How to get started?

I’ve been asked for tips and hints on how to get started with sketching. While I’m far from an expert, here are some things I wish I’d known earlier on.

These sketches are the homework for Day 2 and Day 3 of a free course by Toby Sketchloose. I took his free course when I started sketching again after a hyatus. Well worth it!

Random thoughts

Build your drawing skills. Even if you don’t have any. Especially if you don’t have any. The base drawing is the foundation of your sketch, whether you do it in pencil or ink or straight in watercolor. A shoddy foundation means a sketch that won’t look right.

I know that working on perspective and proportions will improve my sketches. I’m not as bad as I was, but I have a long way to go still.

I’m struggling with drawing faces. But I’m starting to incorporate people in my urban sketches - they don’t need to be perfect. They just need to evoke the impression of people.

Keep your early work! Even if you hate it. Even if you get frustrated and scribble all over it. Keep it all. Stick it in a drawer or in a box. Forget about it for a year or two. Then pull it out and compare your current work to your past work. I bet that you’ll hate your current work a lot less after realizing you are getting better all the time.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, a famous French photographer said that “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst”. It’s the same with painting or sketching. The more you do it, the better you get. Don’t give up now. Don’t think “I suck so there’s no point”. Keep at it - you will get better. You will get to a point, like where I’m at right now, where people tell you they love your sketches, all the while you think your sketches aren’t very good at all.

Tutorials and classes

Free stuff

Lots of great YouTube videos out there. I particularly like Toby Sketchloose and Sketching Scottie. Stephen Travers is also excellent for ink drawing.

Toby also offers a couple free courses on his website

• Become an artist - in just a week
• Ten days of sketching

Paid courses

There are lots of courses on other platforms. Some are really worth the investment.

• Sketching Scottie’s Patreon. Long form versions, really detailed, of some of the stuff he offers on YouTube.
• Toby Sketchloose online and in-person courses. Great stuff.
• Sketchbook Skool. LOADS of great courses. I’ve taken their Art Bootcamp and it was very useful.
• Domestika. I have a few courses there. “Watercolor Travel Journal” by Alicia Aradilla, “Artistic Watercolor Sketching: Dare to Express Your Ideas” by Felix Scheinberger, and “Architectural Sketching with Watercolor and Ink” by Alex Hillkurtz. Their courses are expensive, but they go on sale ALL the time!
• Skillshare. “Dip pens for realistic drawing - a systmatic approach” by Chloe Gendron was excellent for learning how to use dip pen and ink.

Materials

Almost everyone, everywhere, talks about supplies for sketching. And the options are infinite! Here’s my opinion on the matter.

This is what matters:

1. Paper
2. Paint
3. Brushes

Paper

The paper you’ll pick depends a lot on what media you want to use. You probably won’t want the same paper to do dip pen and ink as you would watercolors as you would graphite pencils. Given I do mostly ink line and watercolor, my preference goes to Cold press 300 gsm 100% cotton paper. Cold press has some texture, which I like. And 100% cotton is champion with handling water. 300 gsm (or 140 lbs) is the weight of the paper - heavier doesn’t buckle as much

Don’t be cheap on paper. I see comment after comment after comment from people who had trouble with watercolor and it turns out they were using crap paper.

I like Arches Cold press paper, particularly blocks. A block is several sheets stacked together and clued on all sides. This means the paper stays as is. I’ve considered getting Baohong for practice - it’s apparently good paper at a more affordable price than Arches.

But more importantly - sketchbooks. I do almost all my work in sketchbooks. I have a large collection of sketchbooks. I tried different brands. My prefered brand right now is Hanhnemüle. They have two ranges. One is not 100% cotton. It’s all right. You just can’t work it as much as 100% cotton. Their other range is 100%. It’s beautiful paper. It’s also expensive.

Paint

Pro/artist grade

Everyone says that pro or artist grade paint is better - and it is. But it’s also more expensive. I think if you’re serious about using watercolor, it’s worth investing in a palette with pro/artist grade paints. These days all the big name brands are offering similar quality and it comes down to preference. Here are some brands to consider:

• Winsor and Newton
• Daniel Smith
• Sennelier
• Schminke
• QoR

Student grade

If you’re just wanting to try it, there’s nothing wrong with getting student quality paint. The main difference is there’s typically less pigment in those paints, so you need more to get vibrant colors.

I started with and used a Winsor Newton Cotman sketcher pocket set for years before moving to pro/artist grade paints.

No need for lots of different colors

You do not need a million colors. It’s tempting to buy all the colors. Yes it is. But you want to avoid GAS - Gear Acquisition Syndrome. You’re better off starting with a dozen colors and learn to mix them than go with 24, 36, or even more colors.

If you buy a premade set, like the Cotman sketcher pocket set, you’ll have the basics. It’s a “split primary”, with a few colors. Primary colors are red, yellow, and blue (well, it’s not exactly that but you can think of it that way). Colors come in “cold” and “warm” (this is a whole other topic I’m not going to explore for now, just take my word for it, and look it up if you want more info). So a split primary means you get one each of a warm and a cold yellow, red, and blue. Then you can add some earth tones (beige, brown, etc). You might have “convenience” colors - like greens.

In theory, you could mix all the colors with a yellow, a red, and a blue!

Brushes

Brushes… There’s a wild range out there. You’ll find people that only swear by natural “sable” hair. Or squirrel hair. These are great - they hold their shape, and hold lots of water. They will make a hole in your pocketbook though - A good brush can cost $100 or more.

Synthetic fibre brushes these days are very good.

There’s also this thing called a waterbrush. A brush with “plastic” bristles, and it has a small reservoir of water. You don’t have anywhere near the control with those as you do with a “proper” brush. But they are handy to have.

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