Liz Steel

Back Home: My everyday sketching in 3 different sketchbooks

September 13, 2018 | 10 Comments

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I’ve been home from my big trip for six weeks now. Wow! that has gone fast and yet on the other hand it seems like a long time ago since I was in Portugal. I have been so busy with finishing off trip articles and gearing up for SketchingNow Watercolour that I haven’t shared any...

Watercolour testing (and thoughts on student grade kits)

September 11, 2018 | 24 Comments

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SketchingNow Watercolour

It’s full-on watercolour for me at the moment, and this includes some testing of different palettes. They are: Testing a few cheap student grade kits. I’m teaching architects again and these are the kits which various people have purchased (mainly under $50 from Eckerseleys) and include the Koh-i-noor discs, Winsor and Newton Cotman kit (which...

Watercolour magic

September 7, 2018 | 7 Comments

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Art Tips & Thoughts SketchingNow Watercolour

Following on from my comments earlier in the week, that watercolour painting is much more than simply mixing perfect colour matches… Today, I want to share a little from the theory section of the first lesson in SketchingNow Watercolour. I believe that the more you understand your materials, the more you can use them freely...

Watercolour: traditional studio painting vs urban sketching

September 6, 2018 | 6 Comments

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SketchingNow Watercolour

As I’m gearing up to run through my SketchingNow Watercolour course again, I thought it would be good to share something that I mention in the introduction to the first lesson, as I really would love to get other people’s feedback on it. I believe that there is a big difference between using watercolour in...

Podcast: How I use my mac devices for my work

September 5, 2018 | 2 Comments

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Work Life

For something entirely different… Today I want to share a podcast interview from a few months ago. My good friend Damien Schreurs from Luxembourg – he is a mac guru not a sketcher – has a podcast called Macprenuer. It’s all about how small business owners/entrepreneurs run their business on their iPhone, iPad, Mac and...

Why watercolour is so perfect for quick sketching

September 4, 2018 | 6 Comments

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Watercolour

When people start sketching with watercolour they are normally obsessed with mixing the perfect colour matches for their subject and producing perfectly smooth washes. At the same time, they want to do this quickly because after all, that’s what sketching is all about. These two goals (with a rushed technique) can lead to very disappointing...