Sketching for Watercolor - Columbine Flower

1. Introduction to Sketching for Watercolor: Hi. My name is Molly Barker, and today, we are going to be learning about how to create a beautiful sketch that can be used as a foundation for a watercolor painting. In this class, we are going to be using a photograph of a columbine flower as our subject. I find that flowers are both challenging because of their intricacies and symmetry, but also incredibly rewarding when you are able to sketch them successfully. In class, I will be going through my three stages of sketching with you so that you will be able to complete this class project, which will be going from a blank page to a beautiful sketch which is ready for painting. I so look forward to sharing my techniques and sketching with you. Let's move on to our first lesson, where I'll briefly share with you the materials that I recommend and talk about the class project. I'll see you there. 2. Recommended Materials and Class Project: T hank you so much for joining me for my class about sketching and preparation for watercolor. Let's start with the materials that you'll need to complete the project for this class. Since this sketch will be used for watercolor leader, we're going to be using my favorite watercolor paper, arches in 140 pound weight, hot pressed, which has a very smooth surface, hardly any, and just allows for a really velvety finish with watercolor. This is a previous watercolor painting that I've completed, and you can see how smooth the paint went onto this paper. Using a paper with very little tooth really helps prevent blooming and puddling, which is something that I prefer. Here's a blank page that you can see this smooth finish of the paper. For the first layer of sketching, I'm going to be using this pentle, P 20,050.5 millimeter. This pencil is really great for those very faint lines that we're going to be laying down to map out the shapes of our subject. You can really use any pencil, but this one has served me well for many years. For later layers of our sketch, I'm going to be using these really excellent pencils from Faber Castel. I had never used these before or even heard of them when my husband bought them as a Christmas present for me a few years ago. They're called Matt pencils, and they have such a wonderful finish under watercolor. They don't have the slight shine of normal graphite pencils, so they look great underneath paint. If you don't have any of these, I would highly recommend you get some. And the last thing that you may want to have is a needed eraser. I personally like to leave the sketchy lines in my final paintings, so I typically only use this if I make a really egregious mistake. And that's everything you need. Next, let's briefly cover the class project. In this class, we are going to be sketching with the express intention to later paint it with watercolor. The project will be to use the three steps of sketching that I will be showing you to create your own sketch. For my subject, I will be using a photograph of a columbine flower, which you'll be able to find in the class material section. I look forward to seeing your class project, but first, let's get started with our first lesson. I'll see you there. 3. Mapping Shapes: During this lesson, we're going to be mapping out the basic shapes of our columbine flower. The first part that we will be sketching will be the blades, which are the closest to you. Second, we'll sketch these outer sepals and the stamens and pistols in the center of the blades. Third, the spurs, and fourth, and last, will be the stem and leaves. So let's get to the sketch. One of the things that we need to be cognizant of while sketching on watercolor paper is that it is very soft and it's very easy to gauge or damage the paper, which can affect the flow of paint later. So while laying down the initial layer, hold your pencil at an extreme angle and press very lightly, leaving only faint marks. So as we begin, we're going to be laying down the initial lines for these blades. Keep in mind that in this stage, we are only mapping out basic shapes and their spacing and location relative to the other shapes of our subject. The details will come later. You can also see how many lines I am laying down here, constantly shifting and adjusting the shapes to more closely relate to our subject. This is another reason why our first lines are so faint. Now that we've laid down the lines for the portion of the flower that is closest to us, we're going to use those shapes to place the next portion in relative space. There are five blades on a columbine flower, five sepals and five spurs, which we'll sketch later. Each sepal originates from between each of the five blades and extends outwards. Though the blades have a very smooth and regular shape, the sepals are comparatively rather whimsical looking, slightly curled and waving. While sketching this part, pay close attention to the curves, after we finish the sepals, we're going to move on to the stamens and pistols in the center of the blades. The reason that we left this portion of the flower for after the blades is because though it's in front of a lot of the blades, we needed to have the blade closest to us sketched out first. If you look very closely, the stamens have these lovely little yellow pollen producing balls on the tips of the filament called Anther, and the filaments splay out in a beautiful array. The pistols are the green curly cues in the center of the stamens and are a little longer. One of my favorite parts of sketching flowers is that it affords you the opportunity to really study these wonderful little creations. Next portion that we'll be sketching are these tendrils on the back of the flower called spurs. We are also going to sketch out the portion of the stem that attaches to the base of the flower as it is in front of a few of the spurs. But we'll leave the rest of the stem and the leaves for later. If you study a columbine, you'll find that the spurs are not a separate petal, but actually a part of the blades, and the spurs actually hold the nectar. So as we draw these spurs, we need to be aware that they are part of the petals and not something which is separate. This will allow us to have a better understanding of where they belong in relation to the rest of the flower and where we need to place them. Lastly, let's finish up that stem and lay down the shape of those few leaves. This is the last part of the first layer of our sketch. In the next lesson, we're going to be choosing our final lines, adding details, and creating flow. I look forward to seeing you in the next lesson. 4. Choosing Lines: Welcome to the next lesson. In this lesson, we're going to be using these wonderful matt pencils that I mentioned from Fabre Castel. Let's start out with an eight B. You can use a six b to start if you want a fainter line, but I prefer an eight B so that you don't have to press very hard for the weight of line that I'm going after. This helps to prevent damage to the paper. So we're going to be following the same principle as when we were mapping out shapes, starting with what is closest to us and moving to the portions that are farther away as we continue. As you can see in this stage of the sketch, I am choosing the final lines or the lines that I think best represent my subject. You can always modify your sketch from your subject if you choose, but I loved this flower so much. My husband took this picture of the columbine that we have in our front yard. My goal is to replicate it to the best of my ability. It's also important to note that the closer you can represent the natural world, the more you will improve, and you'll increase your ability to sketch realistic or believable things from your imagination. So it's my opinion that one should always have a sketchbook practice that is based solely on the replication of natural things. The better that you get at that, the better you will become as an artist overall. At this point, we're done with the blades and are moving on to the pistols and stamens and then to the sepals after that. I want you to notice how the final lines look that I'm choosing. Specifically, the lines aren't perfectly smooth with the same amount of pressure being applied for the entire line. I'm applying varying amounts of pressure to allow for different thicknesses of line, which will grant visual movement to the final sketch. In the next lesson, we are actually going to be using a softer pencil to amplify some sections of the sketch. But this is where we are starting. Really try to prevent just outlining each section of the flower and instead leave a little to the imagination. We are doing the sketch specifically to use as a base for a watercolor painting later. So remember that a lot of the details will be added later in the painting stage. Now that we've completed the sepals, we're moving on to the spurs and that small portion of stem that connects the base of the flower. When sketching like this, a sharp point on your pencil is key, and to prevent having to sharpen it constantly, a nice trick is to continually rotate your pencil by about a third. By doing this, you get the benefits of having a sharp tip without wearing down your pencil quickly from the loss of material that happens during sharpening. Again, as you're choosing these lines, don't simply outline each shape with the same amount of pressure, vary the pressure of your pencil, and vary the width of the line. By doing this, it adds different weights and movement. All right. Lastly, we are going to choose our lines for the leaves. After this, we'll be moving on to our third and final lesson, where we will be adding our final details and making our last marks on our sketch. I'll see you there. 5. Adding Movement: Welcome to the final lesson. Here, we're going to be using our 12 B pencil, so very soft. By using such a soft pencil, we can easily add significantly darker lines without too much additional pressure, thus preventing damage to our watercolor paper. You can also see how I am constantly rotating my pencil slightly to continually have a sharp point on the paper. Again, at this stage, we are going to follow essentially the same sections of the flower as we add our final touches. So blades, sepals, stamens, and pistols, spurs, then the final part of the stem and leaves. However, since the whole of the flower has already been laid out, we don't have to be so strict, and we can follow this much more loosely. You can see that I'm jumping around slightly, continuing to study the sketch and assess where more details should be added. What we are doing at this stage of our sketch prior to watercolor is we are identifying where we want to add emphasis and movement, and we're doing that by adding small portions of detail with a darker line. This causes the eye to move over the page at these different points, thus encouraging the viewer to really look at the painting as a whole. As we're finishing up this sketch, also keep in mind that we're using this style of sketching specifically to prepare for watercolor painting. If we were sketching, just a sketch, I would be adding more details, shadows and shading to represent different colors. But all of these things will be added with watercolor later. Because of this, we're keeping our sketch relatively minimal to prevent overly noticeable pencil lines under our paint. And we're just about done, just adding a few additional lines that we want to be visible from under the watercolor paint. As I mentioned at the beginning, if you chose to use a needed eraser, this is the stage that you can use it if you prefer. Personally, I really like to have the faint, hardly visible sketch lines under the paint at the end. But if you wanted to look a little cleaner, use the needed eraser to get rid of some of the finer hairs of lines that you don't want to keep. But try not to scrub the paper too hard to prevent damage. Join me in the next lesson to finish the next steps of our class project. I'll see you there. 6. Overview of What Was Learned: Thank you so much for joining me in my class, sketching for Watercolor. In this class, we went through my three stages of sketching, Mapping basic shapes, choosing our final lines, and then adding movement through the weight of our pencil lines. Thank you so much for choosing to attend. And when your class project is complete, please submit it to the class project section so that I can offer feedback. If you have any questions about the class or about sketching in general, please leave a comment on the class discussion board, and I will answer to the best of my ability. I would very much appreciate a review of my class as this specifically helps my class to reach other students. I also have several other classes about sketching natural items, drawing in two point perspective, and several classes about painting with watercolor. So if you're interested, you may want to check out my other classes. My upcoming class will be to take this same sketch of a columbine and use it to demonstrate watercolor techniques. So if you'd like to be a part of that, please follow along to be notified when it's posted. Again, thank you for joining me today, and I look forward to seeing you in my future classes. I'll see you there.