Not Another Watercolour Painting Tutorial

Even the great artists sketch.... and the more they do this the better they are likely to be. Turner left many sketches to the nation after his death. Even his skimpiest works show how he was approaching issues like skies and landscapes. The constant sketching will more than repay the investment in time for any artist.

A painting simply called watercolour beginning shows a simple Turner sketch which probably would have been completed in the fullness of time. There are many of these in books and galleries but I have not yet located a web link. ( In fact, a brochure from an exhibition of Turner's works held at the Tate does have a few things to say about the watercolour beginnings). One other example of a sketch by Turner is shown in this Tate Gallery Blog post which also discusses the faded appearance of the watercolour sketch.

I often simply use up the remains of my palette to create sketches from my imagination - a little like doodling really but it does help to keep my pictorial vocabulary in use and growing. These sketches I call my "Turnerisms", they show this simplistic doodling approach to landscape subjects. Not something I would frame and hang on the wall but "hey" they were done for fun and practice, and what is life without a little fun now and then. Just for reference they are all from a sketchbook which is about six inches wide, ( the longest dimesion in these sketches).

They were actually done on cartridge paper and so the effect of wet-into-wet washes is not very relevant but having fun and making marks is never a waste of time. In this series of lenses I hope to be showing you many more of my sketches, some in this vein, some looking more like finished works but all have the main objective of teaching me something.

As for the second question above, it is always worth sketching out one or two small thumbnail sketches to decide on compositional features prior to starting any major project/painting. Professionals do it, what makes any amateur think that they don't need to? read about any major artist and the chances are that he will know what he is going to paint and how he is going to achieve any particular result before he starts. Why take a chance? Of course there are many instances of paintings being changed part way through but by and large even the masters will have made sketches of potential problem areas before the main work is started.

Some examples of what I am saying would be an obvious update to this lens, at the earliest opportunity. watch this space!

I will be adding a number of pages to this in the near future, please keep an eye on this module to see when I add mnore content

1. sketching on location (tba)
2. sketching trees
3. sunsets and sunrise
4. finding inspiration (tba)
5. Sketching In The Lake District ( UK) (tba)
6. Choosing colours to paint the seasons
7. Sketching water ( tba)
8. Sketching still life images (tba)
9. Sketching people, portraits and figures (tba)