As an artist I know that painting and sketching snow can feel intimidating! With all that white it can feel like there is nothing for us to actually sketch and paint, and before you know it that dreamy feeling of snow has disappeared. And can you even paint white in watercolours?

There are lots of questions I hear all the time, like 'What watercolours do we even use?', 'Where can we use our ink?', 'How do you draw the outline of snow'?, 'Won't pen lines be to dark?'

Well, I'm here to answer all those questions and more, and to promise you that it doesn't have to be that hard!

Hi, my name is Toby Haseler, known as Toby Urbansketch on Instagram and YouTube. In this in step by step in depth tutorial I will be showing you some simple processes to combine ink drawing with watercolour painting to create beautiful and characterful wintery and snow filled scenes. Just in time for (I hope) some lovely seasonal snow that we can all turn into beaitful watercolour landscape paintings!

What are the aims of this class?

The aim of this class is to give you solid ways of understanding and thinking about snow filled scenes, and a clear process to start sketching these beautiful landscapes on your own.

We will cover points such as:

What supplies you might use
What colour is snow (isn't it white??)?
How to create effective shadows
The importance of contrast, and how to achieve it
A fun warm up, sketching a snowman
Interesting and effective ways to add bold lines and highlights
Then a full step-by-step guided sketch using a supplied reference photo

Who is the class for?

This class is ideal for someone who has a done a bit of sketching before, and has a couple of pens and some basic watercolour supplies - but now is looking to branch out into more interesting and varied sketching. Landscapes, perhaps, with a different feel.

For beginners, the lessons are step-by-step and in depth, ideal for sketching your first snow-filled scene.

For intermediate sketchers and above, we talk a lot about contrasts and shadows in the lessons - these are fundamentals of sketching, easy to grasp but hard to master, and so important in snowy scenes! We'll also talk about different opportunities for having fun with alternative pens, and various options for colour combinations when it comes to creating shadows - allowing you to be flexible and develop your own style.

What is Urban Sketching?

Urban sketching is all about capturing the essence of a scene, often plein air, but we can also take these same skills from sketching outside and apply them to our ink and wash or pen and watercolour sketches at home as well.

Urban sketching is quick and vibrant, but also needs skill and patience. The variety of skills required to paint well in watercolour paints, and capture scenes in characterful ink makes it a wonderfully rewarding, flexible and amazing skill to learn and develop.

What we'll be talking about is certainly valid both on location and in the studio - I will, of course, be sketching from my drawing desk at home so I can film, but I approach these kinds of scenes in exactly the same way if I'm out and about too.

Why might you want to take this class?

To have fun sketching snow using ink and wash techniques
To improve your understanding of subtle shadows using watercolour paints
To create some illustrations for Christmas cards
To develop your landscape sketching skills to encompass new scenes (like snow filled winter scenes!)
To create a beautiful snowy sketch!

My Teaching Philosophy!

I teach sketching - the art of producing quick and expressive drawings or paintings representing the chief features of an object or scene.

I focus on watercolours, and line and wash techniques - using a variety of ink pens and fineliners, combined with vibrant watercolours to capture our scenes.

My philosophy is to focus on enjoying the process of creativity, rather than focussing on perfection. This way, there is always something to enjoy, to be proud of and to improve.

Too often I see people trying to draw or paint absolute perfection, being hyper critical of their own work, and comparing everything they do to other's work.

Instead, I try to bring out the positives - yes, we can always learn, improve and study. But actually, why are we sketching in the first place? For most people, it's to relax, have fun, or explore our creativity.

So, if you want to relax, have fun, explore your creativity and improve your sketching - I'd love to have you join me in my online courses!

Most of all, I want you to gain confidence and self-belief - using simple reliable techniques.

Whilst urban sketching can seem perhaps scary or overwhelming, in this class you’ll gain confidence and see just how easy it can be. I have a few goals that I hope everyone can achieve by the end of these lessons:

1) Understanding a few principles of sketching snow

2) Understanding how to build up shadows and contrast

3) Having created your own interesting and fun sketch of a snowy landscape

4) To have the confidence to go out there, build on my simple framework, and develop your own styles and skills with sketching and painting!

Audio Credits:

Apero Hour Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribution 4.0 License
httpcreativecommons.orglicensesby4.0

Credits:

Made with Wondershare Filmora

Valerie Cochran

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