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A few posts ago, I wrote about sketching to chill. Now I’d like to tell you how helpful sketching can be when planning your paintings. It lets you see how a composition will look without spending much time and effort or using suitable materials. For example, in sketching this scene from a restaurant I was at with my aunt, I realized I needed to start the ground line down lower than I was if I would fit all the palm fronds in all their glory.  It’s for this reason that I caution against getting caught up in details or exactness when you’re sketching. Your goal at this point is not to create a pristine piece. It’s to give yourself a roadmap for starting your actual project.
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 Contrasting warm and cool tones can add brightness to an object. I have examples of this in the sky and bushes in this painting. ‘See how the cool bluish tones in the sky against the warmer cyan make it sparkle? You can see the same effect in the yellowish green contrasted with the dark cool green of the bushes. To achieve the richer cooler green of the bushes and blue of the sky, I mixed a touch of blue into my green for the bushes and a touch of purple into my blue for the sky. If I'd wanted a warmer blue, I would've mixed green into it.   If you’ve read my blog or watched my YouTube videos, you’ve probably heard me talking about using shadows and highlights, aka differing tones, to show where light hits an object. By making it clear where that light is hitting, shadows and highlights can show the texture of an object and give a scene dimension. For example, I will use my latest work in progress, a scene from Morikami. I’ll post more about the painting once it’s finished. In the meantime, I want to draw your attention to the bushes and where the sidewalk meets the wall.  I moved my brush in the general direction that I saw the highlights going on these bushes. I did not put every highlight correctly and paint the exact shape. That would have caused unnecessary strain and wouldn’t have improved the painting. Not all the individual lines are essential to show the texture of these bushes. The effect of showing the texture of the bushes can be further emphasized by adding even brighter highlights.  By painting highlights in a straight line out from a slanted one, I created the illusion of the wall standing upright against the flat sidewalk. I really needed to pay attention to what I was doing here because my instinct was to follow the direction of the line I was painting against, i.e., to make a diagonal line to follow a diagonal line. To fight my natural tendency, I had to temporarily forget about the line already there and hone in entirely on the highlights I was painting at the moment.
 I've found that the most pleasing way to blend pastels is also the messiest: with your fingertips. For detail, you can also use a small, wet brush. I used this method for the lines in the leaves and the feathers on the bird’s back.  It’s okay if you don’t have all the colors you need for your project because, as I indicated above, you can layer shades to get new ones. When drawing algae in this piece, I experimented with alternating shades of red and green to see what would give me the best results. I realized I needed to layer orange or yellow over my red and green mixtures for sufficient warmth.  An important point to mention: Since I was working on black paper and most of the background of my reference photo was also black or very dark, I thought I would leave the paper as it was. I’d left the drawing for several days, though, feeling like it wasn’t finished but not knowing precisely what it needed. I finally took a picture with my phone and upped the contrast and intensity. To make a long story short, I went over the bare portions of my paper with a black pastel to make them even blacker. Instantly, the green of my leaves and everything else became more vibrant. I also added more color intensity to the leaves above and the algae, but adding that black made me think, “Now we’re getting somewhere.” I took the reference photo for this piece during one of my trips to Wakodahatchee. It’s similar to my piece, "Warbler in the Apple Palm." A little bird peeking out from among some leaves always catches my eye.
 Last week, I encouraged you to take on a significant project that scares you. This week, I’m almost doing the opposite. I’m telling you that not everything you paint has to be a big to do. Sometimes, it’s good to paint something you might even consider boring. This is where sketching comes in. Most people think sketching is done with a pencil or pen, but a sketch can be done in any medium. I have a mixed-media sketchbook, and I’ve enjoyed doing watercolor sketches. You could also do acrylic sketching on special acrylic paper or boards. I’ve never done it, but the artist Lena Danya has gessoed her sketchbook and even sketched in oil paint. Here's her video on how she does it. One reason you should sketch in mediums other than pencil is for thumbnails. A thumbnail sketch is a sketch you do to plan out a more involved piece. The name comes from the fact that these are often made very small, but you can thumbnail sketches of standard size. My friend on YouTube, Shana Rowe Jackson, whose channel is Caution Artist At Play, made a video about thumbnail sketches, which I’ve embedded below. In it, she points out that a thumbnail should be done in the same medium that you intend to use for your finished product. I once read that sketching is “a drawing or painting done quickly.” The idea is not to spend too much time fussing over details, which I’m guilty of. I worked on resisting this tendency while in the studio my art club uses. The sketches at the top of this post were made by almost slapping paint down on the paper. How do you like to sketch? Tell me in the comments.
Do you know what these four pieces have in common? I was terrified to do all of them and I'm immensely proud of all of them. If you're anything like me, you'll find that the projects that intimidate you the most are the ones you'll find most rewarding when they're done. Big projects are only scary when you're staring at the reference photo, thinking, "How can I ever paint this. It's so hard". In my experience, once you start working on one of these monsters, the apprehension melts away, replaced by a feeling of self-confidence. How do you get started on one of these pieces? You might be expecting me to say to just get started and while that is the most important step, I do have one caution to make. Don’t go to your final project just yet. Do a practice piece on a scratch piece of paper first. Don’t put a lot of detail in this. Think of this as a skeleton piece. Just work on getting the perspective and the placement of major landmarks right. You don’t have to be scared here since you can throw this away and start over if it doesn’t work out. Once you’ve nailed the perspective, the most critical aspect in significant landscapes, in your skeleton piece, you’ll be much more confident when you move on to your actual project. Taking on an intimidating projects teaches you not only about art itself, but what you’re capable of. Are you planning on taking on any big major paintings since reading this post? Tell me in the comments.
 Hey there! I recently did my first real project in pen and ink. I'd done cartoons before, not a real fine art piece. I started by sketching lightly with a pencil to make sure everything was in the right place. I took the reference photo for this piece, looking out the window of a library that’s attached to a gallery where an acquaintance was having an art opening. For shading, I'm using a technique called hatching. It involves making tiny lines in one direction and then making more lines in the opposite direction to create depth. The closer together I make the lines, the darker the shading appears. The way I place these lines also brings out the shape of what I'm drawing. It's enjoyable to see how it comes together!  Despite this, I don’t think I’ll be working in this medium again for a while. Although I like the results, making all those looking at all those tiny lines hurts my eyes after a while. To save my eyes, and know if I was getting the results I wanted, I had to periodically move back from the piece. It's always fun to experiment with new mediums and grow. Have you tried any new mediums lately in your work? Tell me in the comments.
 Disclaimer: This article is aimed at people who are professional artists or want to be professional artists. Sometimes, I have times when I don’t feel like doing art. Yesterday was one of those days. Today might be one, too. So what do I do when I have those days? Do I say, “Oh, I don’t feel like doing art, so I won’t do it”? Nope. That’s not what I do. I’ll sit down with my sketchbook and draw whatever in my vicinity happens to catch my eye. Yesterday, it was my trash can. A few days ago, it was a paint palette. I don’t put pressure on myself to make a masterpiece. The only important thing is that I create something.  Here’s the thing, though. I can sit down, not wanting to draw, and ten minutes later, I do not want to stop because I’m focused on the lines and shadows I want to depict. Using the hatching technique to draw the shadows, especially the arc-shaped ones, in the palette's wells was a lot of fun. Sometimes, if I have a project and I’m not feeling motivated to work on it, I’ll find one thing I can do, even if it’s just painting a shadow somewhere, and once I’ve done that, I’ll notice something else I can do on it, and so on. I could sit down thinking I'm only going to paint for ten minutes and be at the easel for an hour. I know the title of this article was harsh, but I hope you found it encouraging. If you stumbled across it in a google search, consider subscribing to my newsletter to read more.
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