This week, my sketchbook has been a place of quiet focus amidst a very noisy world. I wanted to share a series I’ve been working on, titled “Loopy Lines.”

These drawings are born from a wonderful exercise I found in Marion Deuchars’ excellent workbook, “Take a Line for a Walk”. The prompt is simple and deceptive in its power: you aren’t just drawing shapes, you are capturing rhythm and exploring the spatial tension between where your pen went and where it didn’t.

I adapted the original technique slightly, taking the initial line formations and then diving into the negative and positive shapes they created. This is where the magic (and the meditative work) happens

The Original Method: How to Create Your ‘Loopy Lines’

If you want to try this technique, here are the original steps from Marion Deuchars’ book

1. Loop a line towards the centre of your page and back again.

2. Rotate your piece of paper and draw another loopy line.

3. Keep going until there are loopy lines...

4. ...all over the page!

The resulting ‘knot’ of lines is a beautiful visual in its own right, full of energy and movement.

My Experiments: Exploring the Intersections

Once the initial web of lines was laid down, my experiment began. The question was: “What happens when I fill the spaces created by these loops?”

The Power of Contrast (Ink): I used black ink to create an alternating, chessboard-like pattern within the loops. The eye stops perceiving lines and starts seeing solid shapes in a complex dance of light and shadow.This is where the practice transforms into a deep study of positive and negative space. Here is how I approached it across different mediums, shown in my final work:

A Spectrum of Textures (Colored Pencils): In the small, framed blocks, I filled the loops using specific color pairings. The friction of the pencil against the paper grain adds a whole new layer of texture and warmth to the simple forms.

Shifting Gradients (Watercolor): This is where I let the shapes truly “shift.” Letting water and pigment flow into the shapes created soft gradients that feel organic and fluid.

Try It! Adapting Your Lines

This is a beautiful, accessible warm-up exercise for any artist. If you want to take your lines on a walk:

1. First, follow Marion’s rules: Draw continuous loops, rotate your page, and make a web.

2. Second, add the adaptions:

The Binary Choice: Try just two colors (or B&W). Fill one space, leave a gap, fill the next, until you create a rhythm.

The Gradient Trial: If you have watercolors, try letting one color bleed softly into the next across two adjacent spaces.

The Tile Method: Do a master drawing, then copy sections onto smaller “tiles” and color each with a unique palette.

What does your finished “Loopy Lines” tile look like? I’d love to see where your lines walked! Share a photo or reply with your experience.

Happy creating,

Asli.

You hold two coloured pencils together.You touch them to the page. And you draw- without planning , without erasing, without judging.

This week’s exercise is almost embarrasingly simple. But it might be one of the most useful things you do for your creativity this week.

Here’s what you’ll find below:

. The exercise

.Why it actually works ( creativity + psychology)

.Artists to look up for inspiration

. What to draw if you feel stuck

. A subscriber challenge + a small freebie PDF page

The Exercise

Materials

. 2 coloured pencils ( contrasting or harmonious - both work)

. Ant sketchbook paper.

How to do it:

. Hold both pencils together- as if they were one single pencil.

. Touch the page .

. Draw. Choose one of these or combine things up .

A pattern or doodle ( waves , circles, zigzags)

An observational drawing ( coffee cup, a plant , animals )

The only rule: Don’t stop . Don’t correct . Let the lines cross. Let the colours mix . Let it be messy

The goal is not a beautiful drawing . The goal is a different state of mind.

……

Why this works

This tiny exercise does three big things.

. It breaks perfectionism

With two pencils, you can’t control every line . Some lines will go “ wrong” . And when everything is slightly out of control , suddenly nothing is a mistake.

. It teaches you to trust accidents

The best moments in this exercise are the ones you didn’t plan- where the two colours overlap, or a line curves in a way you didn’t expect. That’s not failure. That’s the whole point.

……

Artists to look up for inspiration

. Cy Twombly - scribbles, scratches , handwriting that becomes drawing . Chaotic and precise at the same time.

. Brice Marden - rhythmic , wave like lines. Meditative mark making.

. Sonia and Robert Delaunay - not about two pencils, but about how colours talk to each other when placed side by side.

My Pinterest Board about finding inspiration

What to draw ( if you feel stuck)

The best subjects for this exercise are simple, recognisable and not too detailed.

Good for beginners

. A potted plant

. A cup or a bowl

. Your own hand

For Doodles/Patterns

. A pile of circles ( stone, fruit , balloons)

. A tree and it’s branches

. Just squiggles, scribbles.

I drew animal’s faces . The result wasn’t beautiful . But it looked alive. That’s better.

Subscriber challenge

#TwoPencilsChallenge

This week , take 5 minutes. Hold two pencils together. Draw something- anything. Take a photo and reply to this email with your image.

Free PDF // Two Pencils , One Page

Two Pencils One Page PDF

Here is JPG version;

Closing Thoughts

What this exercise taught me is simple.

Creativity doesn’t always need more tools, more time or more skill. Sometimes it just needs you to hold two things together and see what happens.

Now it’s your turn.

Take two pencils. Draw . Let it be imperfect. Let it move.

And send it to me. I genuinely can’t wait to see. With love,

Aslı.

My goal is wasn’t to create masterpieces. It was to play . I wanted to see what happened when I let the colors clash , made energetic marks and just didn’t care about mistakes.

Here is a peek into my oil pastel works from the last week .

Day 1 : The Simple Joys

I started with some of the most basic things I could think of . The goal color play , not realism.

( drawing of three distinct flowers: a pink tulip, a yellow daisy , and an orange marigold)

These three were about testing my basic palette . I love how the red outline defines the wavy edges of the daisy . It felt very primary and cheerful.

Day 2 and Day 3 : Finding Movement and Repetition

I moved on to everyday objects , focusing on silhouette and finding “ energetic mark “ within them.

( a study of a decorated blue and pink teapot. )

This was a fun exercise in combining structure with pattern. I didn’t fuss over making the symmetry perfect. The asymmetry is the charm.

( a grid of six textured oil pastel apples )

This grid of six apples is maybe my favourite simple texture test. Look closely at the color transitions - some are green to peach , others a sharp red to green. - I was really trying to feel the roundness through the direction of my strokes.

Day 4 and Day 5 : Embracing Color Clashes

By these days , I was feeling bolder. This is where I really tried to push the “ vibrant clashes”.

( a bold study of a red vase with stark, deep blue leaves.

A very solid , heavily applied red vase against those deep, saturated messy blue leaves. It’s loud , it’s not accurate and it felt amazing to draw.

( five stylized , slightly messy candles of different colors.)

I was playing with the repetititon and simplified forms here.

( seven various small flower sketches.)

A total brain dump of flower shapes on one page. Some are just blobs with texture, others have defined edges. This page taught me that you don’t need a formal composition to enjoy the process.

The biggest barrier to creating is often just fear - fear of a messed up line, a clashing color, or a page that doesn’t look finished.

Oil pastels are perfect antidote to that fear . They force you to work in bold strokes. They force you to accept that your hands will get dirty and that’s part of the fun.

What about you ? Is there a medium that has helped you let go of perfectionism ?Let me know in the comments.

Have a nice day

Aslı 😊

Combined Imaginations is a series I created by cutting images from different magazines and bringing them together through collage. I mixed unrelated faces, objects, textures, and fragments until they formed completely new figures and scenes — images that did not exist before, but somehow felt familiar once they came together.

After building these collaged compositions by hand, I translated them into graphite sketches. Drawing them allowed me to slow the process down. The collage stage felt playful, instinctive, and full of surprise; the sketching stage felt more reflective, like spending time with each strange new character or image and trying to understand why it worked.

What I enjoy most in this process is the tension between the accidental and the intentional. A cut-out eye, a fruit, a helmet, a patterned shape, a historic portrait, a modern face — when they are placed side by side, they begin to create a new visual language. Sometimes the result feels humorous, sometimes slightly surreal, and sometimes unexpectedly poetic.

These works are not about perfection. They are about transformation. They are about taking printed images that already had one life, and giving them another. Through collage and sketching, I am exploring how imagination can connect things that do not normally belong together, and how drawing can turn those connections into something personal.

For me, this series feels a little like visual storytelling without needing a full explanation. Each composition suggests its own mood, its own identity, and its own quiet mystery. They invite the viewer to make connections, invent meanings, and maybe even see familiar things in unfamiliar ways.

Combined Imaginations is, in a simple sense, an experiment in looking again — cutting, combining, and redrawing the world until it becomes something new.

Mini Art Prompt:

Collect a few images from old magazines and choose elements that feel visually interesting together, even if they seem unrelated at first. Cut and combine them to create a new portrait, figure, or scene. Once your collage is ready, redraw it in graphite, paying attention to outline, proportion, texture, and contrast. Focus on how separate fragments can be transformed into one unified image through drawing.

Lately, I’ve been drawing lions.

Not one lion, exactly, but many versions of the same idea—each one changing depending on the material, the mood, and the kind of line I felt like following that day. Some of them became soft and funny, some looked a little mysterious, and some turned out much stranger than I expected. That is probably my favorite part of making them.

I did not begin with a strict plan. I just wanted to see how far one subject could stretch

A lion is such a familiar image. It comes with a lot of symbolism already: strength, pride, courage, presence. But when I started drawing these, I became less interested in the grand meaning of “the lion” and more interested in shape, rhythm, texture, and personality. I wanted to see what would happen if I repeated the same animal while changing the visual language each time.

So one lion became flat and graphic, almost like a cut paper character. Another turned into a face surrounded by colorful marks, where the mane felt more important than the structure underneath. One became loose and sketchy, almost awkward in a way I actually love. Another felt more patterned and controlled. Another became soft, pink, and almost flower-like—as if the mane itself was becoming something between fur, bloom, and atmosphere.

I think that is what ties this small group together: not consistency, but curiosity.

I like working this way because it gives me permission not to “solve” a drawing too quickly. I do not have to find the perfect lion. I can just keep meeting it again in different forms. One version can be bold and simplified. Another can be fragile, uneven, or slightly off-balance. Another can exist mostly as texture. Each attempt teaches me something different about line, color, and instinct.

There is also something very freeing about letting an animal become stylized instead of realistic. I am not trying to prove that I can copy a lion exactly as it appears in nature. I am more interested in translating the feeling of a lion into a personal visual form. Sometimes that feeling is calm. Sometimes theatrical. Sometimes a little humorous. Sometimes almost decorative.

Looking at them together, I can also see my own shifts in attention. In some drawings, I cared more about silhouette. In others, I focused on the face. In some, the mane became the whole drawing. In others, the body carried the character. They feel less like finished statements and more like visual notes from an ongoing conversation.

Maybe that is why I like collections like this. They make space for variation, for inconsistency, for surprise. They let the same subject breathe.

For now, these lions feel like small experiments in transformation—how one creature can keep changing through line, color, texture, and mood, while still remaining unmistakably itself.

And I think I want to keep drawing them

Mini Art Prompt

Choose one animal and draw it 5–6 different ways.

Change only the visual language each time: line quality, color palette, texture, shape, or mood.

Do not aim for realism or perfection. Let each version become its own character.

.

Lately I’ve been craving small, quiet moments—those tiny pauses that remind us we’re still capable of slowing down, even when life keeps tugging at our sleeves. A few days ago, I found myself reaching for my colored pencils and watercolors without really planning to make anything specific. I just wanted to sit, breathe, and let my hands move.

What came out of that moment is the drawing you see here: a close-up study of a lily petal. I’ve always loved how lilies look up close—how their delicate streaks suddenly feel bold, how their softness hides an unexpected structure. When you zoom in, the flower stops being “a flower” and instead becomes a landscape of lines, dots, and quiet gradients. Almost like its own little universe.

Working on this piece felt like tracing the pulse of something alive but unhurried. I layered soft watercolor washes first, letting them bleed into one another, and then added colored pencil marks on top—those tiny speckles and long streaks that lilies are known for. Each mark felt like a small conversation with the page.

I realized, while drawing, that this kind of close-up attention is something I’ve been missing. Not just in my art, but in my days. It’s easy to overlook the details when we’re focused on the bigger picture, but sometimes beauty (and calm) lives exactly in those overlooked places.

If you’re reading this, maybe this is your reminder too: you’re allowed to slow down. You’re allowed to make something imperfect, something small, something just for the sake of feeling the moment pass a little more gently

✨ Art Prompt for You

Inspired by this lily close-up, here’s a drawing/painting prompt you can try:

Create a close-up study of any natural object—flower petal, leaf, seashell, fruit skin, tree bark—zoomed in so much that it becomes abstract. Focus on textures, tiny patterns, and color transitions rather than the overall form. Let the details become their own world.

If you try it, I’d love to know how it felt for you.

For a long time now, I’ve been fascinated by the idea of translating sound into visual form. Not in a literal way—not as sonograms or diagrams—but as an emotional echo. Recently, I spent time listening to various ocean recordings: gentle shore waves, deep underwater hums, distant storms, and the rhythmic pull of tides. I let the soundscapes wash over me, and instead of trying to paint the sea itself, I tried to paint the feeling of it.

The artwork you see here emerged from that process.

It’s a composition built entirely from looping, fluid marks—like currents, eddies, drifting lines that never settle in one place. Using different tones of blue allowed me to play with depth: some strokes feel like they’re receding into quieter waters, while others move forward with the energy of waves folding over themselves.

While creating it, I found myself slipping into a meditative rhythm. The ocean’s sounds don’t demand anything from you—they’re simply there, shifting, repeating, dissolving. I wanted this piece to carry some of that same quality: a sense of movement without destination, a map of wandering thoughts shaped by sound.

Maybe it’s not a depiction of the sea at all. Maybe it’s the imprint the sea leaves on us.

A Prompt for You

If you’d like to create something inspired by my artwork, here is a drawing prompt:

Prompt:

Listen to any sound that reminds you of water—waves, rain, a fountain, even a boiling kettle. Without trying to represent the sound literally, let your hand move freely as if the sound is guiding it. Create a page filled only with lines that follow the rhythm, pressure, and tempo of what you hear. Don’t aim for a picture—aim for a feeling.

If you try it, I’d love to hear how it felt.

Autumn always feels like a quiet celebration of color.

The greens begin to fade, and the trees offer their last gifts — clusters of small berries, glowing like tiny lanterns before winter arrives.

This collection, Autumnal Berries, was inspired by those moments. Each drawing captures the small shapes and lively tones found in the woods and gardens at this time of year.

I painted them with simple watercolors — red, pink, blue, and orange — allowing the pigments to flow freely, just as nature never paints in perfect lines. Some leaves are deep emerald, others soft olive. The berries shift from bright magenta to dusky violet, echoing the slow rhythm of the season’s change.

What I love most about these pieces is their simplicity. They remind me that beauty often hides in small things — a fallen branch, a cluster of berries after the rain, the way colors mix on a cold afternoon.

This series is a gentle study of nature’s patience and transformation. I hope it brings a sense of calm and warmth to anyone who looks at it — like a walk through the woods, with your pockets full of autumn light.

Bu çalışmamda, en basit malzemelerden biri olan ipi bir ifade aracına dönüştürmeyi denedim. Yüzey üzerinde bıraktığı izler, kontrol edilemez kıvrımlar ve rastlantısal lekeler; doğanın, zamanın ve hareketin izlerini anımsatıyor.

İpi boyaya batırıp yüzey üzerinde gezdirdiğimde, her hareket bir ritme dönüştü. Bu ritim, hem doğa formlarını hem de içsel bir akışı çağrıştırıyor — sanki ip kendi yolunu buluyor, ben sadece rehberlik ediyorum.

Bu çalışma, dokunun duyusal potansiyeline odaklanıyor:

• Görsel olarak kıvrımlı, organik bir yapı hissi yaratırken

• Dokunsal olarak da yüzeyin enerjisini görünür kılıyor.

Kullandığım toprak tonları, doğaya olan bağlantımı güçlendiriyor. Kahverenginin sıcaklığı, iplerin bıraktığı izlerle birleştiğinde; hem köklere hem de toprağın bereketine dair bir çağrışım oluşturuyor.

Sonuçta ortaya çıkan bu izler, bilinçli bir düzenlemeden çok, akışa bırakılmış bir kompozisyon. Her leke, her çizgi kendi yönünü buluyor — tıpkı doğadaki yaşamın düzensiz mükemmelliği gibi.

Sanat Günlüğü Notu

Bu tekniği denemek isteyenler için:

• Kalın pamuk iplerini kullanmak, baskı derinliğini artırıyor.

• Farklı pigmentlerle denemeler yaparak dokuya renk katmanları eklenebilir.

• Tesadüfleri kontrol etmeye çalışmayın — çünkü bu teknik, en çok özgür bırakıldığında büyüyor.

İplerin, boya ile buluştuğu bu kısa yolculuk bana bir kez daha hatırlattı:

Sanatta güzellik, her zaman kusursuzlukta değil; rastlantının içindeki anlamda saklı.

CONCEPT AND INTENTION

This work is an exploration of texture through repetition and rhythm. My goal was to investigate how lines, dots, and patterns can build a sense of structure and movement without relying on color or form. By layering contrasting marks—organic bubbles, rippled waves, and scale-like motifs—I aimed to evoke the tactile complexity found in nature. Each section of the composition functions as a distinct surface, yet they all connect seamlessly to create visual harmony.

The piece can be read as an abstract landscape: an intersection between geological and biological forms. It reflects how natural patterns often share similar rhythms, whether seen in flowing sand, reptile skin, or ocean currents.

PROCESS AND TECHNIQUE

I began with pencil , focusing on developing spontaneous textures rather than preplanned shapes. Each zone emerged from freehand movements—curved lines turning into waves, circular marks forming clusters, and repeated scales creating density. The act of drawing became meditative, allowing the rhythm of hand and mind to align.

The absence of color was intentional. By working solely in monochrome, I could emphasize contrast, balance, and depth through mark-making alone. The resulting textures invite the viewer to engage closely, following the lines as they pulse and shift across the page.

ARTISTIC REFLECTION

This drawing represents a personal study of attention and patience. It’s about the quiet energy that comes from observing the minute details of the world around us. Each texture carries its own emotional tone—some calm and fluid, others dense and restless. Together, they express the coexistence of order and chaos, structure and spontaneity.

For me, this work reaffirms that drawing is not only a visual act but also a tactile and psychological one. Every mark is a trace of thought and feeling—evidence of time spent in close dialogue with the surface.

ARTIST’S PROMPT : DRAW YOUR OWN TEXTURE MAP

Find a quiet moment and a blank page.

Choose a simple pencil or pen—no colors, no erasing.

1. Divide your page into 5–6 irregular sections.

2. In each section, create a unique texture using only lines, dots, or repeated marks.

3. Think of how your hand moves—fast, slow, circular, restless.

4. Let your patterns grow naturally, like roots spreading underground or waves meeting at the shore.

5. When you finish, observe the transitions between textures. Notice how they blend, collide, or resist one another.

This exercise isn’t about perfection; it’s about rhythm and discovery.

Let your textures become a small landscape of your thoughts