Sketchbook Revival

For the past few years, I've taken part in an online series of art workshops called Sketchbook Revival. A variety of artists covering watercolor, mixed media, drawing, journaling and more do free online workshops. The event ran over two weeks in June. (This post is heavy on the art, so be prepared!) 

 

This year instead of having all new workshops, coordinator Karen Abend pulled together the vault of five different years and participants could do any of those sessions. Some I'd never seen, some I'd never done before and some I wanted to do again! 

Some of the instructors were familiar to me. Terry Runyan does marvelous cats. This time she did some "blob" cats and birds. (Carla Sonheim also did her version of the blob creatures.)

 

This is about the simplest thing one can do in art -- it loosens you up, helps you think outside the box. Just drop a blob of  loose watercolor onto your paper, maybe add a second or third color and let it dry. Then come in with a fine liner for details as you define your creature.

 

This would be a fun project I'd like to try with my grand-guys to see what critters they "see" in the blobs.

 

Another favorite instructor is Tamara Laporte. She's high on color and I did three of her workshops. The first was a "quirky bird." This one is somewhat similar to her class example in style.

 

I had such fun with it, I did a "quirky cat" and may well do a whole series of these with other animals.

 

Her next one was a series of houses. Again, you don't need a lot of technical skill to do this -- the houses are very basic. I basically stuck with a simple color scheme with one complimentary color for contrast. This was fun, coming up with your own buildings and colors.

 

Her third was painting an owl. I took my shape from one she drew, not being an expert in drawing owls, and the colors were bright and happy.

 

For something completely different  I did David Drazil's architectural drawing class. This was very precise and focus on perspective.  I loved doing this and look forward to digging into his "free gift," which was a collection of perspective and architectural drawing hints.

 

Susan Chiang was another favorite artist. I loved doing her watercolor pears. 

  

All the instructors offered a "free gift" -- it might be a tutorial, worksheets or compilation of tips. Susan offered a tutorial in painting a scene in watercolor from a photo. This was the result.

 

Leonie Norton also had us do a scene from a reference photo. Her version was a tropical island. I adjusted mine to more reflect some of the up-north views one might see in Michigan.

 

This was an "urban vignette" by Shari Blaukaupf. I was rather pleased with mine, which went beyond her targeted area of just the doorway to add the window and a bit of the upper stone. 

 

 I got several very good techniques on drawing birds. I'm rather proud of this one from a class taught by Julia Bausenhardt.

 

Val Webb had us doing a heron. Her version was in black and white but I went back to my old photos of Harry the Heron and added a bit of color.

 

 

 

Finally, a "wilted sunflower" in a session led by Ildiko Karasay. I'm rather pleased with this one, too and again, learned a lot about shading and color mixing, which is not my strong suit!

 

 

 

I watched several other sessions which were good but I didn't have time to do the work with them, and also did a few where my work was really not particularly shareable! But all in all, it was a wonderful couple of weeks and a good time stretch myself. Most important, it got me back to the art table and the England journal.

 Now I'm on a roll!

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