've downsized that little size and I just want to fill it with little details and see what I can do.
Anyway, that's a lot of information in a really short amount of time. I hope you guys didn't fall asleep,
but I thought I would do some more sketching and see what I can do.
Probably a little bit bigger.
I just want to fill the illustration a little bit better.
If you're interested in the exclusive postcard, I won't print whatever art I'm doing here as a print ever again.
It will only be that postcard. I think well, we'll see. My patreons decide.
If you are interested in that you can go to my patreon and there's stickers and trading cards and of course the postcards.
We're having a lot of fun over there. If you want to come join us.
I think the the best part really is the discord group. Those people are amazing. [Laughs]
Let's see what we can do.
Maybe I shouldn't have him up here.
I thought I wanted TamTam down here.
TamTam, bleh, blah, da. Words.
But maybe I want him up here just looking down.
Maybe that'll be a little bit different. That'd be kind of cute. Maybe we get some water.
So he's standing here...
Like that and then
We're here and
Also, since it's so warm, my window is wide open, so if you hear a lot of noises that is what it is.
I just can't bear to have the window closed and I know it's gonna be a little bit of noise,
but hopefully the music kind of drowns that part out.
Maybe he's sitting somewhere...
Having lunch.
Maybe there is some sort of fruit thing.
Yeah, I have a whole little society planned and just a lot of thoughts and ideas for a little TamTam's story.
I'm very excited.
I know I still have to finish Snow Cat Prince, but just having more ideas and being excited about it. It's good.
I hopefully will finish Snow Cat Prince soon.
I can't help myself. I just keep coming up with things that I want to do.
I just have to do it.
I like that. I think I'm gonna go with that, even though I know I haven't done that many sketches,
but I like that idea more than this one, even though it's kinda like a portal to a secret garden somewhere.
I feel like this is more interesting. Anyway, I'm going to talk about something later as well.
I'm not being negative. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm not being negative.
Trying to push myself a little bit even though I'm very tired and feeling weird. [Laughs]
So that's what I'm I'm trying to do.
Okay, I'm gonna sketch this on the watercolor paper and I'll be right back with you guys.
All right, I finished the sketch and I'm very, very excited about that now.
This feels a lot better than the previous idea and drawing that I had.
I'm also gonna use my 8B jumbo pencil because my small one is running out
and I only have about this much left, and I need the pencil extender.
I did buy a 6B pencil, but it did smudge with the last piece that I tried to do,
So I'm not gonna use that. I'm just gonna use my 8B jumbo and hopefully it looks alright.
Yeah, look, he has plants and he's standing there. I don't know. The composition is a lot better to me.
So that's what I'm happy about and I will be talking about things while I draw.
Alright, I'm going to start up here because I know it's gonna smudge a lot.
Oh, okay. So, yes. Anyway, I was going to talk more.
Something that I just did want to just briefly mention is that, as an artist you are allowed to self-doubt.
Maybe not like something that you do and it is okay to stop working on something like I did today,
where I just pretty much did not like the art supply and then to not feel motivated.
So I stopped working with it, and that's completely fine.
I think a lot of people were, well not a lot of people,
some people were commenting on my last video that I was very negative for a big portion of the video.
I know I was.
Most people weren't bothered but I think for some people they were annoyed by it.
Which I can understand.
I just wanted to briefly discuss that, as an artist you are allowed to not like what you're doing and not enjoy it
That's completely fine and a part of my job in these draw with me videos, is that you get my unfiltered view
about what I'm doing and how I'm feeling and what I'm thinking and that's kind of the part of the video.
That's sort of what I like doing.
Sometimes I can't always be very happy about what I'm doing.
Right now, I'm feeling a lot better than what I did this morning when I was trying to film.
I'm just happy I didn't give up completely.
I think self critical thinking is fine. It's good to be very happy about your art.
It's also good to be self-critical about your art.
If you feel like you're not doing as best as you can do like you've done before.
That's fine to say that. You're not supposed to give out an image that says, oh, I know what I'm doing all the time.
Seriously, I think almost a 100%Well, maybe 95% of the time, I don't really know what I'm doing.
I kind of just try and go with it and hopefully something good happens.
I don't know.
I guess people come to be inspired and when I'm not inspired myself, and that's the video that I release
then I do understand that it's kind of off-putting t hat the video wasn't as inspiring maybe.
I don't know.
Maybe it is inspiring that I don't know what I'm doing sometimes.
I don't know, you guys let me know what you guys think.
I personally was not a big fan of the art that I did
Right now I feel better about it. Last week I mean. This one's fine
I was thinking about maybe not publishing it
but then I thought well people need to know that I don't always feel 100% about what I'm doing, that's fine.
Usually, like today, I would just try and redo it, whatever I was doing if I didn't feel like it was working out.
Today I feel good because I'm trying again
and even though I felt like whatever I did before was not up to my normal standard,
I had time to redo it and I felt like it was okay to redo it.
I didn't finish the previous one though so that's probably why I felt okay about it.
Also, there's a neighbor right outside the window and my window's really wide open. [Laughs]
Why is everyone out right now, I can't film when people are around!
Anyway enough about that.
I think you are allowed to feel how you feel about your art.
You shouldn't be discouraged when you do feel like things are not as good as I should be
and just keep going, finish whatever you were doing, try again if you need to.
Then just keep doing it, hopefully you'll get to level where you do feel like you are where you should be at.
That the art you'd produce is as good as you hoped it would be.
Anyway, it wasn't that many comments about that. I just thought I would just mention it
because I know that I was quite negative in that video and that's just how it is. [Laughs]
So weird, trying to do an art piece like this even though I know the character is going to change most likely.
I always change things a little bit before I actually start a project.
I find this character really cute, really fun to draw.
So hopefully he stays pretty much the same as he is right now.
I have to do proper character development. I have to just keep trying to see what needs to change.
I don't know,  maybe nothing needs to change. Maybe this is what I want.
I'll just have to accept whatever comes my way.
I hope you guys like him because I am going to make a book about him when I get some more time.
Probably after Snow Cat Prince is said and done. So that's probably next year.
That just means I can keep developing this little dude whenever I have some free time. [Laughs]
Yeah, I was thinking also maybe - I was just thinking about this right now -
I don't know if I'll actually get to do that, but I really really want to go back to Japan.
I was actually really inspired by the series that I was watching for a while.
Well, I'm still watching it. I still have to get through all that. It' called Mushishi.
It's an old series, but I just like the style and the stories.
[Pencil sharpening] Sorry, I'm just sharpening my pencil here.
I really liked the nature and I also like Japan in general and their forests and temples and stuff
This little guy was pretty much inspired by it. Especially its name, Tam Tam.
I think Japanese use that sound/word. I don't know if western languages do that.
TamTam is like Tam-Tam, like a drum beat and I thought that would be really cute
and he might have an alternate like - I don't know, personality or something called "BamBam"
That's just a quick idea that I had today actually I was lying outside and was like, oh that could be interesting.
Like I said, he hasn't been fully designed and developed yet.
I was just itching to do something different and not think about The Snow Cat Prince.
If you're curious about Snow Cat Prince actually things are moving a long
but I don't think the book will be ready for Thought Bubble.
That was my small kind of idea and plan was to have it ready for Thought Bubble which is in November
That would that I mean having the book ready and printed and selling. [Laughs]
Which is a bit optimistic and I'm still working on the lins.
The shop update kind of put a little break on working on the snow cat.
Which was really fun, so I didn't really mind but then I have to just make a decision and say Hey;
You're not going to make that. You can't put yourself through that much stress and try and get it ready by then
You should just enjoy the story and the process.
So, Snow Cat Prince will be ready soon-ish and the Kickstarter will happen.
Before September 1st. That's my deadline for the Kickstarter.
Then the book will be shipped out in February at the latest because I need some extra time.
Greylegs had a really quick turnaround,
but that was just because I promised something that I probably shouldn't have promised
because it was really stressful.
I'm excited to do another Kickstarter. It's been a year. So it's time for another one.
I'm gonna have to make it really big and interesting and special. So you guys stay tuned for that.
There we go, I think I have the lines ready. which is exciting.
It's so much nicer when you have smaller formats
my hands might get a bit more cramped, but I find it a lot easier to work on this
because then I can see everything and I feel like I can fill out the frame properly. It's great.
Yeah, that's that one.
I think what I'm going to do is have a gradient from yellow to blue .
Then I'm gonna add in greens and stuff later. Definitely yellow to blue.
I wish I had masking fluid right now so that I could put that on certain areas
I kind of need masking fluid, but I don't have that.
Hmm. I'll just have to see if I can avoid touching certain areas.
Okay. I'm going to start with a gradient from yellow
Swear to God that bus is the loudest thing right now.
I'm just hoping that this paper would take some color and some washes and all that.
We'll have to see how it behaves.
I'm actually having a feeling that the pencil is smudging. I'm so surprised.
Maybe it's only not smudging when I'm using my Illo sketchbook or something.
Can some of the really clever people who know things comment.
Just trying to figure out where to put certain colors
I'm just using two colors right now, and I think it's called phthalo blue pure yellow.
That's the two colors I'm using right now. I'm not using any other colors but those two.
You can see how much that can really do for a drawing.
It's kind of impressive actually if you think about it.
Oh I was talking about this when I was filming before but I find it really interesting.
I was watching a lot of Chris Hong's videos lately. I follow her really a lot and I love her art.
Something that she always does that I've never been able to do is to spend so much -
[Bus engine noise]
Jesus.
So much time planning and figuring things out before she even touches the paper that she's going to do the art on
and that really fascinates me because I never do that and how?
so I'm really fascinated watching her and just enjoying her art in general.
Yeah.
When I'm doing this I just get the feeling I'm doing something wrong because I probably should plan more.
I haven't even done a color study. I just kind of have something in my brain and then hopefully that will work.
Well, I'd love to be able to just don't know if I could.
Could I, even if I wanted?
This is really bright green. How did I mix that green? Can you see that green?  That look like neon.
Don't know if that's even a good idea to put on.
Probably not but I mixed it so now I want to use it.
I did that.
I'm actually going darker around these areas. I thought I would keep it quite -
quite bright, but I'm clearly going very dark
I think I'm gonna make something a little more brown on the path
just to get a little bit of a different color in because right now everything's very green
Well it is what I want, but I just wanted to get bit more something else.
Covering the blueness a little bit.
Making it a bit more gray, which is fun. I think this paper's maybe at it's limits for what it can do for me
I seriously need to get more of that paper from that Scrawlrbox video. Oh my god, I loved that!
I'm being quiet cuz I'm having fun.
Let me have fun.
Swear  to god there is always messes around me.
I'm closing in on something that I really really like.
I feel like I need something more to pull interests a little bit and that will probably be something purple.
Add that to the corners of the flowers.
Is that cute?  That's very cute, okay.
At least for this illustration just because it will draw the eye a bit more than anything else I can put on.
Now I'm not quite sure what to do.
[Laughs] I do want really dark feathers on him.
I'm gonna make his eyes yellow for now because they're reflecting.
At least I have that.
I can get a little bit of a gradient.
I think maybe his design needs to change a little bit.
Yeah, I'm gonna go over the pen and neaten this up.
Just want to try this a little bit.
I went a bit too dark. So I'm just gonna see if I can darken everything else a little bit.
Just going with the blue.
Probably gonna go over with some pencil to darken it up a little bit.  I think it's quite cute.
I'm gonna let this dry for a little bit and just take a little break and I will be back.
Okay. I honestly couldn't wait too long. So I got my black pencil and I'm gonna do a bit of texturing
and just darkening things up that I feel like I got a bit lost.
Now that it's so dark. I feel like I can kind of add in a few more interesting textures and things.
See how - [stumbles on words]
Words!
- Weirdly that kind of made things work a little bit better.
Isn't that weird.
I wuld've loved to do some masking fluid to this because I could have added veins and stuff to the drawing.
I will be satisfied with what I have.
I like just making a lot of textures.
Okay, I'm gonna add some more green to this as well.
Okay, I need to just clean the him a little bit and then I think I'm done. also that bird is incredibly loud.
Alright, I think I need to leave this for now.
Yeah I'm going to be featuring all my Patreons work for this month's theme Secret Garden.
This doesn't look like Secret Garden anymore, but it was supposed to be.
I hope you guys stay tuned for that and show my wonderful patrons some love.
Yeah, they're absolutely amazing so please  do.
Speaking of Patreon. If you do want this piece as a postcard, you can go to my Patreon.
The link will be in the description. It's just patreon.com/dinanorlund
Wait, wait, what did I just say?
patreon dot com slash dinanorlund.  There you go.
I said that really weird. Okay. Where's my white gel thing?
Alright that is it for this monthly challenge which was Secret Garden.
I know, every time I do one of these, I do something a little bit different than I originally thought for the theme.
Maybe less specific, more specific. I don't  know. I had fun. I think this is what I wanted to do, so that's what I did.
I hope you guys enjoyed it and had some fun drawing.
Drawing whatever you were doing or drawing or doing something.
I don't know because it's really late and I need to go to sleep.
I hope you guys enjoyed and I will see you guys next week for another video.
Yeah, just remember to go check out the Patreon if you wanna, if you're interested.
I will chat with you guys later, and have a wonderful weekend guys, and I'll see ya. Bye!
[Music]
