Our blog, our first post and our second sketching class

    It is Saturday, the day before Mothers Day and seven women have come to spend the morning with me, learning to draw and keep a sketchbook journal. I am naming it "Sketchy 5150's" meaning we are all crazy sketchers! The group is small and intimate, changing monthly as schedules do, but a wonderful group so far. This blog is a new beginning, a place where we will gather to post our pages,artwork and talk about it during the month. After every class I will be posting a review of the class and will also post some challenges here during the month. I will ask each artist that they post a small introduction about themselves. Who they are, why they are taking the class, what they hope to learn, and maybe where they feel they are in their own art journey.

 

   In our class today I talked about learning to draw shapes verses objects and the different types of journals and watercolor papers. The group had each brought a found object and I did a demo by drawing the different objects as shapes instead of things. I drew first in pencil, some in pen some we painted first then drew the final lines while others we drew the lines first and painted. This was an excersize of options. The last hour of class I talked about painting techniques and the difference in wet on dry and wet on wet. I did a demo without any predrawing to demonstrate the difference. I painted some random flowers, wet on dry and then some roses using wet on wet. The goal for everyone was to try to allow the watercolor to do its  job and their job is to not overwork it. I also demonstrated how easily mistakes can be corrected and how watercolor is forgiving if you do it right away. We are working at learning watercolor techniques and drawing skills to apply them to our journals.

With lots of sharing and talking and then walking the garden I had a wonderful day painting with everyone. I am excited to see what pages other will post during the month. The first weeks challenge is to use this wet on wet technique and paint some loose roses as an underpainting on one of their journal pages then to journal over it. I thought this would make a wonderful journal page for mothers day!

My name is Desiree, the fearless leader of the Sketchy 5150's. I have been an artist all of my life, mostly self taught, I have had some wonderful opportunities to work in the interior design industry painting murals and faux finishes as well as painting fine artwork commissions. I then moved into fabric, designing quilt patterns, art quilts and fabric. I also teach classes both for art quilts and for fine art. It is wonderful working with creative people, I learn something from everyone I meet! Welcome to our blog!

Marianne showed up with her arms full of sweet pea flowers she grew in her gardens. The basket filled with wonderful colors and smells for all of us to enjoy.