If you haven’t already heard, enrollment is now open for my new Travel Sketching course and it starts Monday 9th September – next week!

We’ll work through the course over 3.5 weeks and I’m hosting 3 bonus livestreams to answer questions and give feedback.

Find out more about Travel Sketching

In the past few weeks, I’ve been asked many questions about the course, and I thought it might be helpful to combine them into a blog post.

I know that some of you have seen these topics in my emails recently, but I have included some new photos from the course that I haven’t shared previously. So I hope that you’ll enjoy seeing them and that they will make you look forward more to the course starting.

The course is only a few days away now!

1. What will you learn?

Travel sketching is all about taking risks and sketching during in-between moments, and you need to learn specific techniques to give you the confidence to go for it!

This course will teach you how to choose scenes to sketch and how to put the first marks on your blank page to capture the essence of the scene you see.

In this Travel Sketching course you’ll learn to:

• prepare for a sketching trip and set achievable sketching goals
• work with a limited palette that is lightweight and easy to use for both quick and elaborate sketches
• capture the important parts of a scene in a few lines
• create eye-catching colourful sketches with watercolour pencils
• develop techniques for sketching complex scenes in various media

By learning these quick sketching techniques you will feel more confident about sketching while traveling.

You’ll come home with a sketchbook full of lively sketches and will capture very special memories.

As a bonus, you’ll also feel more comfortable sketching around others when you are out and about in your daily life.

 
2. How will the course work?

Lots of people want to know more about the course format, so here are more details about what happens each week.

Travel Sketching contains both on-demand/pre-recorded videos and live sessions!

Each week, a new part of the course will be released (refer to the schedule below) into the designed Travel Sketching classroom, and you can watch the videos and do the exercises during the week at a time that works best for you.

Each part contains:

• Introduction Video explaining the concept/technique for the week
• Famous Places Exercises: Video containing several demos explaining how to use the concept with examples of famous places photos.
• Melbourne Demos: This video contains several sketches from a recent trip to Melbourne. These sketches typically show how to use the concepts in more advanced applications.
• Assignment galleries: This is where you upload your sketches – working from my examples and your own scenes. It’s also the place to check out (and comment!) on other people’s work. The magic of the SketchingNow community happens here – there’s so much inspiration and encouragement happening in these galleries!
• Questions: Each part of the course has a dedicated question section, so you can ask me about the lessons anytime.
• Takeaways: After you have worked through the exercises, there is a place to share your insights, what you learned, or what you found challenging. I always love going through this section!

And then, just before we move on to the next part of the course, there will be a Livestream (hosted on YouTube) so we can recap the current concept; I can give feedback on selected work from the classroom, do any additional demos and answer all your questions in real-time!

These livestreams are always a highlight of any SketchingNow course, and yes, replays are available afterward if you can’t join us live!

There is also a forum in the classroom to discuss all kinds of art-related topics with others in the course.

3. How is Travel Sketching different from other SketchingNow courses?

Existing SketchingNow courses provide in-depth instruction on drawing and painting skills, allowing you to explore techniques without time constraints. These longer courses, typically 6-12 weeks, focus on accuracy and systematic skill-building, with an emphasis on watercolour.

Travel Sketching:

• focuses on three powerful strategies for sketching within time limits –  strategies that have been designed to make it easy to decide on how to start your sketch.
• emphasises capturing the essence of a scene through simple drawings without worrying about all the details.
• explores using different media  – particularly dry media as it’s much easier to use when on the go. Note: Watercolour is optional for this course. There are some demos included but these are for the more seasoned sketchers. The course contains lots of demos for beginners that do not need watercolour!
• complements other courses. If you’ve done Foundations and Watercolour you’ll have valuable skills which will help you do Travel Sketching exercises. But it is not essential to have done these courses first. In addition there are lessons in Edges, Buildings and Watercolour On Location that deal with some aspects of travel sketching in more depth.

The main goal is to give you the confidence to sketch anywhere, at any time!

And we’ll learn all these tricks in just 3 weeks!
 

4. Who is the course for?

Travel Sketching is for sketchers of all levels of experience who want to sketch more when they are on the go.

• If you are a beginner, this Travel Sketching course will teach you some simple ways of sketching and will introduce you to the most important drawing and observation skills you need to sketch anything. These concepts are expanded in more detail inside my Foundations course, so if you have time now, working through the first few lessons of Foundations will be great preparation. However, you do not need any sketching experience to do Travel Sketching.
• If you sketch regularly at home but struggle to sketch when you travel, this course will teach you techniques for sketching on the go or in a spare moment. You’ll develop strategies for simplifying complex scenes into a few lines, shapes, or layers, giving you the confidence to sketch more.
• If you are a more experienced sketcher, this Travel Sketching course will show you how to sketch more with less and simply capture the essence of a place. You’ll also learn how to incorporate more dry media into your work.

In particular, the demos from my recent trip to Melbourne will show more experienced sketchers how to use these concepts in more advanced ways.

5. Three other questions

Finally…here are answers to three other  most commonly asked questions

1. Lifetime access? Yes! To all content in the course AND all future group events.
2. Can I work at my own pace? Yes! The classroom remains open and you can come back to the lessons any time you want
3. What materials do I need? You can find the details of the materials list here – and you do not need to use the same tools as I do. It’s totally fine to use what you already have.

Find out more details (including the dates and times of livestreams) here

After months of planning and preparation, I’m so excited that the course is starting in a few days. The first cohort of this year is going to be so much fun, and an amazing group of sketchers from around the world is already forming. If it’s a good fit, I’d love to have you join.

Sign up to Travel Sketching course today!

I also have a gift certificate available specifically for the Travel Sketching course if you want to gift this course to a friend – see more here.

And, of course, let me know in the comments section below if you have any other questions about Travel Sketching or any other course.