October was quiet here on the blog thanks to a much needed 2 week break! So the theme of travel sketching is the main one this month.

Travel Sketching

I spent two weeks sketching beaches and trying different techniques:

• Using my watercolour pencils at Port Macquarie
• Creating texture with my Eradicator Brush (also at Port Macquarie)
• Exploring some beaches on the South Coast and using dry brush techniques with a small travel filbert

Earlier in October I shared some of my early architectural sketches which were done post-trip back in 2000. This is prompted by being a guest at a Sketching PlayLab event – highly recommended sessions with Paul Wang and Suhita Shirodkar.

Working through Foundations

Although I haven’t had a chance to post much about it here on the blog, I’ve been really enjoying doing another Group Run-through of Foundations. My experiments with different tools at the beach (as mentioned above) were a direct result of Foundations Lesson 1. I’ve also been thinking a lot about Feeling Edges, Abstracting Shapes and Constructing Volumes and how I used them in my work all the time.

We had two really fun livestreams last week as part of the Group Run-through. And there are four more to come in the next two months! These are available to anyone who has signed up for Foundations at any time.

Reviews

Just one review for the month – the Clairefontane Goldline Natural sketchbook. I really enjoyed using this book and will definitely try it again soon!

Everyday Sketching

The one topic I didn’t touch on during October was my everyday sketching and that’s because it’s taken a bit of a back seat lately! However, I’ve used 3 different sketchbooks since I finished the Goldline Natural book (included in the above review). I finished a Derivan concertina book in two days and then started a softcover Stillman and Birn Zeta book. I’ve used Zeta before and enjoyed them but, for some reason, it didn’t suit me this time. It didn’t help that I was wanting to use watercolour pencils as well – smooth paper is not my favourite surface when using pencils. I got a little past halfway through the book before realising that it was becoming a chore to use and so I switched to an Alpha (my favourite paper for everyday sketching!) But to mix things up a little, I decided to use a 3.5 x 5.5 (almost A5) portrait version which is a little smaller than I normally use. It’s been fun adjusting to a different format sketchbook and I’ve been really enjoying designing its pages!

This is all perfect prep for my new upcoming course – Sketchbook Design – which I will be filming during November! More about this course here.

Here are a few pages from my recent sketches.

One day per side for the Derivan book.

I hope that you had a good time sketching in October. I didn’t even consider participating in Inktober this year – did you?