Tag: sketchbook

“Ex-Planner” Sketchbook – the fastest I’ve ever filled up a sketchbook so far!

~ Ari October ~ Leave a comment
My favourite spread in this one is actually the first one 0:
If you’d like to flip through this sketchbook yourself, check out the Google Drive folder!

As the name implies, this sketchbook was originally a planner.
I wanted to do something like a bullet journal for the conversion classes I had been attending but I didn’t realize how difficult that is to do without a dotted notebook.
I gave up quickly, and the book sat in my shelf for a long time. I realized that paper planners aren’t really for me anyway, I do just fine using my phone’s calendar app.

In October 2019 I started drawing in this sketchbook, but the 1+ page per day challenge wasn’t started until late December 2019(?), most of the sketchbook was filled between January and February 2020. 133 days total, from very start to finish.

But here are the rules I lived by for this particular sketchbook challenge:
>I, Ari October, had to fill at least one page per day with a drawing.
>Other people could help me fill pages, but those were bonus pages.
>The drawings didn’t have to be good, they just had to get done.

So not 100% of the works are mine, my partner also assisted me in my goal to fill this baby up ASAP 🙂 You can tell which are hers because she signs them as Jasper or Jazzy.
And quite a few of the pages in this one are just lazy plaid patterns and other very lazy pattern doodles, because it was a good and safe place to experiment with color pallets.

This time I didn’t include 100% of the pages like I did in the last sketchbook folder, because many of them were just journal entries that would not be of interest to anyone but myself. I included pretty much all the doodles though.
There’s a page where I left the journal entry visible because of the placement of the mandala doodle, but you can easily just not read it. I don’t mind either way.

I had a lot of fun filling this guy up. Not so much fun taking pictures of every page though, my legs went numb @__@ Had to make use of that morning light though! It’s the only way for me to take decent enough pictures of my art without extensive editing of each image.

Value study of my best friend’s golden girl, Kimber!

~ Ari October ~ Leave a comment

This was just a scratchy practice sketch with mechanical pencil, but somehow I managed to push forward long enough that I actually like the result!
Obviously it’s not perfect and there’s still a lot I can improve upon, but I think I still managed to capture her likeness well enough and it’s overall just a super cute drawing 🙂

The first sketchbook I ever completed

~ Ari October ~ 5 Comments

Flip through the entire thing at your own pace on this google drive folder!

On November 27th 2019 I accomplished something a lot of artists my age consider elusive: I finally filled a sketchbook from front to back. I had even went above and beyond, leaving very little white space.
It is important to note though that the sketchbook was TINY (3.5”x5.5”) and it took me 2 YEARS to complete! I started it some time in November 2017, so literally TWO YEARS!
I filled most of it in the last 6 months or so of that timeline though.

That sketchbook saw me through a lot.
There’s a lot of really personal stuff in there, it’s very much a visual journal.
I started the sketchbook as an artist that didn’t take art very seriously, didn’t draw with consistent frequency, and had no idea what I wanted to do. I was also still actively using drugs and alcohol.
By the end I had begun to take art seriously, was drawing nearly every day, learned how to sketch anything and everything from reference, had just begun to draw mandala art, and I was a little over a year into my sobriety.

My advice to anyone that wants to get into art is “just get started and don’t stop.” That’s what I had to do, I couldn’t have come as far as I have without simply getting off my butt and putting pen to paper.

It doesn’t matter how many “horrible” looking things you pump out, each and every one of those gets you closer to what you want to achieve. Without bad art there would be no good art. That’s what every “famous” artist has done and continues to do. Even if you think every single sketch they made is a precious treasure, they didn’t. That much I can promise. #MAKEBADART

There is still a “wrong” way to practice, if you do the same “wrong” things over and over you won’t be learning much. You gotta push yourself and try new things. Experiment. I suggest coupling hard work with studying the work of the artists that inspire you. This is applicable to ALL styles and mediums, even literally splattering paint on a canvas. There’s always room for improvement, never stop growing!
You’ll be amazed when you look back and see how far you’ve come.

(Edit 2026-1-30: I messed up big time and now the original publish date of this post is lost forever. I tried to the best of my ability to estimate the original published date so it will remain in chronological order. WordPress devs… Please make this mistake more difficult to do.)