Below the flip-through video, you’ll see time stamps for different themes and a description of how the theme came about.
Make sure you check out my review of the Tekukor 100gsm journal – it’s a great budget option and still one of my favourite journals (maybe I have a soft spot for my first love!).
0:38 January – Ice cream
Derwent Artists coloured pencils
After playing around with bullet journaling in a lined notebook on and off in 2018-19, my new Tekukor journal and a new Instagram page called for monthly themes. I didn’t have much confidence in my drawing but could colour in okay, so I found some images and layouts I liked online and copied them, like the weekly with the six ice creams. It was summer in Australia, so ice cream seemed appropriate!
1:18 February – Line art flowers
Derwent Artists coloured pencils
Pigma Micron pen
Well clearly I just wanted to try all the things. At the time, headings laid out with artwork above and below was very popular. I was clearly still trying out ideas, because I switched from line art flowers to drawing a realistic cotton flower on my dutch door page.
2:00 March – Persian Tiles
Tombow dual brush pens
Uni-Ball Signo metallic gel pen
Washi tape
I was starting to develop more cohesive themes at this point. I’ve always loved tiles from Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries and I wanted to try some geometric patterns. I found some beautiful spreads online and was inspired by them but copied my tile patterns from photos of real tiles. I got a little distracted halfway through the month by drawing lamps (everyone was doing lamps and hanging lights in their journals at that time). This is a theme I might revisit.
02:45 April – Origami
Derwent Artists coloured pencils
Reeves watercolours
Pigma Micron pens
Washi tape
I’ve always loved origami. I had been collecting origami instructions on Pinterest and came across a post for these advanced origami folds. I decided to draw them as part of a monthly theme and found that they were an ideal way to become more comfortable with drawing because their folds automatically divide up the subject into pieces that you can reproduce bit by bit. This meant that the proportions were much easier to get right. I was so proud of this month, as it was the first time I had created my own spreads and not copied someone else’s drawings or layout ideas.
4:05 May – Cockatoos
Reeves watercolours
Tombow dual brush pens
Uni-Ball Signo metallic gel pens
Fudenosuke brush pen
Watercolour paper
I adore cockatoos. I love their cheeky character, their interest in humans, their noise and chatter and their beauty. It was doing the watercolour paintings for this month that led to me starting a watercolour painting course. Even after doing some training I’m still super proud of these paintings.
5:43 June – Mushrooms and papercraft
Prismacolor coloured pencils
Fudenosuke brush pen
Pigma Micron pens
Stamps
Metallic gel pens
Uni-Ball Signo gel pens
Washi tape
Watercolour paper
After seeing so many beautiful spreads using the mushroom theme, I was inspired to try my own, but wanted to give it an interesting twist. It was the perfect opportunity to try some papercrafts. There’s a mix of pop-ups, slides, and hidden pages and fold-outs and it was so much fun to create but also a little time-consuming!
8:10 July – Aboriginal art
Prismacolor coloured pencils
Reeves watercolours
Winsor & Newton gouache
Zebra Mildliners
Tombow dual brush pens
Uni-Ball Signo white gel pen
I decided my monthly themes at the beginning of the year and by the time it came to July I was a bit nervous about the Aboriginal Art theme. I was worried it wouldn’t be in the colours I liked, but after a lot of searching online I discovered that modern Aboriginal Art was very colourful. I decided to do a spread each representing a major stream of Aboriginal Art, including traditional forms such as rock art and bark paintings and modern forms such as ‘dub dub’ painting. I learnt so much about Aboriginal Art doing this theme and developed a love for some forms that I would consider investing in some day.
9:52 August – 1930’s fashion
Pigma Micron pens
Prismacolor coloured pencils
Washi tape
I started off wanting to do a month of art deco art, but was totally captivated by sewing pattern drawings from the 1930s and decided to do this as my theme instead. It’s still one of my all-time favourites, perhaps because of the quotes I added, but I was also really proud of my efforts in drawing people for the first time. It wasn’t easy!
11:15 September – Serie Golo
Reeves watercolours
Pigma Micron pens
I decided to dedicate this month to spreads inspired by Serie Golo, an artist that creates art for children. I’d had a graphic saved for ages that had a whole range of her characters, so I used those and then added some of my own. It turned out well, was easy to draw and was very popular with my followers.