Starting to sketch with coloured pencils

Nauset Light, Cape Cod
8" x 0" pencil and coloured pencil in Moleskine sketchbook
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

I get lots of comments and enquiries from people asking me about sketching and how to learn how to sketch. If you're one of those people, you may be pleased to hear that I'm getting a bit more organised! As part of my plan for 2007, (this is January after all!) I've started to assemble my written advice on sketching on my website as a preliminary to more sharing of information and developing this further (workshops etc).

So - for those interested in learning more about how to sketch - you might want to take a peek at the new page on my website ( www.pastelsandpencils.com ) called Advice on Sketching. I'm going to use this as a place to put read-only Word files (.doc extension) for

• any of my articles on sketching that are published on the internet
  
• any on-line classes on sketching that I tutor - which start with guidance written by me.

There's not a lot new under the sun and the principles about how go about sketching don't belong to anybody. However my approach and my words belong to me and the files are copyright protected. This means that you can download under the "fair use" educational provisions of copyright law for your private use only. What you can't do is download them and then sell them or use them as part of a course for which you're getting a fee. (In other words they should not be used by other tutors as part of their materials. I've no objection to tutors providing a link to my website in their course materials though). I'm working on the principle that people won't abuse this facility - if they do I may need to rethink my approach.

The first article to be loaded on to the website is called "Starting to sketch with coloured pencils". It's an article which was published in the July edition of "From My Perspective" Ann Kullberg's e-zine for coloured pencil artists last year. It's To be honest, when I started to put this article together I decided that teaching people how to use coloured pencils as well as how to sketch was pretty much impossible in one article - so the article is firmly focused on learning how to sketch as a first step. However it is also illustrated with my coloured pencil sketches and explanations of how I went about them.

Do let me know what you think about it. Also do make suggestions about what else you think I should focus on as I shall be developing more articles in the future - all of which will find their way on to the website after initial publication.

Also, for those interested, you might want keep an eye on this new page on the website as I'm currently in the process of loading another item on to it. I'll be highlighting it on this blog when it's published.

The sketch at the top of the page is of Nauset Light on Cape Cod and you can read the associated blog post on my travel sketchbook blog here.

Links:

• Pastels and Pencils: Advice on Sketching
• Travels with my sketchbook in.......
  

Technorati tags: art , sketching , sketchbook