Nature Sketching

nature journal is a collection of drawings from observation in nature:

Get a sketch book and some drawing tools and take them with you when you go to the woods or the beach. Draw what interests you, and take notes.

Drawing in nature can help you to understand how plants and animals are put together, and also help you to really see and remember. I usually combine nature drawing with photos, so if I decide to do a larger drawing or painting in the studio I have plenty of reference material.

A page in your nature sketchbook doesn’t have to be a pretty, finished drawing. It’s a practical tool and it can help you learn new things. Add some metadata to your page, like the date, the weather; note the size, the color, the habitat or the smell. What does it feel like? Where did you find it? Add questions that you want to look up later.

Here are different ideas and methods that you can use in your nature journal.

Draw one item in nature from a few different angles.
Take a plant apart and draw all the parts as a diagram.
Draw a sketch of the whole landscape first, then zoom in on a detail.
Draw quick gesture sketches of animals that are nearby.
You can include poems or personal memories to your sketchbook.
Collect from nature (nuts, seed pods, leaves) to take home to study in detail: This is a great technique when you can’t work outdoors (like in winter). Arrange and draw these collected items in your sketchbook.

Comments

Paint Application and Mark-Making

We've been talking about brushwork and palette knives, and I want to talk a little about paint application and mark-making. Paint can be applied with so many different tools. We all started out with finger painting, and brushes seem to be an extension of our fingers, but you can put paint onto a ground with a palette knife, old credit card, sponge, roller, etc. And besides the tools you use, you have options with the techniques. I took the following list of paint application techniques from a Craftsy Post: 1. Dry brushing: This is where you scrub layers of colors on using small amounts of paint. 2. Washing: This is when you apply a thin layer of diluted paint over the colors already applied. The thin veil of color allows the colors underneath to still shine through. 3. Dabbing: For adding texture. Apply thick paint with a stiff bristle brush or a sponge, with a pouncing motion or with quick dabs. Dabbing can be done in multiple layers to build depth. 4. Detailing: Thi...

Review assignments

Drawing is a process that is intertwined with seeing. To draw, you need to see the way an artist sees. How to see like an artist is a hard thing to explain, so most people never learn the skill-- but it is learnable by anyone, with practice. Seeing like an artist involves shifting from the verbal/logical use of your brain to the visual/intuitive side. When you use the right side of your brain, you will enter that state where you can't access words, awareness of time disappears, yet you feel alert, relaxed, and happy. And then you will also begin to see things the way artists do. Vase-Face Drawing: This exercise is one way to practice the shift from left to right brain. Using pencil, draw a symbol of a profile of a face- the left brain can easily draw a symbol from memory. Begin on the left side of your paper, so the face is facing to the right. (If you are left-handed, reverse it). Start at the top of the head, and use one uninterrupted line. Make the face approximately 5" ...

Abstract Landscapes

I'm starting out the New Year (2021) with some thought about themes. I think we are all tending towards abstraction, so I want to give a little introduction today into the history of abstraction, as it applies to landscape. I found this great article at Ideelart.com , and I'll quote a bit here, then hope you go check out the entire article: What Landscape Art Gave Abstraction In the Mid-1800s, landscape artists began utilizing a style of painting called “plein-air,” or open-air painting. Plein-air brought painters away from their studios to paint outside. This instantly made landscape painting the most sensual way a painter could work. Compare the alternatives of historic or religious paintings, portraits, slices-of-life, still lives or animal scenes. Plein-air painting offered a world of sensual delights, such as the flickering of light off water, the changing colors of the sky, the miraculous multitude of colors lines and forms in nature. Pl...

Art with Cynthia

Search This Blog