Sketch a Landscape

I know- most of you are freezing your tuckuses off right now, and my suggestion to "sketch a landscape" might sound daunting and unappealing this morning, depending on the type of weather you are experiencing in your part of the world, but- I promise- you can stay inside and sketch from a window or work from one of your photographs, either taken today or during a sunnier time and you will love adding a landscape to your sketchbook.

If you like, you can write in your sketch journal about your daydreams of being in a warmer climate today, or choose to revel in the cold and the snow, and sketch a winter day scene. Whatever your mood today, sketch a landscape that goes along with your mood

It is always a great idea to sketch from life if you can, because you can translate more that just what you see onto your journal page. Other senses become involved and become part of your impression of the scene when you are experiencing it in real life. The sketches and mini-paintings you see surrounding this post were all done at various places and times in different sketchbooks. Some are from life and some are from photographs. I tried to include a variety of approaches and media here- pen and watercolor, acrylics, and pastels. Also, some are more literal and others are more abstract. Try your hand at different approaches!

If you are working from a photograph, try to feel the mood you are getting from the scene first. Don't just try and replicate the scene- try and make it YOUR view, YOUR feeling of the landscape, and bring that out in how you make your strokes, how simple or complex you make your sketch and which colors you choose to work with.

So, sketch a landscape, and see how yours turns out today.

Share your work and experiences by including a comment!

Frame it Up!

This morning's mini-challenge is to put frames around your sketches.

Setting your artwork apart from the borders of the page makes it look finished and important, and adds a graphic design element, which creates interesting art journal pages.

Before you begin your artwork, think about a layout for the frames on your page. You can use any shape,(even a heart for Valentine's Day!) but rectangles are pleasing to the eye and are easy to draw. Do not use a ruler! You want imperfect frames, so that they fit in better with the look of your sketches. You can hold your pen or pencil as you usually do, but use the pinky and ring finger to slide along the edge of your sketchbook or journal as a guide to draw the straight sides of the rectangles. This gives you a fairly straight edge, but retains the look of being hand-drawn.

You can use more than one frame on a page, if you wish, and add text or simply put a frame around the place where you will add a sketch.

The example above was done a few years ago in a watercolor journaling workshop I attended. We drew the frames in, did a light pencil sketch inside the frame, and then used an archival pen (like the Micron Pigma .05) to ink the outlines, and then added watercolor washes to color it in.

The brand of the aketchbook is called Komtrack. It is a unique type of book that has a spiral that can be removed, and many types of papers can be put back in. I have one that is half watercolor paper, and half paper that is good for drawing on.

Whatever your paper or sketchbook, using frames is a really good idea to try!