A Peek Inside My Sketchbook


Now that fall is here and the weather is getting cooler, I thought I would snatch up a few of my marigolds that I have growing in my yard and do some sketches before they are all gone. In this post I want to briefly share the process I go through when working in my sketchbook. Recently I have been experimenting with pen and watercolor. I usually start off by sketching the object, in this case the marigold, with pencil and then go overtop the pencil lines with the pen. I then use my kneaded eraser to remove the pencil marks.  For this sketch I wanted to have the flowers right in front of me so that I could see all the details.

A Peek Inside My Sketchbook

Here are the materials I used:

  • Watercolor sketchbook
  • HB drawing pencil & kneaded eraser
  • Black Sharpie pen
  • DaVinci ussuri sable watercolor brushes size 1, 2 & 4 round.
  • Daniel Smith extra fine watercolor paints;  Cadmium Red Med. Hue, Hansa Yellow Medium, Cadmium Yellow Light Hue, & Hooker’s Green.
  • Paper towels, bowl of warm water & a palette for mixing the paint.

A Peek Inside My Sketchbook

I then jump right in to putting the watercolors on the paper.  I started these by getting the paper wet with water only (Wet on Wet) and then added the paint.

A Peek Inside My Sketchbook

Here I only have one layer of paint, and as you can see the colors are pretty light.

A Peek Inside My Sketchbook

I added another paint layer here which helps to deepen the colors.

A Peek Inside My Sketchbook

It just didn’t seem complete without some foliage 🙂

A Peek Inside My Sketchbook

A Peek Inside My Sketchbook

What I love about working in my sketchbook is that it is very laid back and fun!  It also gives me great ideas for larger pieces I may want to work on in the future.  If you haven’t taken out your sketchbook in awhile, make today the day you start again!