Explore Winter in Your Botanical Sketchbook

Winter is my least favorite season. My inspiration comes from blooming flowers in the garden. In winter the garden is dead and sleeping and I often feel uninspired and sometimes even creatively blocked or stuck during the winter months.

In this class I hope to challenge you (and myself) to get outside and to find inspiration in nature and in the pages of your sketchbook.

No matter the season nature holds inspiration for your art and possible subjects for your botanical sketchbook. Let's discover it!

Skills:

• Be open to and discover inspiration in the natural world no matter what the season. Look for:
  • Color
  • Shapes
  • Textures
• Let go of perfectionism and any pressure to create “perfect looking pages”.
• Look at sketchbooks as a place to explore, experiment, play, be curious and have fun.
• Be willing to break the “rules” in order to embrace inspiration and generate ideas.
• Play with different media and learn which materials will work best for creating botanical sketchbook pages.
• Learn to capture the beauty of the season in a very low-pressure way by creating simple spreads of colorful, nature-inspired swatches.
• Mix and match colors with watercolor on your palette.
• Learn wet on wet techniques with watercolor to allow colors to mix on paper.
• Learn how to paint tiny watercolor skies.
• Play with collage and create a messy, 3-D, mixed media piece.
• Begin playing with gouache.
• Begin playing with acrylic craft paint.
• Layer wet paint over dry.
• Learn how to think about the composition of your sketchbook pages and what combinations of objects create the most eye-catching displays. Discover simple tricks to help you plan out your page before you start painting without having to create a pencil sketch first.
• Gain confidence creating in your sketchbook by starting with very simple pages and working up to more complex compositions.
• Mix media in your sketchbook.
• Use a long, pointed round brush to paint tiny, fine lines.
• Be playful with your pages.
• Begin playing with colored pencils.
• Use hand lettering in your sketchbook pages.
• Learn how to protect the pages in your sketchbook and keep a smooth surface on subsequent pages after a bulky collage.

• Intro
• Brainstorming
• Go Outside
• Materials
• The Colors of Winter
• Winter Skies
• Nests
• Birch Bark
• Tracks in Snow
• Coneflower Skeletons
• Sweet Peas
• Conifers
• Your Sketchbook