Longtime readers of this blog (and a big hello to you!) will know that for many years I’ve had a morning routine of going out for a coffee and a sketch (and often a walk too!) I did this even when I was working as an architect (see here for an example).

This means that before I start my workday I have done a sketch and I’ve gotten my creative juices flowing. I’m also keeping an internal dialogue happening so that I can make the most out of any dedicated sketching outing ( it’s like doing scales before a performance). Some mornings I can focus on my sketch and some days I’m rushed and just go through the motions but my regular sketching habit is always good for me! (Read more about this here).

The biggest challenge with this type of sketching habit is keeping myself inspired because the subject matter is repetitive – I’m returning to the same locations over and over. And this is why in recent years I started changing my media so that I had something new to focus on. But there is a limit to how often you can change media and it’s easy to become overwhelmed  and end up spending a lot of money!

However having different conceptual themes to focus doesn’t have these problems. This is because they help me to change the way I see my subject – developing my observational and interpretive skills!

And this is why our monthly themes inside my Sketching Adventure Community has been so incredibly impactful to my everyday sketching!

So far this year we have focused on Unused Supplies in January, Value in February, Three in March and now this month we are looking at Framing. In this article I’ll share some highlights from my everyday sketching that cover these themes. 

But before that… there is another challenge related to a regular sketching habit. And that is… I end up filling a lot of sketchbooks and then have to work out a sustainable way to share them. 🙂

There is no doubt that my weekly update videos and monthly livestreams inside my Community is the best way to share my everyday sketches as a whole but I do want to continue sharing the highlights here. Last week I decided that it was time to rebuild my relationship with my scanner (it has been feeling very neglected lately!)  and re-visit the process of publishing scanned versions of my work. The result is that over the next week or so, I’ll get up to date with this year’s sketching. I hope you enjoy it!

Just for fun, I’m not going to put the images in order so this collection of morning sketches is totally random. I’ll include a brief description of which theme I was using.

The above sketch is one that I’m very happy with as it combines Inktense pencils and Tombow Markers in an interesting way. Note: I started using Inktense and Tombows as part of our Unused Supplies month and I’m still using them!

Okay… now time for the rest of the collection!

Framing: A dark shape for the foreground trees.

Framing: Is one white tree doing enough?

Value: Three-colour value study (rather than grey monochrome)

Unused Supplies: Tombows

Value: Adjusting the values of a scene which was mostly mid-tone

Values: Alternation – a concept I started thinking about at the very end of the value month.

Unused Supplies: Two quick little Inktense and Tombow sketches

Three: Using a new triad

Three: Three layers (a concept from my Travel Sketching course)

Three: Three Passes plus 3×3 media

Three: Three passes

Framing:  Extending my sketch to include a foreground element as a framing device

Value: Monochrome value study and colour study

Value: Starting with the darks

Three: Three houses

Three: Only using three tools for a sketch

Three: Three objects in foreground and three layers

Three: Three layers (different base colour for each)

Three: Using a triad (I had a few big lightbulb moments using a triad during the month which I shared in our monthly livestream).

I hope you have enjoyed seeing these (scanned) sketches! Hmm… Can you tell that it’s a big deal for me that I scanned so many sketches last week? I’m very proud of the achievement 🙂

Next article I’ll share some of my City sketches that I’ve done this year. So stay tuned for that!

If you are interested in joining us in the Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon – find out more here.