LESSON VIII - Part 1: Sketchbook Exercises

For these "orange" sketchbook exercises, you'll need the following:

A sketchbook, pencils, black pen, colored pencils and watercolor pencils, markers, and -- okay -- an eraser, if you must.  You'll also be using your camera.

Try a few, or all, of these ORANGE exercises --

 1.  Draw a pumpkin, with pencil.  Then, add color with colored pencils.  Layer the colors, to get different shades of orange.  Start with yellow, then add other colors.

2.  Autumn Leaves -- Draw a skinny rectangular box within your sketchbook page.  Then, draw some overlapping leaves within that format.  Color your autumn leaves with colored pencils.  By layering your colors, your oranges will range from yellow-orange to orange to red-orange (similar to when you're painting in watercolor).  Fill in your background shapes with a darker brownish orange, with a little blue for shadows.

3.  Draw some orange doodles -- flowers and fruit and even animals -- with markers.  Use my doodles for reference and/or come up with a few of your own.

4.  Gather Reference Material for a Future Painting -- One of the most enjoyable parts of art, for me, is gathering reference material for future paintings.  Photographs and on-site sketching are the two best ways I use to gather information -- for use later, back in my studio, to create watercolor paintings.  

Here are some photos from one of my outings (with help from my granddaughter):

Try your hand at some "gathering".  Either, go into your own garden, or a friend's -- or visit a botanical garden. If it is winter where you are, buy yourself some peach or orange flowers, and bring the garden inside.  Take some pictures of some orange flowers.  And, then, sit down with your sketchbook (and a friend, if you like), and sketch the flowers in pencil.  Then, add a little color to your sketch with colored pencils.  

Now, you have all the reference material you will need to start a painting, down the road.