Saturday 27 September 2008

Landscape sketching practice



I'm trying to learn to do simple ink and watercolour sketches of landscapes. Here are a couple of practice sketches from photos. The first one is from a reference photo on Wetcanvas.com (uploaded by ICanDoIt) and the second from my own photo. Simplifying while still keeping interesting composition and colours is proving a challenge.

Tuesday 16 September 2008

Plein air sketching

Off and on I've been trying to do plein air ink and watercolour sketching. So far I haven't been exactly ecstatic with the results, but I'm getting better and that's what matters to me. One of the reasons I want to improve (and be less frustrated) is so that I can go out sketching while my husband does his macro and bird photography. We are lucky to have several lovely parks nearby with some beautiful scenery - lots of sketching potential!

I'm still working on a painting kit so I have a convenient setup including paint, brush(es), water, etc. When I sketch outdoors I'm usually sitting on a walkstool with all my stuff in my lap. I've got my eye on the Winsor Newton Field Plus box. I've got the pocket box but those clipon water pots look good. I've been using a waterbrush but just got a retractable travel brush. I used it for the first time last weekend and found it a lot easier to control the paint and water, but I had to set the water pot on the ground and it wasn't very convenient. Here's my effort from our walk in Dinton Pastures on Saturday morning.