Watercolour

2. For more Top Sketch Book Tips buy a small watercolour sketch book. I find that Moleskine do a rather handy size book with decent paper in.  Try to paint a sky a day or even just one a week. At the end of a year you will have 52-365 studies that will capture different seasons and times of day that you can refer back to for inspiration.

Cloud Shapes

You will also find that it will help you to see cloud shapes and the effects of light and then the hard bit, render them in watercolour. The more you do, the better you will become. It will give you a greater, deeper appreciation of creation.

Sketchbooks

I’ve been painting on location in watercolour “en plein air” for almost 30 years. However, it was not until a painting trip to Umbria, Italy in 2002 that I began to paint “on the spot” in sketchbooks. My wife and I visited the Fabriano Paper Factory in the Marches region and I fell in love with the small leather bound books containing their lovely paper that they were selling in the factory shop. I purchased several.

Travel

Since then, I rarely travel without one of my sketchbooks in a bag with a small box of watercolours and a pocket brush. I now have quite a considerable collection of leather bound sketchbooks. Inside are watercolours which document my travels and act as a source of ideas. They often trigger off thoughts and memories of places, people and times. These, in turn, develop in to more finished paintings.