A few weeks ago I started a new Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon and it’s been super special to have a place where we can collectively share our everyday sketching explorations. I love seeing people’s sketches and having somewhere to talk about new materials. A huge thanks to everyone who is making it such a calm and supportive environment in which to hang out!

And I’m really loving having a monthly theme –  an aspect that we can explore in our everyday sketching. The plan is that every month’s theme can be applied to any subject matter and any style of sketching.

Each week I’m recording an update video inside the community, where I go through some of the ideas I’ve been exploring and talk about my work related to this monthly theme. I’m absolutely loving filming these videos and looking forward to our livestream at the end of February where we can go into even more detail about what we’ve done in the past month and in addtion discuss the materials we’re using.

This month, we are looking at negative shapes. It’s a theme which I’ve been thinking about for a few months, and it coincidentally tied in nicely with what we were looking at in Lesson 3 of Foundations at the end of January.

It’s been really wonderful to see all the negative shape sketching happening in the community as well. Everyone is interpreting the theme in a slightly different way – in a way that suits their everyday sketching.

Focusing on negative shapes in the last few weeks has really inspired me and given me new thoughts about working negatively. Two of these are:

• how working negatively can result in positive shapes
• how starting with shapes as a general sketching technique (my favourite way to sketch) typically involves some kind of negative shape. I’ve been working negatively much more than I realised!

Exploring the interplay between positive and negative shapes has been particularly interesting, and it’s changing the way I think about my morning sketching of local houses.

I’ve selected a few of my recent sketches to share with you in this article, showing how I’ve been seeing ordinary scenes in new ways. (Note: the full collection will be shared inside the community during the next monthly livestream.)

It makes me very happy that I’m using my sketchbook to explore lots of ideas at the moment – that it’s a true playground for research and development! These sketches are all about exploring ideas rather than being finished sketches. So please view them in that light!

I’ve also been continuing to explore the possibilities and limitations of new media.

Media that I’ve been playing with this month:

– Posca Acrylic Markers (some of which have scruffy tips and are running out of paint)
– Neocolor II water-soluble crayon that I often use dry
– Gansa Tambi Muted 12 colour set (testing how they work with a lot or a little amount of water. I prefer them with less water)
– Pilot Parallel Pen.

Okay… enough preamble… here are a few of my recent sketches:

Ah! I love having this new community – a place to explore ideas in a way that is really inspiring my everyday sketching.

If you have been a long-time blog reader, you’ll know that it can be hard to keep the inspiration levels high when trying to sketch regularly during your busy everyday life. So, feeling super excited about my daily sketching is a huge deal!

Having a monthly theme to explore in detail in my own work, seeing other people’s interpretations, and filming weekly update videos are all contributing to a boost in creativity. I can’t wait for the next live stream (on 28th Feb) to connect with the group, wrap up this negative shape month, and reveal the theme for March. 🙂

Find out more about my Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon here. I would love to have you join in the fun!