'How To' Sketch Techniques

Have you ever seen sketches either from an artist's sketchbook or in a gallery and there drawings always look really sketchy, there's something about them that you really like and want to do as well.  Sketching isn't about drawing a likeness in a portrait or drawing things accurately, sketching is about being loose and bold and not worrying about making mistakes, letting your real feelings come out.
 
The whole point of sketching can be done in two different ways, one way is sketching as a preliminary to a painting or a finished drawing, the other way is just for the art and fun of sketching which if done with ease can really turn into a work of art by itself. When trying to capture something full of life and moving, you can only achieve this dynamic and rhythmic flow through sketching whether it is with watercolor, oil, charcoal, acrylic or any other medium.

In beginning a sketch, I will draw in scribbles and lines representing a form of the tree layout
or an area that has lights to darks, actually a ‘blueprint of the picture’ so to speak giving me
a ‘guide’ of sort to expound on. The detail looks a mess as I jiggle and jog a figure sketch and then
realize that everything is there that needs to be. Then I begin to enhance, sharpen, smooth the
sketch into the creation I have in my mind. 

To do this sort of sketching you need to relax and let yourself go and not to be afraid of making mistakes. Once you experience forming and shaping an object, try letting yourself go and lose all your inhibitions and preconceptions of what you might think sketching is all about.

By Cathy and help from Roger