A really quick watercolour sketch.

watercolour sketch - A sleeping jack Russel terrier caught off guard.

This particular little terror was the bane of my life for a couple of weeks a few years back. We were building an extension to a house and this little Jack Russel yapped when we arrived, yapped when we moved and yapped when we left. One day we found him fast asleep on the outside stairs when we returned from lunch and I couldn't resist taking a photo as it was the first time I'd seen him at rest. I did this from the photo.

I am still amazed every time I see this sketch.  I had previously tried watercolour a few times, using good quality paper dampened and stretched on a board, with fairly good brushes, but in spite of all that I made some right "pigs ears" of the jobs, I'll tell you.  I think I was just concentrating too much and trying to avoid (but falling into} the pitfalls that the books warned about.

This one is in a cheap sketchbook with plain cheap paper.  I lightly sketched the basic in pencil, (from a photograph) then I just went for it with an almost dry, 20mm bristle brush which gave the stripey effect.  I did a few practice sweeps on scrap paper until I had just the right amount of paint on the brush each time. Only when it was almost finished did I use a fine rigger watercolour brush to pick out a few details.

I have always meant to do more of this sort of sketching, but got carried away by my next fad, pen and ink.

• Go to top: Watercolour Sketch
•  
• BACK: Conte Crayon
• Pen and ink:NEXT

"The art of drawing which is of more real importance to the human race than that of writing... should be taught to every child just as writing is... " John Ruskin 1819-1900