I’ve been making an effort lately to spend more time outside in the sunlight, and on a few occasions I’ve brought my sketchbook out with me. I don’t really care about the result, but I find it very relaxing to sit in the sun and make some little drawings of whatever I see on the ground. I also like to record what I see happening out there as the weather gets warmer.
Author: Carolyn A Pappas
Weather Notes (4/3/2016)
What a strange weather day this past Sunday was! I woke up to heavily falling snow and even lost power for a time. By midday, the snow stopped, fog was rolling in over the lake, and the wind picked up—blowing into my house at a 90 degree angle. By late afternoon, most of the snow was gone and the sun had returned, but the wind was still wild and the waves had whitecaps.
I made this sketch using Derwent Watercolour colored pencils, which I haven’t picked up in a few years. I really got lost in it for a time, and enjoyed myself immensely.
Review of Sketchbook Skool: Expressing
This past January I signed up for the Sketchbook Skool six week “kourse” called Expressing as part of my goal for this year to focus more on my personal sketchbooks. This is my honest review of the program for the benefit of anyone else who may be considering enrolling.
The main reason why I signed up was because Michael Nobbs and Penelope Dullaghan were being featured as instructors, and I am a long time follower of both for many years. Also, I enrolled with a 20% off promo code which made the normally $99 cost a bit easier to swallow.
The kourse was broken up into six, one week long lessons featuring a different artist each week. Each weekly lesson consisted of a series of short (10 minutes or less) videos (introductory, biographical, sketchbook tours, and demos). Most of the videos had question prompts meant to spur discussion in the forums. There was also a weekly homework assignment with instructions to post in the forums for the other participants to view and/or comment. Some of the topics in the kourse included traditional watercolor techniques (such as glazes and washes), hand lettering, handmade books (mostly how to do the design and layout of the content, NOT bookbinding itself), sketching digitally on a tablet, and some very cool printmaking techniques. These are some of my impressions on Expressing:
Pros:
- The videos were professionally produced with music, bright lighting, and nice zoom in shots so you can see clearly.
- The website is attractively designed with black text on bright white backgrounds and lots of pops of bright colors.
- New lessons were posted each Friday, which is ideal for someone who works M-F and wants to spend time on the weekends viewing the new content.
- The artists featured each week were all different from each other in terms of style and approach. I really enjoyed the variety.
- The courses and videos remain available for users to view after the end date of the six-week program. I didn’t actually finish the kourse so I will definitely be taking advantage of this.
- Danny Gregory (co-founder of Sketchbook Skool) posted little videos of himself doing the weekly homework on his blog every week. I really liked these videos and I would recommend looking them up if you’d like more of a feel for the content before signing up.
Cons:
- The videos were very short and mostly focused on talking, with very little time in comparison spent on demos. There was one week in particular which was so heavy on talking and biographical information that it generated some user complaints. I did notice that some extra content was posted to this lesson in the following days, however. I was disappointed because I had the impression from promo material that this particular week was to focus on making books, but I had seen all the same content elsewhere (accordion books and mini one-page books). The instructor referred participants to a how-to book on book-binding for more information.
- Every time I logged in on Fridays to view the new lessons, there were a number of participants who had already viewed all of the videos and posted their completed homework. I am on EST and usually logged in around 9 or 10 am on Friday. I realize that people in other time zones could view the content earlier than me, but I thought that the amount of content in each lesson could have been more as it was intended to cover an entire week.
- There were some technical issues which prevented some people from being able to download PDFs from the site. Eventually, this issue was fixed but there were a lot of comments about it in the forums which distracted me from the content. Hopefully, this issue is fixed for future iterations of the kourse.
- Even though most of the homework can be done with materials that you probably already have on hand (pencil, ink, watercolor, etc.), I would have appreciated a materials list before the kourse started. If this was posted, I missed it. I absolutely LOVED Penelope Dullaghan’s week, but there were some materials that she used that I don’t have as a part of my normal supplies such as oil paint, rubber brayer, acetate sheets, linoleum and lino carving tools. I was so inspired after watching her videos, but I didn’t have the stuff on hand so I wasn’t able to jump in and do the assignment like I would have done otherwise.
My completed homework for Felix Scheinberger’s week:
My overall impression of this Sketchbook Skool kourse is that it is ideal for someone who is relatively new to drawing and keeping sketchbooks and who needs/wants a lot of encouragement, inspiration, and interaction with others to stay on track. The inspiration and information I gained from the kourse was very worthwhile for me, but I don’t think it would be worth $99.
I also think this format may not be for me, or that I have some ADD tendencies, because I started to get distracted and lose track and never officially completed all the lessons or all of the homework. The forums seemed a little awkward for me to use so I largely didn’t participate in the discussions. I find the setup of facebook groups more conducive for giving and sharing feedback in general.
Ultimately, it is not necessary AT ALL to take a class on how to keep a sketchbook. When I think back over the years, I realize I have learned the most by just looking at other people’s artwork, and from books. If you like to get video based information, then Sketchbook Skool might be for you. For free, you can look for videos on YouTube and you can also check out Strathmore Free Online Workshops (keeping in mind that they are meant to promote Strathmore products). For less money than Sketchbook Skool, you can also find some art courses on Craftsy (look out for sales) and Creativebug (they offer a free 14 day trial). If you know of any other sources for video based art instruction, please leave me a comment because I’d love to check it out!
Blue Feathers
We found a clump of goose feathers down by the water and I had fun sketching them in blue ink. I think I drew them more stylized because I was using the blue, which isn’t at all realistic.
Luxury Blue
I switched out the ink in my Lamy Safari fountain pen from Noodler’s Lexington Grey to Noodler’s Luxury Blue. I’ve had this ink for some time, but it has been a few years since I’ve used it. Luxury Blue is more expensive than the other Noodler’s inks and it comes in a one ounce bottle instead of a three ounce bottle. The ink is waterproof, which is useful for both drawing with watercolor wash and also for normal writing. It works nicely with washes of Winsor & Newton French Ultramarine. I also want to try it out with turquoise and violet.
Getting Outside
Even though it was a mild winter, I really feel like spring has arrived because I have been getting outside to sketch in the garden and down by the lake. Last spring and summer I stayed inside most of the time to study, but I want to try to get outside much more this year.
Bouquet Vignettes
When I get fresh flowers in the house I always try to make a drawing, but often I don’t manage to do it until the flowers are almost ready for the compost pile.
Sunset After a Light Snow
This is in the mail on the way to New York City for the Twitter Art Exhibit to be held in March. Proceeds benefit Foster Pride’s HandMade program, which teaches girls in foster care how to crochet and then market their product line.
I based this painting from a snapshot I took after one of our recent minor snowstorms. The sunset was brilliant, with pinks and purples and the lake was mostly unfrozen. This piece is more whimsical than my normal work, and I had fun with it. I used graphite pencil, Neocolor I oil pastels and watercolor.
Pink Peony with Buds
A pink peony for Valentine’s Day, drawn from my photo archives. I have really been enjoying the artwork of Inky Leaves on Instagram and I’m getting inspired to start making some more botanical themed artwork myself in the near future. I never used to care for the white backgrounds in traditional botanical painting (thinking they were too boring), but this aesthetic has grown on me and I’m going to try to leave my backgrounds white for the next couple of paintings.
Snow!
It felt nice to finally have a snowy day. In a way I am relieved because I think I was uneasy about the abnormally warm weather. It is not that I don’t like the warmth, I just enjoy all the seasons in their own way and I didn’t like feeling like we skipped over one of them. Looking over my sketch afterwards, I realized that I should have drawn it in black ink on pure white paper because it would have captured the light and contrast in the atmosphere.