I thought it might be fun to share a small sketchbook tour again. I used to do these a lot a few years back.
This summer, I brought this small concertina sketchbook with me and filled it bit by bit. I did not fill it completely or sketched a lot, but I’m happy with the sketches so far. They’re all small landscapes.
The layout for these small sketchbooks really came from finding a use for scrap paper: when cutting big sheets of watercolor paper for my bigger sketchbooks, I always ended up with these narrow strips of paper that I didn’t want to toss away. So I folded them into these small leporellos. The gray cover is what the art supply store uses as a cover for their sheets. Very practical and easy to bring anywhere. I also used these sketchbooks for a lot of the smaller studies in my course Landscape Sketching Fundamentals.
This year and the last one has been all about finding interesting views in the mundane, everyday landscape. I’ve been traveling a bit, yes, but not to exotic or unusual places, so I’ve been in a very familiar surrounding most of the time. This allows for very intimate, calm sketches, but also for exploring materials.
I’ve mostly sketched with my new minimal palette that I had prepared for my holiday, but these days I’m also excited about experimenting with ink brushes again, and with loose colored pencil.
I have no date on my first few sketches, I think they’re from early summer. It was on a lovely warm day and I know I was excited about the view and the little pond in the middle of that plateau.
The next sketch is just a skyscape in which I was exploring the new pigments in my mini palette. I really like the gray that separated a bit in the left corner. Usually I’m not a big fan of granulation, but for skies I love it.
This was sketched after another hike through the summer fields, since I’m not alone of these walks I never have time to sketch on location. Also, not enough energy yet. So I’m happy to compartmentalize these two activities. I loved how the village is nestled into the hills, and also how the wind flowed through the fields.
I left the small sketchbook for a while and when I came back to it it was suddenly time for the summer holidays. We just spent a few days in a small spa town by the Lahn river. It was lovely and from the apartment I had a direct view on this small Russian church. Apparently back in the day when spa holidays were big with European royals the Russian tzar wanted his private orthodox church to be built. For my sketch, I focused on the building, it was fun exploring a different style of architecture.
And here’s one of the rare photos of me sketching with my small travel setup.
The lovely promenade along the river had more sketch-worthy buildings, this time I found the yellow color and the placement against the hill in the background really interesting.
And, from a slightly different position, you could see some of the big old mansions that used to be (or still are) big hotels. I explored the specific spa architecture of that place later. I really liked having a Naples yellow around for those light yellow buildings, it worked great for that particular color.
Another exploration of some roofs in the town of Limburg. It has a very pretty old town, but somehow I was fascinated by the overlapping roofs.
Another sketch from that trip, finished a bit later, of an old barn near a castle we hiked to. I had plans to draw the castle itself, and I will, but there was something about those colors and textures on the wall of this barn.
On the right, the last impression of the Lahn valley, a sunset in Bad Ems. I love creating these quick small landscapes or light studies, and I should do them more often. They just take 5 minutes!
Back home, I rediscovered my ink brush pen in one of my pockets and thought why not use it again. I did a lot of value studies in this technique a few years back. You just need a colored pencil, a brush pen with ink, and a water brush with clear water. I start with some quick outlines in colored pencil, then moisten the paper with the water brush where I want a soft effect. This was a fog scene, so I just wetted it everywhere. I dropped in the darkest bits with the ink brush, the spread it around a bit with the water brush. I like these small atmospheric value studies a lot.
The same scene on the right interpreted loosely with watercolor and colored pencil. From time to time I need to take a break from the very carefully drawn style I sometimes end up with, and just explore loose shapes and colors with different media. I’m not always sure about the result, but it is fun to sketch this way.
And a more classic watercolor sketch of the eclipse sunset we recently had. I didn’t have any eclipse glasses, so merely took a few photos and enjoyed the atmosphere. I love exploring these kind of light effects with paint.
I hope you enjoyed this sketchbook tour. I will try to do these again from time to time!
If you like this way of sketching landscapes and would like to learn how to create landscape sketches yourself, I share many of these techniques in my upcoming course Landscape Sketching Fundamentals. It is the concentrated version of everything (and more) I’ve been sharing about landscape sketching in recent years, but it will give you a clear, structured learning path instead of random posts on the blog. Sign up will be open very soon!
Grazie,grazie Julia,
sono entusiasta nel vedere questi tuoi acquerelli,i soggetti sono quelli che preferisco. Io sono una principiante, ma vorrei provare a farli. Sempre tua fan. Buon proseguimento per tutto.
Thank you very much Marialuisa!
Hi,
I would like to appreciate that how closely you look at different perspectives of the particular scenery what I liked is your coverage of changing weather and its impacts, the setting sun and the fog density around the horizons of the fields and painting the royal places of the past, what I liked is contrast of riping crops in the field, small villages and the big mansions of past royalty gives a deep meaning to your sketch, it’s really I felt happy about and loved more of fields fogs sunsets and the weather impacts
Thank you
Thank you for your kind word Amar, you’ve described that with really beautiful words. That’s really what I’m after with my sketches.
I love your work here and thanks for sharing it. Chris shepherd
Thank you so much Chris!
wow, beautiful work. great use of color.
Thank you very much Jean!
Lovely – thanks for sharing & inspiring us !
Thank you Alyx!
Wonderful pictures. I particularly love the Eclipse sunset. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much Caro!
so inspiring. thank you
Thank you so much Sylvia!
Love these, thanks for sharing, I do love landscapes,hopefully I will be as good as you one day !
Thank you so much Karen! You can do it – it’s really all about finding time to practice and sticking with it. :)
Julia, I love this idea! And you’ve inspired me to make a smaller accordion sketchbook and start recording smaller images. Really great to see different architecture and landscapes of your travels as well as encouragement to draw a bit looser when wanted. Thank you!
Thank you Janet! Yes these small sketchbooks are really handy and smaller sketches are easier to finish, too.
I enjoyed your little tour very much. Thank you for sharing it. You had some lovely scenes to enjoy and paint.
Thank you so much Susan!
Hi Julia!
I haven’t tapped in with you for a while but have been enjoying all your Newsletters. Absolutely adore your Eclipse painting … the colors and shadings are stunning. The ‘sun’ is the best example of luminescence I have ever seen. The ‘Old Barn’ is excellent too with a few contour lines added, as is the granulation in the Skyscape. Just beautiful.
Also, it is wonderful to see a photo of you as well! So glad you thought to send one along to us. Please include more in the future. Sending prayer for further healing.
PS: I finally had a chance to work with the ‘Mushroom’ Class’ I purchased from you a while back. The results came out very nice and were such fun – you are a great teacher. Asta!
Thank you Julianne for your kind words (and for your support on Patreon!). Yes it was fun to paint that eclipse scene and figure out the colors.
Somehow I always forget to take pictures of anything else but the artworks, I will try to think of it.
I’m glad to hear you enjoyed the mushroom class!
These are lovely and luminous sketches! I very much like the variety of approach. It is so generous of you to share them.
Very excited to hear that you will be opening the Landscape Sketching course soon. Having got through the hottest summer on record in the UK by not going out much, I am really looking forward to doing some autumn sketching.
With all good wishes for a continued return to full health and energy.
Thank you so much for your kind words Gillian.
We also had the hottest summer on record over here, staying inside was definitely a wise decision. I’m also looking forward to a few nice autumn days for sketching!
Your travel sketchbook was an inspiration. Taking time to really look and sketch will prompt memories far better than taking photographs. I love your many and varied shades of green. I have SAP green, Viridian Green and Intense Green in my palette and find it difficult to create authentic greens. I would really appreciate one of your wonderful blogs on ‘greens’
Thank you Jeremy! I have written a few things about greens, here you go:
https://juliabausenhardt.com/mixing-greens-and-painting-leaves/
https://juliabausenhardt.com/mixing-greens-a-look-at-different-combinations-with-watercolor-greens/
Those greens you have are a great starting point, but probably a bit too intense to use on their own. But you can always modify them with other colors (yellow, blue, or even earth colors). Happy mixing!
Really loved your little landscapes, what great ‘snapshots’ to have. I was also loving the idea of your own hand made sketch book, is there apost about that? Best wishes Christine
Thank you so much Christine. Actually I think I’ve never covered the hand-made sketchbooks outside of a quick class I published a few years back, so I should definitely do that!
Thank you so much for sharing. very inspiring and encouraging.
Beautiful! Love them all! Thanks for sharing and inspiration :)
Thanks so much for sharing your summer sketchbook. I’m always delighted by your breadth of approaches: the detailed accuracy of your botanical and animal drawings, and the powerful suggestions in your looser sketches. It would be interesting to see a photo or two of the scenes in these sketchbook paintings; I’d learn a lot from how you choose to simplify a complex scene, while maintaining the essence of a place.
Glad to see you out and about, and looking forward to the landscape course!
Thank you so much for your kind words Rebecca, glad that you enjoy my sketches so much. And I’m also very much looking forward to the course, great that you’re part of it!