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 temperatures and snow in late April. This is not totally out of norm (and I still remember the times when fresh snow fell in May from my childhood in a mountain town), but I’m definitely looking forward to warmer days now.
Currently, I’m using up sketchbooks with paper I don’t really like, and that shows a bit in my sketching style and my techniques. In the first half of pictures, you will see a very loose, rough style – the paper I used here has a very prominent grain (Fabriano Disegno). It takes watercolor well, but it’s not suited for very fine, delicate details. I did more pencil and ink work on these pages.
Here’s the video version of this post:
Sketchbook Tour in Spring (video)
A page from early March with two different kinds of wagtails and early flowers like the spring snowflake.
Mostly pencil sketches of different birds. Buzzards circling over the city (indicated with arrows), and a page of starling studies. I really like the metallic sounds they make.
More bird studies, song thrushes in ink and watercolor.
Butterfly study in ink, gouache and colored pencil. This study was made for my composition class, but it ended up in the course in a different version. These peacock butterflies are quite common here, sometimes they emerge really early after spending winter in buildings.
Three quick composition studies, snapshots of the same place. Again, I didn’t end up using these landscapes in my class, but they were fun to do.
A mix of spring plants like wild arum, dog’s mercury and snowdrops together with a few common birds: red kite, raven and great tit. A page done after a very enjoyable day outside. This is also shown as a step-by-step in my Sketchbook Composition class.
More outtakes from the Composition class, a page of white wagtail studies.
The next sketchbook features the rest of a hot-pressed cellulose paper that I wanted to finally use up. It’s not really great for watercolor, so I tried a bunch of different techniques: ink, marker, very dry watercolor application. At some point I gave up and mostly use colored pencils on the paper, which works great. You can see how I struggled on the first few pages with that paper.
Spring flowers from the forest:
More spring flowers and a few insects:
Another interesting find were different species of veronica – amazing how different these small blue flowers can look like. And I also saw a skylark in the field.
On this spread I got fed up with the way the paper reacted to watercolor and used markers and ink for all elements. Alcohol-based markers often bleed through on the other side of the page though, that’s why I rarely use them a lot on sketchbooks. The building is the rest of water castle from the 13th century, in the style of Northern or German Renaissance. Today, horse breeders use the buildings.
We took a stroll through a little town with a lot of half-timbered buildings that were nicely renovated. People also put up signs with historical photos showing how the buildings looked like and what they were used for a hundred years ago. We also met a stork and a white-throated dipper.
More studies of the dipper and geese with their young.
Colored pencil brings really nice results on this paper. Sparrow studies. I love these little chirping guys.
Two botanical studies, one of the ubiquitous dandelion, the other of a kind of buttercup (spearwort, Ranunculus flammula), also quite common.
I hope you liked this sketchbook tour. I definitely enjoyed seeing nature come back to life in its many shapes and colors after the winter.
Hi Juila, thanks for another wonderful filp through, I love to receive your posts. This is my first time to respond, so thank you for that, I suffer from depression and anxiety disorder so for me to write something is very hard. I love bird watching and find it helps with my problems so I was wondering do you sketch your birds from life or do you take photos and sketch them later because they are so beautiful. Having anxiety disorder is a real problem to my art as it comes with alot of self criticism, a dammed if I do dammed if I don’t loop, so getting your sketch book filp throughs is a help and gives me something else to focus on thanks very much for your posts x
Hi Brian, thank you so much for your comment. I really appreciate that you’ve reached out. I understand how hard it can be to simply respond (or even make art) in this condition. I hope you have all the support you need.
As for the self-criticism, I’m not sure if this is helpful to you, but I tend to view my sketchbooks simply as experimentation areas. I know a lot of what I share looks nice and finished and pretty, but that’s because I tend to leave out the pages that are not so strong visually. But they definitely exist, and it’s all part of the artistic process. I know it’s very hard to turn off that inner voice that offers all the criticism and try out new things that you’re not sure about. What helps me is focusing on the subject – a bird, a flower, a landscape, and I try focusing on experiencing nature and learning more about it, instead of rendering perfect art. That can take the pressure away a bit. I find it’s awesome that you want to learn new things, and each new skill will come with setbacks. It’s often the mistakes we learn most from.
I hope this helps a little bit.
I sketch directly from life when possible, but also try to take enough photos so that I can take my time for sketching back home. This allows me to add greater detail.
I wish you all the best!
Hallo Julia,
ich bin begeistert. Selbst bin ich ein absoluter Anfänger, und bei dir kann man sich Anregungen holen.
Toll und vielen Dank
Hallo Johanna,
das freut mich sehr zu hören! Wenn du mal Fragen haben solltest, schreib mir einfach. Viel Freude beim Zeichnen. 🙂
Lovely! Inspires me to keep exploring nature and the seasons in my own sketch book!
Dear Julia,
I love your nature sketchbooks. They are so inspiring and beautiful to look at. I find nature sketching really difficult. I don’t seem to have the patience for all the fine details. and birds move so fast, if I get a glimpse of them I am lucky. The only ones that are not afraid are the turtle doves who come and steal my cats’ food!
It is always a joy to receive your emails!
Chris
Hi Chris,
I know, bird sketching can be a bit hard. My approach is a mixture of sketching from life, and taking photos so that I can fill in details later. And I too find the detail work often challenging. How lovely you have turtle doves, they’re so beautiful!
Lovely! Inspires me to keep exploring nature and the seasons in my own sketch book!
Thank you Jamie!
Hi Julia,
I really loved this spring sketchbook tour! Your sketches are so full of life and movement. I especially liked the butterfly and the sparrow in brown pencil.
Looking forward to your next newsletter,
Linda
Thank you Linda, I really appreciate it!
Lovely spring tour in your Germany, Julia! I haven’t left a comment in a long time. We met during Sketchbook Revival 2020 & I so enjoyed learning from you and all of your nature sketching and commentary. It was a pleasure to read through your words today but even better to watch the video and listen to your excitement as you described the various birds, horses, bees, and yes even the paper troubles your were having in the sketchbook while trying to use watercolors. You are so gifted and I wish I could be on a hike with you as you observe nature firsthand!
Marlene Pechura, USA Wisconsin
Hi Marlene, thank you for saying hello again! It’s lovely to hear you have been around since Sketchbook Revival in 2020. I really appreciate it and I’d love to have your company during my sketching sessions in the field.
Such a lovely and inspiring sketchbook. Thanks for sharing it.
You’re welcome, and I’m happy to hear it’s inspiring to you!
Hi Julia-
Thank you for sharing your springtime wanderings… I like that you included native bees! I live in the Sonoran desert where there is an amazing variety of them. I saw one with blue and black stripes this morning. I wonder how you capture them on the page since they are small and always in motion- Are you really fast at sketching? Thank you,
Gabrielle (from Arizona)
Oh that sounds like a wonderful place to study bees. I usually take a quick reference photo of bees (or other insects), to not disturb them, and then try to take a very close look so that I get the colors and details right in my sketch.
Lovely work. I have been working so much on music that I have neglected drawing and painting. This was inspiring. Thank you!