Illustration + Nature Sketching
Welcome to another sketchbook tour! This summer I didn’t really have a lot of time and energy for sketching on the side, so there’s a gap in my sketchbook in July and August. But there are ways to finish a page in a satisfying way even if you can’t sketch very often. I’m still fighting …
I hope all of you had a good summer. It feels weird to say this when there is so much stuff going on in the world, but I have to start this blog entry somewhere. My summer break was a time of reflection, acceptance and change for me. In the past few months, I’ve let …
Here’s the next video from my landscape sketching series about folk tale landscapes. In this painting I’ll take a closer look at an old farm building overseeing a rural landscape. I remember this place from last year as one of the most quiet and secluded areas we came across, and there was something almost eerie …
In this next outtake from my new class Drawing Ideas for Summer I’ll show you how you can approach sketching tree shapes. Sketching different trees has been a challenge over a long time for me, until I tried out this technique of grouping parts of the tree together in groups of leaves. The trick is …
My new class Drawing Ideas for Summer has just opened and one of the things I enjoyed most when filming were all the beautiful field flowers I saw and got to sketch. I could literally do this all day long, and I’m happy we have a few fields here that still have these “weeds” growing …
I’m excited to announce that I have a new online course ready for you, it’s called: Nature Journal – Drawing ideas for summer In this class, we’ll take our sketchbook out into nature and sketch the summer. I will share lots of different ideas for drawing in your sketchbook now that nature is in full …
Warmer days are here, spring allergy time is over, so field sketching is becoming an option for me again. I realize I haven’t really shared my regular sketching bag setup before. Here’s a video version of this post: What’s in my sketching bag (video) When I first started outdoor sketching, I used to put my …
Announcement Before we go ahead with today’s topic, a short announcement: I’m currently filming for the last episode of the seasonal nature journaling classes – it’s summer and there’s a lot to see and sketch in nature. So far I’ve planned on taking a look at sketching summer flowers, tree shapes and portraits, insects, small …
Here’s the next video from my landscape sketching series about folk tale landscapes. Today we’ll visit a gothic church ruin. This was one of the places I felt lucky to stumble across last year, I found it had a very special atmosphere. The remains of this 14th century church sit on a hill at the …
It’s time for another sketchbook tour. This one spans from March to late May 2021, and it’s all about spring. While I’m often focused on sketching birds during the winter months, I enjoyed sketching the first soft green and the different spring flowers this year. We had a slow start this year, with very cool …
Just a quick post this week with a very special bird sketch: hoopoes have a beautiful large crest and interesting patterns and colors. All in all, a very impressive animal. It’s a joy to draw these birds. I hope you enjoy the process! Sketching a hoopoe (video) More resources for sketching & painting birds:Tips for …
There are a few different ways you can mix neutral colors. You can get interesting greys and browns with just the slightest hint of their base colors by adding complementary colors together, or simply use the muddy parts on your palette to add neutral areas. Other possibilities are using premixed greys (there are a couple …
Here’s my next video from my landscape sketching series about folk tale landscapes. Today I have another autumn scene. I like the very calm atmosphere of this particular landscape, to me it had a very idyllic feel and I tried to reflect that in the color choices. I used a lot of warm color like …
In the next outtake from my new class Sketchbook Composition + Layout I’ll show how you can use color to make your compositions more dynamic and interesting. Color is a very powerful design tool, even just the monochrome variant like in the example. Here’s the video: Adding color to sketchbook pages – Sketchbook Composition (video) …
My new class Sketchbook Composition + Layout has just opened and one of the central topics are the individual layout elements you can find on each page – all the elements that you add by drawing, painting, writing and annotating or highlighting. Here’s an outtake video from the course: Layout Elements for Sketchbook Composition (video) …