- Hi, and welcome to "Pocket Sketching."

What are we going to do this time?

This time, we're going to do a real melange of things, from what happens when you already can do a scene like this to dilute paint and how to use it.

There's so many fun ways to use watercolor and sketching when you're traveling.

So come along and enjoy us.

We'll have a wonderful time.

Welcome.

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

This time, we're going to do a melange.

It's just a whole bunch of things that I think are fun to know about.

So let's get started with something you're familiar with, travel journaling.

I'm gonna move things over so you can see it.

This is my all-time favorite.

I've used it before on PBS, but I love it.

This is done by Eugene Delacroix in 1832.

In those days, they didn't have cameras, so when an ambassador went to a foreign country, they took an illustrator with them.

He was the illustrator for the ambassador to Morocco.

And these illustrators worked from life all the time.

They were very, very good.

Now, if you look at this, these are two pages out of his journal.

You think you have to be perfect.

No, a journal is just a record of a trip, things that happened, personal things you really want to remember.

So this wall is gorgeously done.

Those are probably people.

The little horse here is excellent.

That's okay.

What is that?

It doesn't matter.

This is a person with a few little remarks.

Feel it.

What makes it a travel journal?

What makes it a journal?

It's words.

Just add words to the illustration.

You double the meaning.

But they don't all have to be good.

And usually there are several on a page.

In this case, I would go to the six by nine inch paper because then you can get more stuff on a page.

But don't try to make them full page unless you want to.

Can't tell what that is.

That's obviously a man on a horse.

People on horses.

A fairly good figure.

This is okay.

But you want to read the words.

That's the big deal.

It's the words.

Here's one that I did, similar, whole bunch of illustrations.

It was a local band playing.

The paper that I picked up wouldn't take the pen.

So it came out like a permanent pen.

But still, I've got the Tucson Jazz Institute in the Viscount Hotel and some of the players in the band.

Another one which is just, let me get these out of the way so you can see this one.

Lots of words on this one about a particular bottle.

Doesn't matter what it is.

It's of importance to me.

Catalina Island, stuck outdoors waiting to get into a restaurant.

Why not sketch?

Why not put on some words?

That was standing in the street.

You can do this anywhere.

This one's kind of cute.

This was in Ann Arbor.

A little sign outside a house.

Stop and sit, welcome to my garden.

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.

And this was actually the house.

These are just fun.

They're part of your personal travels.

The other thing I brought along for this is some of the stuff that people do with these.

Not the greatest page, but it doesn't matter.

What if I wanted to illuminate it?

Just put little details on the side like this.

Just all the way down the margin just to make it decorated.

That can be part of a journal.

Then I can add another color.

Doesn't matter.

And another type of line.

This is all just a personal choice.

And then if you want to write notes with a calligraphic pen, the good ones are expensive.

The throwaways are very inexpensive, probably around three and a half dollars.

But if I were to write words with this, it makes it look like I know how to do calligraphy and I don't.

And this is the other end.

It has two ends.

But you can see that it's kind of fun and they come in different colors.

This one's a little bit major.

Let's see, the dog is pulling.

Let's try that.

And then you'll look at it again.

But I can't do this without, whoops.

There you go.

Doesn't matter.

And put some lines back there like that.

So he's pulling that way.

You can do anything you want on one of these.

They're fun.

It just, it records your travels.

So it sort of makes the trip a lot more fun.

But you put the words in too.

And then you're telling a story.

Next I wanna show you something else.

I'll just put that aside.

And it's taking me a minute to get these out.

This is my one use of a ballpoint.

And I'm not sure I even put one in.

I didn't, but you'll get the idea.

And I can show you a little bit.

Now I have, I'll be using the other pen.

The ballpoint means nothing will run.

So first you do an incredibly fast sketch.

And then you don't have to stay in the lines.

Because you can put the color directly over.

And it doesn't matter.

The image is still there.

It doesn't run.

Now what I like with a ballpoint or any other permanent pen, some of them are expensive.

A ballpoint is extremely inexpensive.

What I like about it is, it's got a huge supply of ink.

And you can do it really fast as from a speeding car.

My husband does the driving.

And he drives at 75 to 85 miles per hour.

And if I ask him to go back, he won't go back to the right place.

So rather than getting a big argument about that, I've learned to use a ballpoint to catch something extremely fast.

So this is, we'll give you an idea of how fast.

But let's say we're going by a building.

And there's the building.

There's the tree.

There's the mountain.

And then you don't have to stay in the lines.

Now this happens to be my water-soluble pen.

So I can't really do it with this properly.

But let's say I've got the paint set in my lap.

It's a brilliantly sunny day.

That's a mountain.

The mountain can be tan.

And in a ballpoint, it would not make the line run.

With a water-soluble pen, it does.

Unless I go over it really, really fast.

But even that doesn't quite work like a ballpoint.

And it means that you can just put something up here so quickly.

Let's put a door on this side.

There's the door.

That's it.

And you do that so fast that you can do this from a speeding car.

Or anytime you don't have any time.

Normally I would remember to stick a ballpoint in.

And I don't know whether this is water-soluble.

It might be.

I know one of these is very water-soluble.

Yep, that's water-soluble.

Can't use that one either.

Some of the calligraphic pens are water-soluble.

So if you're planning on using them for an undersketch, be sure you've checked it first to make sure it doesn't run like that 'cause you won't have any control.

So it's kind of, and I didn't know whether that would run or not.

The next one, and I'm just gonna put these aside.

The next one is really something you should know about.

I didn't, I had heard about this, but I didn't know about it until it happened.

We'll start with this one.

After teaching all day in Sedona, we were staying in a marvelous old cabin, the second building that was ever built in Sedona.

It was hand-built by a woman.

The walls were things that she found that she stuck into plaster.

She made the concrete by hand.

She did everything.

And I wanted, I did a sketch right after class standing on Oak Creek, and I was really pleased with it.

So I wanted to do one this good or better for our host and hostess.

So, but I was really pleased with this, really, really pleased.

So I marked my footprints.

I ran in the cabin.

I grabbed a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, dumped it down, by the way, that's a wine if you don't drink wine, dumped it down, and I was back on those same footprints in 20 minutes to do a similar or better sketch for my host and hostess.

And this is the sketch that I got.

And I tried several times and could not do better.

I was trying to do this, and this is what I got.

One glass of wine will destroy your eye-hand coordination within 20 minutes.

So though you hear about these fun things of drinking and painting, these are entertainment.

Take your friends, have a great time.

Don't expect to get something fantastic because a major part of it is the glass of wine, and it will get you within 20 minutes.

But in those cases, you're there to have fun.

So it doesn't really matter.

It's a fun occasion.

But if you wanna do something serious, drink afterwards.

Doesn't seem to matter if you have a cocktail or a glass of wine at night, and you're planning on painting the next day.

If you're really, really, really dreadfully serious, you won't have anything for a month, nor coffee, nor tea, nor Pepsi, nor Coke.

Competitive shooters don't have any of these things for an entire month before competition because the competition is so tight.

I talked to a competitive shooter, and he told me about this.

Then quite by accident, we did this again.

We were in Park City to teach a class, Utah, and we went over to Heber for dinner to a steakhouse.

They seated us up on the patio where we could see this gorgeous scene, mountains in the distance, big meadow, some buildings, a big willow tree, horses in the field.

And we sat down and had a glass of wine, and I was sketching, and I couldn't do any better than this, and I gave up.

Two years later, I taught in Park City again, and we again went to Heber 'cause the steaks were good.

They seated us again, almost in the same table on the patio, and we ordered the same thing for dinner.

And I had a glass of red wine, and I decided what would happen if I sat there and simply sniffed it while I sketched.

Wanna see the difference?

This is what was there.

This was after one glass of wine.

Bit of a difference.

It's an enormous difference.

And this was what was here that I could not get.

So you couldn't make that more graphic.

I couldn't get the horses at all, couldn't get the building at all, and everything was much, much, much better.

That's just to make a little point that may or may not be relevant, but I usually show this in my classes, and people, "Oh, you mean I can't drink?"

Oh, yes, you can do it afterwards.

Don't give up your fun.

So each one of these is sort of a fun thing I want you to know about.

If you plan to go large, this is the next one.

Now, large to me, if you're sketching, is six by nine inches.

It is not giant large, it's six by nine, because that will go in, you can put that in your bag vertically, and still walk, still move, still be going on a trip, still do anything.

Something that you must watch for when you go large, use a timer.

I'm gonna show you this one first.

Just too much, too much stuff.

It would be better if it were cut down to maybe that much, just a little bit of the umbrella.

To do that, use the timer.

If you're stuck with 20 minutes, and you're really watching your timer, remember I used my giant wristwatch for this, you're going to simplify.

If you think you have three hours, you're gonna put in every possible detail, you're going to wreck it, you're gonna hate it, because you have no interest in it whatsoever, and then you get pickier, pickier, and pickier, and you make it worse, and worse, and worse.

You want to go fast.

This one could be simplified.

How to simplify it?

There's a fight between this and that.

I can't make it lighter.

What if I made it bluer?

And I can do this, it's my sketch, I can do anything I jolly well want to it.

What if I make this bluer to put it back farther?

Just, would this work?

I wanna make it go away.

Make it a little bit over here.

At least this is fudged out and not in focus.

Now what if the tree were brighter and yellower to bring it forward?

What if the trunk were darker and stronger, even if it's red?

Make sure you can see it.

Oh, you can't miss that.

This little tree's fighting with that one.

What if there were stronger darks in here?

What if the ground were lighter and brighter to bring it forward?

These are small changes, but let me tell you they're important changes.

Make that darker so that it comes forward.

And simplify.

See how that changes things?

This is all, oh, and this is fun.

This is, I wanna make sure I have an appropriate color for this.

There's water.

That's basically all you have to do to indicate water.

It's a little stronger than it was.

Not a whole lot, but somewhat.

But remember, simplify, keep it short.

Occasionally you're gonna wanna really illustrate something.

This is one of those cases.

This is Wolf Creek Pass in Utah probably 20 years ago.

And I wanted to record it.

I didn't know how important it was.

It's changed.

Now there are McDonald's, paved roads.

There was dirt roads and sheep farmers then.

Totally different.

But something I wanna show you from this one, which I haven't pointed out.

See this effect in here, where there are little darker patches over a lighter patch?

That's a means of handling the paint.

So let me show that to you.

I set it up so that I could do this.

Incidentally, some people mentioned that I talk all the time I'm working.

I have really extreme ADHD.

You bet I talk all the time.

It's how we stay on task, on subject.

I've asked people in the grocery store who are talking to themselves, do you have ADD or ADHD?

Every one of them does.

Okay, to get this effect, you have a base color that's dried.

Otherwise it won't hold the edges.

It'll slur together.

So I've got a base color that's dried.

And I'm gonna come in and just put in patches of additional color.

Just to make something have texture.

If it's trees and it doesn't matter what that additional color is.

Try another color here.

If it's trees.

So you get this effect of a color over a color.

It will change the base color.

And it gives you another stroke.

If I did that while it was still wet, and I'll do this while it's still wet.

That's a little dark.

Just shove it out a little bit.

Get another color over that.

It's gonna run together.

See?

Now if I want it to stand out as a separate wash.

You have a dry wash underneath.

Add it when the wash is dry.

And it'll stand out.

Do it when it's wet.

It'll mix.

If you get mud, it's usually because you added colors in.

And especially an opposite color to one color.

Like green or red over the other one while it's wet.

And then you shove it a bit.

And it becomes a really yucky mud, or it'll become a gray.

And it's when you move it that you get mud.

Usually you don't get mud, especially if it's dry underneath.

So that'll show you how you do that.

This one, a vignette.

This is on a big piece of paper to a small area.

Now, now I would do even less.

This was at, again, about 20 years ago.

And this little tiny one, oh my goodness.

This is our courthouse in Tucson.

This was actually done in 30 minutes, the whole thing.

Let me tell you, I had to work fast to keep it in the timer.

If I did it again, I would make a bit of the courthouse, a bit of the foliage, and I would get the skateboarders.

There are three skateboarders in here.

They were incredibly good.

And that's something I remember from that scene.

You can't see it with all this stuff.

Simplify.

Okay, let's see what we have next on this melange.

Melange is fun.

Dilute paint.

I had to bring it in folders so that I could bring it and show you each of these.

Okay, John Singer Sargent sketched with dilute paint.

He also used pencil, but some sketches were totally dilute paint instead of pencil.

No pencil up here.

Those lines are done with a paintbrush.

What is the source of the paint?

It's this stuff in the lid of the box, and I'll show it to you in a minute.

All of this fancy, fancy detail, that's dilute paint.

This stuff.

And then he's darkened that outline, and that gives you the outline of the figure.

Very important, that's dilute paint.

That's dilute paint.

The water, base color, wait for it to dry, dilute paint.

The whole drawing, basically, is dilute paint.

So I'll show you a couple more, and then I'll do a tiny bit of it.

Gotta get it right side up, it makes a big difference.

This little piece of statuary, see that?

That's just dilute paint.

There's a pen line here, pen line on the outside, and then dilute paint.

This whole thing is dilute.

Now maybe it could be stronger.

This was the Willamette River last summer up in Oregon.

I happen to love this one.

You may or may not be able to see it, because it is totally done from a live figure in dilute paint.

If you can mark the paper, it works.

You don't have to have more than that.

It's fascinating how much you can get.

This one is a statue in a, I call it an ornery, I never get the word quite right, north of Grand Rapids.

And this little figure was very important.

I wanted to know if I could get it, so I did that first.

Then added the darks, which is also what Sargent did with his.

Added darks to make it stand out.

This one's a little, get 'em all right side up this time.

This is all dilute paint, even here.

Little bit more, more stronger, no, little bit stronger here.

And water is always done with dilute.

This is the ocean on the way.

We were in California a couple of weeks ago.

This water's dilute.

Again, how'd I get these upside down?

Makes more sense right side up.

That's dilute.

And this one is dilute.

So you can see all these different ways of working.

There are so many different ways to work.

If I were to do this and just show you a little bit about this, just a tiny bit, take the water, as long as you can see it, as long as you can see it, it works.

So what if I just did a little bit like this?

I'm gonna work this up into something.

Now this would be typically water.

There's not much more to it than this.

But water has to have a hardscape to work.

So this would be the hardscape.

And if I put this in, this pen will not write on a wet spot.

I didn't mention that before.

Water-soluble pens don't write on wet spots.

They get a meniscus of water across the tip.

You'll think they're broken.

They're not broken.

Just wait for it to dry.

And you can enhance the drying by rolling the pen.

It'll go a little bit faster.

It takes about 20 minutes usually.

Watch what happens with the hardscape.

This is a rock.

A rock is hard.

Get a good hard line.

Don't fool around with this.

You want enough of a good hard line.

And then let's put another one in here.

And it has its own bottom.

It'll be even darker.

It'll have a platform on the top.

Now once you have this, your water's gonna show up.

Put rocks in on the other side.

I can't come right up to the water because I put the water on first.

And normally I would put this on first.

Perhaps, don't put something straight vertical up the middle, really bad design.

Put it over here.

So you get a little bit of design at the same time.

These are trees.

I kinda have to tell you because they're so crummy.

(laughs) I need to get that out of there.

It doesn't belong.

And then I'd probably, where's the top of this?

Let's go right about here.

Another bit of rocks back there.

You can see where this is going.

I'll also show you how fast you can work with this.

Rocks are solid.

I want a solid rock color.

So I'm using ultramarine blue and burnt sienna.

And I know already that the blue's coming up fast, very fast.

That's a rock.

Give it a solid edge.

Not a wussy edge, a solid edge.

I'll come back to that later.

When I have less farther away, things are lighter.

Okay.

Bring that down over the water, over the water, over the water.

And now rinse and get it lighter.

Get it together.

While it's wet, things will run.

When it's dry, they don't run anymore.

Top of the water, background.

Don't want that to go very dark.

And I wanna go into a little bit of green back there.

Can I get it?

I don't have any up here.

Green.

Tree.

Tree.

I gotta tell you, 'cause it's not gonna look like it.

Ooh, I said I'd get rid of that line.

Incidentally, if a travel brush starts to come apart, just screw it back together.

Get rid of that line.

Yeah, you can get rid of things.

Don't let it bother you.

And now deal with the water a little bit more.

Splash down here.

Little bit more there.

Little bit up in here.

You get the idea.

It's not the best.

Oh, forgot the top of the rocks.

Do I still have some?

Yep, I've still got some stuff I can play with.

Now this is going about as fast as I can possibly go.

Put a little bit of water down in here.

Little bit more there.

Little bit more there.

You get the idea.

You can go so fast with this, but you have to have a hardscape to have this part show up.

Same thing if you were doing sculpture.

You have to have an edge that's hard so you can really see it.

So this is a really fun thing to play with.

And that's just dilute paint.

Again, that was just cleanup.

And thank you for coming along and happy sketching.

Want to learn more about the wonderful world of pocket sketching?

Then visit my website at pocketsketching.com.

We have so much there for you to explore, including free tips and training videos, the pocket sketching supplies, photo galleries, and how to access additional training.

All this and more is available at pocketsketching.com.

Learn enough to play for a lifetime.

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