Fill your summer sketchbook
This year, I am filling my summer sketchbook with floral art. Watercolor sketch, pen and watercolor or purely watercolor are excellent ways to paint summer scenes, summer flowers, summer landscapes and simply enjoy the outdoors and beauty. The easiest way to practice painting with watercolors is using pen and watercolor wash, that will fill your sketchbook in no time. That enables us creating great composition and not caring too much about pencil lines and perfect application of watercolor.
Summer poppies, 12 x 16 in or 30.5 x 40.5 cm
Excellent technique for beginners
Pen and watercolor wash is a great technique for beginning watercolor artists. The most exciting part is adding watercolor washes, as well as more detailed areas with more concentrated paint. We can create a wonderful painting in less time this way because we do not need multi-step drawing transfer onto watercolor paper. It is also much easier to know where to use paint because the black outline clearly identifies that.
The spring rose, 15 x 11 in or 38 x 28 cm
Greatness takes time
If you are new to a particular medium or absolutely new to drawing and painting, you have to remember: nothing happens right away. Every skill takes time, efforts and work to develop. It is no reason to give up painting or drawing if you are not happy with the first few drawings and sketches. You might be surprised how much better one becomes after a while.
Sunflowers, pen and watercolor, 12 x 16 in or 30.5 x 40.5 cm
Not every painting is masterwork
Focusing on perfection right away will cause you to be disappointed. Any artist will tell you that they have damaged, and thrown out lots and lots of initial sketches, painted over initial scenes, changed the layout and composition completely, switched to a different color or tools. They have done many things before they have created the first amazing painting. Not every drawing or painting is or should be a masterwork. It should be a stepping stone on our way to better art. We use our errors as a way of discovering how to achieve what we want and have intended.
Red poppies, pen and watercolor, 11 x 14 in or 28 x 36 cm
For your inspiration
Get inspired by my simple pen and watercolor sketches. This time, they are floral sketches and paintings. Go outdoors; see what you have in your backyard. Sketching is always better if you do not use any photos, but the real thing in front of you. Pen and watercolor technique allows achieving fast results, therefore, your subject will not change while you draw and sketch it.
Clematis, pen and watercolor, 12 x 16 in or 30.5 x 40.5 cm
Art supplies for drawing and sketching to fill your summer sketchbook
CANSON XL cold press, 140 lb watercolor paper, size 12 x 16 or 12 x 18 in
Arches, cold press, 140 lb watercolor paper, size 12 x 16 or 12 x 18 in
Saunders Waterford, cold press, watercolor paper in whatever weight is available and affordable, size 12 x 16 or 12 x 18 in
For pen, you can use any black pen which does not bleed with application of water. I recommend MICRON brand which contains archival ink, size from 1 to 05, test it. You can test it at the store for thickness of line before buying to see which one you like.
Graphite pencil, HB or even harder
Soft, kneaded, artist’s grade eraser, it is sold in art stores.
Paper towel, a few sheets
Set of watercolors in basic colors
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These are beautiful. You have such a good sense of dimension and depth, it feels like you want to reach out and touch the petals. Clemantis are my favorites – it was interesting to see the progression of the piece.
Thanks! I appreciate how you understand and feel art.
I started drawing as a small kid and it’s been more than 5 decades since.
We did not have TV, internet or smart phones in Latvia back then. I was usually sitting outdoors in front of some flower, plant, tree or building and just kept drawing and later painting. I was drawing on anything: white spaces of a newspaper, school supplies, wrapping paper, anything. The first time I got a good drawing paper and somewhat ok watercolor paper was many years later. It is amazing how good art supplies nowadays are and they are available to practically anybody.
Bright and cheery! Love your flowers, Inese.
Thanks! Just like summer! I just finished the full week with teens, and we created a new piece of art every single day. That was fun, but also a bit tiring, so, I will have a small rest at the moment.