Book Excerpt in Watercolor Artist Magazine

Just a quick note to say I have an article up in the current issue of Watercolor Artists magazine. It’s a thing North Light Books does with all their authors, where they reprint excerpts from our books. The June issue features part of chapter three of The Urban Sketcher, where I demo the approach I like to call Tea, Milk and Honey. Tinting a pencil drawing in three passes of watercolor, working from Large-to-Small, Light-to-Dark, and Wet-to-Dry.

Here’ s the images from the demo painting. You can get a good idea of the technique just looking at the sequence of images.

The drawing is the important first step. I give myself everything I need to know for later – sketching in the major blocks of color and the shadow shapes that will go on top.

Remember: Larger-to-Smaller, Lighter-to-Darker – using progressively ‘denser’ paint (more pigment, less water, each pass).You’re aiming for viscosity similar to the liquids Tea, Milk, and Honey.

Of course, I encourage you to buy the book:) It’s part of how I support my activities on the blog here :) The book is a program to teach yourself the drawing skills leading up to this kind of sketch, so there’s lots of good background in there.

Of course I have plenty of free info on this blog if you just read back in time. Including a downloadable ‘cheat sheet’ handout on this technique – available here.