Sketch Books
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SKETCH BOOKS

Many budding artists, both professional and amateur record what they see in sketch books. They can be a useful tool to help formulate a painting later with notes on colours, tones and lighting conditions. I often use them to practice the layout and value range of a painting before I start or simply to practice my art and new techniques I wish to experiment with.

Many artists take a small art pad with them on holiday with the intention of relaxing under a sun shade whilst sketch painting what they see around them - a glass of wine at hand! But so often, whilst the intention is there, it never happens and if you do make a start the simple sketch starts to become a major work as you struggle to get shapes and detail correct.

I find that the way to produce a successful sketch book is to set yourself some rules :-

1.    Limit time - learn to work quickly and therefore cut out too much detail. So I try to use just 10-15 minutes for pencil sketching followed by no more than 15-25 minutes painting making a total time of 30-40 minutes.

2.    Keep your materials and tools to an absolute minimum - you are not going to get in to too much detail so I use :-

• An Arnold Lowery 30mm wide flat brush for washing in the sky or water etc and a Windsor & Newton No. 6 round Artists Sable (this comes to a lovely point and means that you do not need anything finer.
• A fine point artist pen (Faber & Castell) for any pen work.
• Propelling 0.7mm HB pencil.
• Limited paints - I use ShinHan paints - Peacock Blue, Blue Grey, Neutral Tint, Permanent Yellow Deep, Vermilion are really enough but I also carry Sennelier Chinese Orange and Gouche Permanent White.
• A simple enameled tin palette and small water container.
• Last but not least, these are simple paint sketches so I paint on a spiral bound water colour pad of at least 140 lbs/300gm weight - W&N Cotman is fine and this means that there is no need for a board or tape and I do not rest it on an easel - remember, these are just quick sketches.

Kennet & Avon Summer 2010

Note - all images are Copyright.