Illustration + Nature Sketching
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 … Read more
Winter is a good time to watch and sketch birds, so this sketchbook tour will be full of birds. There is little else going on here at the moment, we had quite a bit of snow that’s thawing now, and anything more than walks in the neighborhood is out of the the question. Hope you … Read more
I’ve been continuing to sketch landscapes in watercolor and gouache, here is an outtake from my sketchbook in autumn. Here’s a video version of this post: Landscape Painting Sketchbook Tour | Autumn 2020 I usually do quick studies in a small sketchbook that is the size of my palm, and when I like the subject … Read more
I haven’t done a sketchbook tour in a while, and some of these pages feel like I’ve done them ages ago. In fact, they span from September to early December. I haven’t been nature journaling as much as I’d like, but I’ve done a lot of landscape studies – I’ll share another tour with these … Read more
As promised I’ll show a few of my plein air landscape sketches today. I’ve always been fond of landscape painting, and after nature journaling outdoors for a few years, I wanted to take my landscape sketches a step further. So this summer I’ve tried to go out for plein air painting more often, and although … Read more
I’m back from my summer break, and I’ve brought new sketchbook outtakes with me. I haven’t shared what I’ve been up to in my sketchbook for a while, so I thought this would be a nice opener. Over the last weeks I’ve spent time on personal projects like getting better at plein air landscape painting … Read more
We’re approaching the last two days of the International Nature Journaling Week. The days have gone by so fast, but I managed to fit in a nature sketch almost each day, next to my other painting duties. I had a lot of fun sketching my favorite fungi that I remember from foraging – I learnt … Read more
My sketchbook tour will be a bit different this month as I have been doing a lot of painting at home since the lockdown, and my sketching activities in nature have stopped entirely. I’ve been recording a lot of bird sketching tutorials, some of them I’ve already shared on Youtube, some of them will be … Read more
Here’s my sketchbook tour for February. Currently I love doing bird studies (as well as simply watching them), and I’m exploring painting in gouache a bit more. I might need to start a separate sketchbook for these studies, to keep them all in one place. Here is a video version of this post: Click here … Read more
This month I’ve returned to sketching more birds, which is something I’ve missed, and continued my mammal studies. I’ve also introduced a bit of gouache painting into my sketchbook, which I haven’t done in a long time – gouache is opaque watercolor, and it can be combined with watercolors very well. In fact, all I … Read more
Before I continue with today’s topic, I just wanted to thank everyone who left a comment and added to the discussion of last week’s post about my shopping ban for 2020. I did not expect such a massive resonance, and I’m grateful you all shared your own stories and thoughts about having less stuff (or … Read more
Here are my sketchbook pages for June. I sketched a lot of butterflies for an upcoming class, as well as the obligatory birds and some flora. Something I’ve also enjoyed – without having it mastered fully – is painting quick landscapes. I’m planning to do more of these quick small sketches, as they give a … Read more