Welcome to Plein Air in Ink and Watercolour - A Patreon Mini Course.

Course Links

Course Discord:  Discussion board for live feedback and student interaction. 

Course Outline

Nature journaling, urban sketching, plein air painting...many different artistic disciplines focus on sketching from real life on location, for good reason.  Sketching from life is an incredibly effective way of building up your drawing skills and visual library.  Sketching from direct observation, you will see your drawing and painting skills improve dramatically in a short period of time.  In addition, the practice of observing our environment builds our connection and intuitive understanding and appreciation for the world around us.

In this course, I will work with you to build your confidence and skills sketching outdoors with ink and watercolour through four weeks of video demonstrations, step-by-step instructions and practical advice practice assigments/exercises and live feedback.

Materials

This course does not depend on owning specific materials - most basic ink and watercolour materials are appropriate.  Please do not rush out and buy new materials for this course.

You will want some version of the following basic materials:

• Portable tin of professional/artist grade watercolours in pans.  I am currently frequently using the set I put together in this video:
  https://youtu.be/Uwxk2nku-dE
• Watercolour Brushes:  A small range of basic brushes.  My most commonly used brushes are sizes 2, 4, 8 pointy round and 3/8"(~1 cm?) flat.  Natural hair such as kolinsky sable is lovely for water flow characteristics, but well made synthetics that keep their point work fine too - I use both.
• Sketchbook(s): I do most of my on-location sketching in sketchbooks.  I like hardcover sketchbooks to create a stable surface to sketch in.  For watercolour, I look for watercolour or mixed media paper, at least 220 gsm.  100% cotton is ideal for layering techniques, but not necessary for this course.  Medium to large sketchbooks - A5 or larger allow for room to explore.
• Waterproof Ink Pens: I primarily use fountain pens with bottled waterproof pigment ink. Platinum Preppy and TWSBI Eco fountain pens are my favourite for reliable, affordable pens. I use Platinum Carbon (black) and Sailor Souboku (Blue Black) ink most frequently.  Alternatively/in addition, fine-tipped waterproof rollerball pens such as the black Signo Uni line are an affordable/reliable option i tend to keep in to-go kits.  Fineliners and Sharpie liners are not my personal preference but fill the same function.

The following materials are not required, but are fun extras to experiment with:

• White Gouache/Ink/Chalk Marker: A variety of options exist for adding white details to your finished sketches. I encourage planning your sketches to keep the white of the paper wherever practical, however, particularly when painting on location it often makes more sense to add the smallest white highlights at the end of a sketch rather than trying to paint around them.  I frequently use white gouache or a chalk marker/ white chalk pencil for this purpose.
• Grey Pigment or Alcohol Markers: Keeping a grey marker or two in your sketch kit is a practical way to add easy large/angular areas of shadow to quick ink and/or watercolour paintings.
• Washi/Painter's Tape: For adding crisp borders around your sketches
• Ballpoint pens:  A low-cost option for creating shading and texture.  Multicolour ballpoint pens are also available - these are a great option for colour without the use of wet media such as watercolour
• Coloured Pencils: While I find coloured pencil unwieldy and slow as a main colour medium, I do frequently keep a small handful of coloured pencils to add scribble texture to finished watercolour sketches or create basic underdrawings.  (Please note I do NOT include graphite or erasers anywhere on this material list.  That is deliberate :P)

Weekly Topics

Links to weekly written and video materials, photo references etc will be posted here

Week 1: Thumbnails and Detail Vignettes

One of the top concerns I hear from students and other artists about plein air sketching is a fear of the big blank page.  How do we decide what view to paint? How do we place our subjects on the page? What if we don't have time or a comfortable position to complete a sketch in? What if we find out halfway through we've screwed something up?

In this week's demonstration and exercises, we explore thumbnails and vignettes.  Thumbnails and detail vignettes are a great way to prepare for a larger painting.  However, thumbnails and detail vignettes are also fantastic standalone sketching activity! 

Week 2: Shapes and Perspective

When painting familiar scenes and objects from our surroundings, our eyes play tricks on us.  As we shift our focus around a scene, we see individual details, without understanding the general shape and perspective behind them.  Then when we sketch what we see, we find our sketches look distorted or unrealistic even though we faithfully copied what we saw!

This week's class focuses on strategies for seeing and sketching the basic shapes hidden in the natural and built environment around us  to create more compelling and understandable compositions.

 

Week 3: Colour and Texture

Colour brings joy, excitement, mood and interest to our environment and sketches.  Watercolour is a fantastic medium for bringing colour and texture to our sketches.  However, learning to layer and mix colours in a sketch can be a steep learning curve.

This week's lesson will focus on a few of my favourite simple strategies for mixing and layering cohesive and compelling colours and creating/embracing textural effects in our watercolour sketches.

Week 4: Bringing it all together

The final week of this course brings all of the past topics together to create a final project incorporating everything we've learned.

This week, I will guide you to design and create your own "kitschy postcard" sketch incorporating all of the elements from the past 3 weeks.