We’ve enjoyed a wide variety of sketch subjects this week.
In Bangalow we did a warm up looking at an eye level interior down the room at ButcherBaker Cafe. Not easy but everyone managed to see what goes up and what comes down. I do push people out of their comfort zone at times. But wow what results.
Another week of great sketching weather down here in the South Pacific or Oceana as it’s also known.
We are back to meeting in person and in groups and it’s so wonderful.
Somehow everyone is really appreciating something we all took for granted prior to this.
Watercolour is the medium everyone adores.
For us we take a ‘it doesn’t matter what happens’ approach, and slop one colour over another and leaving heaps of white. We want loose and we let the paint do the work. What happens is called ‘Bloom’. The granular effect is magical when one colour goes over another while still damp.
Oh how lucky we were.
Sunday Morning, blue skies, not too hot and just a little breeze.
We set up under my favourite big shade tree and with our students yet not truly sure they could ever learn to sketch - Maurice served coffee and croissants. Ahh. What a wonderful way to start.
The first Wednesday of our 6 week Travel Sketching Course.
Our students were very happy to be inside this lovely old heritage building with it’s big spacious cafe, and out of the downpours between sunshine!
Some very inspiring sketches were taking place between sips of tea and coffee.
This is a perfect exercise for a rainy day when you cannot go out sketching. Get your sketch kit out and follow the Watercolour tips to complete a sketch like this.
Give it a try.
Suddenly everyone is traveling. It’s like the cork came out of the bottle.
All the state borders are open here in Australia so now folks can be off visiting family and friends they haven’t seen for ages. And they certainly are.
We’ve been everywhere this week here in Austrlaia.
Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise, Tumbulgum, Newrybar, Watson’s Bay, Mosman and Melbourne.
Take a look at the excellent sketches.
Confidence is growing and every week we’re pushing out there a little more. As we say to our students everything we do in classes is designed to teach you how to sketch when you’re on your own or traveling. Always to have an idea of where to start your sketch and start colour.
Read MoreWe sketch for the absolute pleasure of it.
It’s meditative, therapeutic, relaxing, and perfection isn’t required.
Purely our own journey of everyday moments we treasure.
Here we are at Week 3 in our Watercolour Sketching Courses. All our classes from this week here in NSW Australia, had a load of rain. But did that bother us? Not at all. Here’s our thinking.
If you were in say Paris, and you had just one day to see the Eiffel Tower, and it was raining buckets - you’d still go. You’d get that magic moment regardless!!
Sometimes I will post something we’ve sketched in one of our classes, which I think may be helpful to other students
Newrybar is a one street historic village near Bangalow and Byron Bay NSW Australia.
The very environmentally tuned ‘Harvest’ has a wonderful series of old buildings with an award winning restaurant, Deli with mouth watering foods, plus of course their popular Sourdough bread baked daily.
There are bee keeping workshops, yoga rooms, herb and vegetable gardens surrounding below.
A few hints about how our warmup Watercolour Sketches come together.
We begin a lesson with what is on the table and sketch a group of essentially three items, sometimes with a few little added extras for balance. Here we had a delicious French pastry and a muffin so an easy choice.
For many of our classes this is Week 2. In Australia that is😊
The concerns about not being able to draw a straight line are well and truly over. Already our students can say how they’d begin a sketch and what is the main starting shape.
From Gold Coast to Sydney, our students are discovering their sketching skills and many have done quite a bit of work on their own with their new found skills.
Read More’How can we sketch if we don’t have a lead pencil?’ You can see the disbelief on their faces when they realise there is no lead pencil involved when Erin takes a class or workshop. No erasers. No rulers. Is that even possible!!
Well guess what - it is. What’s more, the sense of freedom when you begin putting down lines in black pen - without any fear of it being right or wrong - wow you can feel the collective sigh of relief.
Read MoreLet the layers go one over the other and watch the scene coming to life, all with step by step guidance of course.
What fun. Look at the different styles and colour we all have. That’s the lovely thing. It’s your impression as you saw it. Being quick is the key. If you have 10 minutes you can sketch. If you have an hour you can sketch. Up to you.
And so ended a marvellous 2 days with such delightful students who were so happy with our time together and the sketches they’d take home.
Read MoreEveryone was settled beside the lake and starting to sketch when a most gorgeous feathered creature decided to join the group. This was the Alexandrine Parakeet. A very friendly one at that. There she was, sitting on the sketching hand of our student! How can one possibly sketch with a rather large parrot sitting on your hand. Oh well. Connecting with nature is certainly fun.
Read MoreLet’s look at composition.
What’s your main subject? How much do we want to put in? We don’t need the story of the world here - just the bit that’s most interesting.
It’s worth taking the time to do a planning sketch first. Seriously. How do you know where all the shapes and forms will be if you just launch in? It might take you 10minutes to observe your subject and decide whether it’s to be portrait or landscape. Try it out on your planning page. You might surprise yourself.
That’s 10 minutes you won’t spend correcting your main sketch.
Where is my eye level? How does that angle work? Does it go up or down?
We guide you through this but it’s still a mystery at times, until you get to ‘see’ how it works. It’s great to see our sketchers thinking through perspective, with guidance from their tutor.
Another perspective is the one where you look straight at a structure. Flat perspective. Always a delight and does capture the character of the place.
We have a marvellous book - ‘London You’re Beautiful’ by David Gentleman.
This book I’ve had since it was published in 2012. He was 82
I’ve used this book often in classes over the years as an example of simplifying a subject, and today we were seeing how he uses line and pattern in his landscapes.
