Quick Sketching

I was a fan of Maria Coryell-Martin before I took an online class with her during the Wild Wonder Nature Journaling Conference in October, 2020. I follow her website Expeditionary Art and have purchased some of my favorite supplies from her store: Art Toolkit. She lives in Port Townsend, Washington so knows the Northwest – although she has traveled and painted around the world. I really hope to get up there and take a workshop from her – in person!

Many of the class activities were warmups to the actual drawing. The truth is, I like some of the warmup drawings more than the final drawing; given too much time I am likely to overwork a drawing. My favorite warmup is the Contour Sketch because the drawings are so animated and quirky. They also suggest the image rather than explicitly defining it.  The rule is to draw without picking up the pen from your paper. In blind contour you wouldn’t even look at your drawing. This blind contour drawing of cattails was done at the Arcata Marsh. It’s a favorite; every time I look at it I find myself back at the marsh.

You can also create a contour drawing by looking at your drawing paper only when you change direction. This pinecone was done that way. Contour drawing is good for fairly complicated things where there is little need to draw every detail.

It’s the process of contour drawing that I find so rewarding. It’s very relaxing – like a meditation – with no judgement involved. Time stops and it is just me exploring that pinecone in every possible way. This experience is one of my main reasons for journaling in nature.

I also enjoyed the thumbnail sketches we did. They are often used as a warmup to explore values and layout for your final drawing. I carry very small journals so you might say that I am always drawing thumbnails. These four were done in addition to another technique Maria suggested – timed drawings. Each sketch was done in under 2 minutes – the watercolors were added later. The images are each 1.5″ x 1.5″. Drawing smaller images encourages me to stick to the essential elements of an image. Tracy is my service dog and I got her to sit still for 2 minutes. The skyline is San Diego harbor and and landscapes are from Humboldt County.

Landscapes are fun to draw and Maria suggested forming the foreground, middle-ground, and background. Again, for me it’s easier to do small drawings and this was done on location at the Arcata Marsh. I think I  used contour sketching for the poison hemlock. Drawing is about 3″ by 3″.

These techniques are easy for beginning naturalists. I prefer sketching on site rather than from photographs so these techniques really suit my purpose. With Humboldt County weather it is good to sketch quickly before the fog move in or the next rainstorm arrives.