Sketchbook Skool - Seeing

A second semester of Sketchbook Skool themed "Seeing" was introduced in July this year to follow on from "Beginnings". Urban Sketcher Liz Steel was part of the teaching staff and I was keen to see how her online class would go after the success of her workshops here in Sydney. Danny Gregory, Koosje Koene both returned to teach with the addition of Brenda Swenson, Cathy Johnson and Andrea Joseph.

 

Self portrait challenge - day 7

 

One of the biggest challenges for me came with Koosje's week which focussed on self portraits. This was time and energy consuming and confronting. We needed to complete several and I had barely attempted any self portraits prior to the course. But by my final piece I was pleased with what I'd achieved. The motivation and inspiration that comes from sharing that journey with other students online has a very positive impact.

 

Nature studies with the guidance of Cathy Johnson

 

Cathy Johnson is renown for sharing  valuable tuition and demonstrations online and through her books. Her week was great for revisiting some key watercolour fundamentals as well as looking at nature studies. From this I made studies of the local cranky Common Myna. They are annoying birds but with plenty of character.

 

Ball point pen and watercolour as a result of Andrea Joseph's week.

 

Andrea Joseph shared insights into her unique and distinctive style of illustrating with pens/biros. The result she achieves with the cheapest, or even better, free ball point pens is astonishing. I did enjoy taking a shot at this method, but I know I don't have the sufficient patience required to pursue it much further. The aspect of trying such a diverse range of ideas each week throughout the course is a good way to learn what does (or doesn't) suit your own capabilities and character.

 

Sketching in The Rocks, Sydney.

 

From an afternoon at the Tea Cosy in The Rocks, Sydney.

 

Finally, it was Liz's week and time to return to more familiar methods. Liz organised a sketching day in the Rocks and it was a great day to catch up with sketchers I already knew as well as meet a few new ones who I had conversed with online in the groups. We spent the morning sketching buildings and then headed to the Tea Cosy to sketch tea cups and high tea. Fabulous way to round off another semester!

Exploring The Rocks. Week 1.

Sydney Opera House. Tracing contours with expressive lines.

When thinking of The Rocks in Sydney, my mind begins wandering down it's quaint little laneways. Picturing Colonial buildings tucked away in tight spots, hosting cafes and restaurants and its fair share of the upmarket tourist shops. With my thoughts in that space, I often forget that only a few hundred metres away, across Circular Quay, sits the Sydney Opera House in all her glory.

 

So it was an unexpected, but welcome surprise that the Sydney Opera House was the on location sketch subject in our first week of Liz Steel's "Exploring The Rocks" workshop. After a dose of theory in an old Rocks prison cell (roughing it with fabulous coffee and fine French pastries), we left for a grassy park and sat in the shade of a tree, sketching away. A great benefit of a teacher who is also an architect is the added insight into the structure of a building and the tips on what to focus on. Most memorable was that the front part of the podium on which the house sits was designed partly to reflect the shape of the heads at the entrance to Sydney Harbour.

Sketching Architecture - Weeks 3 and 4

 

Week 3 of Liz Steel's Sketching Architecture course was on perspective. I took a page full of notes and great tips during the theory session which were all things I'd like to recall easily when I'm sketching on site. Depicted above is The Union Bond Store. A single bay sandstone warehouse at 47 George St, The Rocks, Sydney. Constructed in 1841. It still features its gantry beam and paired warehouse doors on each floor. To the left is the “First Impressions” Sandstone relief sculpture symbolising the origins and settlement of the colony.

 

 

Our final class was on developing contrast and textures. As the sun was having a hard time shining there was little in the way of cast shadow. We focussed on textures using a variety of methods such as wet on wet watercolour, splashing, using watercolour pencils under and over the watercolour washes, as well as scraping pencil lead over sandpaper to create fine specks of colour.

 

The last sketch session was at Susannah Place - a terrace of four small brick houses built in 1844. It’s remained largely unchanged from its original layout and features through to the 21st century and so shows us how some of the working families of this area have lived for many generations. It’s another of those places that always catches my attention when I’m walking through the Rocks (always tempted to take the little laneways instead of noisy George St).

 

I've been grateful for the opportunity to attend Liz's classes in Sydney this year. It's been rewarding to learn from her and see her demonstrate first hand so much that I have never managed to learn elsewhere. I have great hopes that she'll run more architecture course in 2014 and that I'll be in the position to take them.

 

 

 

Sketching Architecture - Week 2

 

 

 

Back to one of Sydney's quaintest historical suburbs - The Rocks. Week 2 of Liz Steel's course had us admiring various shop fronts along George Street. I chose this one for its worn looking façade and charm.

 Built in 1856 in the Victorian Regency style, 103 George Street is significant in that it has maintained its use as both a shop and residence until this day. A faint trace of the words 'Boarding House' could be seen on the façade, but unfortunately I couldn’t find any historical reference for the large number ‘6’. The shop below has been remodelled over time and currently exists as Ariel Booksellers.

 



Sketching Architecture Workshop with Liz Steel

Day 1 of Liz Steel's Sketching Architecture Course in The Rocks and after 2 hours of exercises and demos indoors we headed straight to the fabulous ASNC building on Hickson Road (near the corner of George St). At the end of an hour of some gnashing of teeth and a little cursing (lining up things proved a bit of a challenge) we were all pleasantly surprised to see how much we'd achieved. I added the ornate balustrades, downpipes and watercolour once I got home.

 

The Australian Steamship Navigation Company building was completed in 1884. The Federation Anglo-Dutch style construction was designed by William Wardell.

Billy of Balmoral (and drawing what you love).

What makes a good teacher? Obviously, each person can have many answers from their own experience be it a good or bad one. Right now I'm very grateful to have a teacher who provides clear guidance and knows to steer students towards the things they respond to best. 

 

We returned to Balmoral yesterday with Liz Steel's class and revisited the effectiveness of doing good setup and thumbnails. Liz put many ideas in place for us to build toward working faster but still with a pleasing result. So now with the knowledge, some familiarity with techniques and the required materials I should be off on my merry way to create sketches that please me. But there is still a gap to be filled. A pitfall. Choosing what's best for you to draw. I knew what I wanted to draw. I knew I wanted to draw the dog. I have always wanted to draw the sweet statue of Billy the dog at Balmoral. But I was avoiding it. Somehow drawing the rotunda which I was less connected with presented less of a challenge, less of a risk. Seems quite illogical when I think of all those lines on the rotunda.

 

 

Time to sketch under Liz's guidance is precious, and we didn't absolutely have to draw the rotunda. However, it still took me 2 messy thumbnail sketches of the rotunda with Billy looking back at me as tiny squiggles in the distance before I bothered to try sketching him.  Then with a little more courage I drew him again larger. Yet oddly, after all of that I was still lacking courage and considering my final sketch to be a straight view of the rotunda with the pretty beach in the background. At this point Liz outright said go and do a full page setup with pen lines of the dog. From my experience now I can say that when Liz suggests I draw something I'm resisting, then it's probably something I REALLY need to do. She was right. Go with what grabs you. I still managed to squeeze a little of the rotunda but I'm so pleased Liz guided me to go with my heart. 

Studying Tonal Value

It was our first outdoor session for Spring and clearly we weren't the only folk out to enjoy the season. In each direction something different - a wedding photo shoot, a dive class, film crew, mothers groups and screeching cockatoos overhead in the trees.

 

Ethna intent on her tonal value study

Liz had been exceptionally successful planning beautiful weather once again. At Balmoral Beach for our class on tonal value the sun shone brightly allowing us to study distinct areas of shade a cast shadow.

 

 

It can be a challenge for me to switch into the mode of analysing colour as tone. It's still yet to be that simple pleasure of drawing and playing with colour, but the result when the pic starts coming together is rewarding. We used PITT artist brush pens for the tone in this exercise. The final study on the bottom right is watercolour and ink. We've been drawing Stillman & Birn ALPHA A5 sketchbooks. This Stillman & Birn is proving to be a good size for class studies and the paper is working well under a variety of ink, watercolour pencils and watercolour. More on Liz Steel's class here.

 

 

 

Returning to classes with Liz Steel

Liz Steel is running classes to revisit fundamentals touched on in the first course.  But even in that month or so off from focusing on learning, not just sketching for the sake of it, my mind had rusted. So for the first week, apart from the planned lesson itself, through my own frustration I received another about slowing down, really looking hard and not just making assumptions about the subject.. and then finally to live with it, get over it and move on (very helpful to have a teacher who reminds us to not let stress or worry over a result ruin the joy of creating it in the first place).

 

This weeks class had a much happier outcome. We focussed on studies firstly with line work and hatching and then repeated the same subject using watercolour for form, tone and shadows.

 

 

This was a really good way of firstly understanding the subject with the lines and then shaking off the confines of that first sketch and being able to let that go and relax more with the paints. Added to this we had the most beautiful weather and spent the whole class outside at Balmoral Beach under the shade of the Rotunda and then the huge fig trees. A great upside of sketching on location when the weather is nice!

 

Our class is having a lot of fun discussing the expressive lines and work of talent such as Veronica Lawler and Nathalie Ramirez . Their use of colour and line is so full of life. I've started to experiment a little this weekend with coloured linework and brighter pigment mixes. Referring to a black and white photo of Frida Kahlo I first sketched her in  pale blue fineliner (happy to find my pack of Staedtelr Triplus fineliners are fairly water resistant), added the main features in with my Lamy and then celebrated with lots more fineliner and watercolour. Loved the effects of bright pigments mixing in puddles of water.

Play time. Week 8 of Liz Steel's sketch course.

Another fun day, but tinged with a little sadness that it was our last class. What a term we've had. Liz has taught us so much and continued to encourage us constantly throughout the duration of the course. There's been a shift in my sketching and the intensity of colour used , but I also recognise a change in confidence and my willingness to tackle things I would not previously try.

  

 

 

 

For our cafe sketch this week we went to Chica Bonita - a lively little restaurant in Manly with wonderful decor, music, vibe, food, drink, lighting. Everything just right for getting us to play. I ordered a watermelon margarita to further aid the loosening of the lines and decided to draw it against the backdrop of the tiles from the table and next to a feature from the wall. This sketch incorporates every bit of play technique I could remember from the earlier studio discussion - sketching with watercolour pencils, using a white chinagraph pencil (it resists the watercolour paint), salt (from my margarita glass), scraping wet paint with the credit card, white gel pen, wet on wet colours, splashing and most of all remembering not to be too serious about the outcome.

 

Thanks once more to Liz, its been a great learning experience. You can read more about this weeks class here on her blog.

 

Links to my posts on the earlier classes:

Week 1

Weeks 2 & 3

Weeks 4 & 5

Weeks 6 & 7

 

More lessons with Liz Steel - context and composition.

Having earlier touched on some fundamental drawing lessons for buildings, Weeks 6 and 7 of Liz Steel's Urban Sketching course was focussed on context and composition.

The aim of week 6 was creating life around an object (often a building). Placing the main object into context. This assists with the concept of creating a story for urban sketching. It's also an area I tend to neglect. Partly because I'm chicken.

Liz had us warm up in the studio with sketching from photos of models from art reference books.

 

These two faces were finished later from black and white photos.

We also drew trees and cars. Palms, Pines and Gums are the trees I associate the most with Sydney. My greens need a bit more oomph here - a bit more summer to them.  

Once finished in the studio, we were then off to Manly Wharf where we gathered at the traffic lights. Here we sketched people as they waited in the rain for the lights to change. Sketching people within a such a short time frame is all very new to me. I learnt quite a lot and know that I would have continued to bypass sketching people if it weren't part of this course. Having the direction of an accomplished sketcher who is encouraging and enthusiastic made a huge difference.

 

 

Week 7 was about Composition. Balancing a blend of text, headings and images around the page to again help tell a story about the location and also communicate the feeling and atmostphere of the moment.




My studio cup and saucer sketch.. without my unbalanced composition!

 

Liz challenged with randomly selected layouts. We had to sketch a cup and saucer onto the page in the assigned area and then build a balanced composition around it. My composition for this one was messy when I added the words. I painted it later at home, once I regained some confidence! Filling in text to balance composition with an image, whilst maintaing a flow of seemingly effortless prose  is due for a bit of development.

 

It came together a bit better when we then set out to sketch at one of my favourite cafes in Manly, Foundry Fiftythree: huge tables allowing plenty of room to sketch, unique items decorating the walls, cool teapots, good coffee and good food.

Sadly, we're nearing the end of our course with Liz. Just one more class and then we will be left to our own devices. Fortunately, Liz has taught us plenty, she shares a great deal of her ideas online and she is considering teaching more courses. If you'd like to read more about her classes Liz shares her ideas here, and you can also find reviews of Liz's course on class mate Suzi Poland's blog.

Colour.

I've been heavily reliant on a technical knowledge of watercolours, colour mixing, colour wheels etc that was learnt in about grade 4 (about 10 years old?) and not greatly developed since then. It's been a wonderful way to work and play. Frankly, I have enjoyed being naive about certain things because there is a level of freedom to it. As if I can't be held responsible for creating better watercolour work due to my ignorance of how to do it. But now I want to move on. 

 

Thankfully, surrounding this (slightly embarrassing) realisation has been the course I'm taking with Liz Steel and her fantastic knowledge, experience and ethusiasm. Liz's passion for watercolour pigments is evident in her work as well as commentary.

 

In our class we covered hue, value, intensity, cool vs warm, use of complementary colours for shadows, mixing colours, wet/damp/dry technique comparison and more. I took many notes and drew pictures and painted colours. But until I start mixing these colours and  using the techniques in sketches, repetitively, none of the newer concepts are easy for me to recall.

 

 

Pittwater Road, Manly

As part of the course we had the option of setting up our travel watercolour palettes with Liz's current favourite colours. Awesome. Now I can at least go forth with my own changes knowing I have a good platform to work from.  With a handy selection of Daniel Smith colours set into half pans, the above was my first outdoors/onsite trial of the new paints.

 

 

 

The following class focussed on buildings. Here we recalled some of what we did early on in the course in relation to form, structure, detail as well as more discussion on perspective.

 

 

 

 

We completed a few very simplified line drawings of incredible, historic, beautiful archtiecture such as Notre Dame from photos (totally gullibe to Liz's clever strategy of boosting our confidence in sketching buildings) and then headed down the Corso, to St Matthews Church. There I became engrossed in detail,  forgetting most of what she'd just taught us about keeping it simple. In order to complete the full picture - both lines and colour on site I still need to work faster. This one was coloured at home.  

 

 I've also created a colour mixing chart from my new palette.  I then set about to further absorb how my colours mix by sketching a Classic Rover from one of my photos, using predominantly just French Ultramine Blue and Burnt Umber. I snuck in some Moonglow because it looked pretty comfortable with the other two. This was really helpful for me to understand how the colours work together.

 

More Learning with Liz Steel. Edges and Value Studies.

Now, where was I? I blink and another 3 weeks pass. Liz Steel's classes have continued to bowl me over with more great insights to sketching and most recently, the really fun bit, using our new watercolours.

But before I share the colour joy, let me fill you in on the things that stuck from week 2 and 3.

Week 2 focussed on creating hard and soft edges in our sketches as well as using textures to enhance areas we wish to draw attention to. In theory, by defining our hard edges first, we can prioritise what we see and draw more effectively and thus faster (ie don't get caught up in the details, before sorting out the composition for the rest of the picture).
 

 

 

Fortunately, Liz doesn't pass or fail us each week because with this view of Shelly Beach I washed over all of my watercolour pencil work when I got home and continued to 'ticker' (thanks for that word Raewyn!) mostly defeating the point of the exercise.
 

 

 

Week 3 was on value studies. We learnt to determine local colour, cast shadow and shade in a still life setting in the studio. With only a key of 3 options, then 5, we were underaking the most simple exercises in value study and yet it was quite punishing - in a latte sipping, midday, pleasant company, sunny light filled studio kind of way. My Mum also joined in on this class as a casual and did a sterling job of taking in all of what we learnt and applying it to her own work.

 

 Our group then headed up the street and applied the same value study process to sketching a block of apartments. It was good to repeat this for a building and see the impact of preserving the white on the sunlit facades, and darkening the other areas based on local colour, shade and cast shadow. Preserving white has been a problem for me in the past because the temptation to "colour in" usually takes hold.

  

 

A little practice with my Tombow marker later in the week. I love that these pens have a fine end as well as a brush. Given a minute or so drying time in between, I can use the brush layer to create different intensities of value.

 

In the next post I'll show you my new paints : )