The Artist's Road Painting the World's Beautiful Places

Living the Moment

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Sketchbook Work in Watercolor     John Hulsey

   We have always been strong advocates for the practice of keeping a sketchbook journal filled with small watercolors. These little paintings are a treasure trove of moments in time, of light, space and ideas. Many of them never go any further than our sketchbooks, but quite a few have served as the basis for large studio paintings. Our interests in making these plein air sketches is different than that for making a studio painting. The sketchbook work is, in essence, a diary of our working lives as artists, our daily experiences, our inspirations and our travels in the world. Studio work requires a different mindset and goal, predicated on the commitment to investing lots of time into the large work and, often, transforming the sketch into something much greater in depth of feeling and light. Working outdoors around our studios over years also puts us in touch with the constantly changing essence of the natural world. Nothing is fixed. Light moves and seasons flow, and before long the scene before us has vanished or has so altered that it loses what might have attracted us the year before. Better get it down now in a sketch form while we can! In the same vein, new compositions grow into being, or perhaps a big, beautiful tree just falls over, and now light pours into a spot which was dark yesterday, and there’s our new painting. It’s all good.

   While our studio work is mostly oil, our plein air work can be oil or watercolor. We prefer working in watercolor when we are sketching like this. It is fast enough to keep up with the light and so much less trouble to clean up or pack. That freedom enhances our ability to keep up the practice and concentrate on the moments which we find, like those above, in these two images. Both were painted in early morning light. Morning light changes very quickly as the sun gains altitude in our sky and too soon those lovely shadows are just gone. Evening light seems to linger while shadows get longer and the light slowly fades. One trick is to learn how to use watercolors with the same intense color and strong values we use in oil.

   When we travel, especially overseas, we don’t take our oil kits anymore—only watercolors. This makes moving around, sight-seeing and painting so much easier and efficient. For the first time, this year, we are even offering a watercolor journal workshop in the South of France, next October at a wonderful hilltop castle. See French Castle Watercolor Retreat. Using watercolor gear will allow everyone to easily move from place to place and create multiple little paintings each day. How delightful it will be to return home with a sketchbook filled with memories of precious moments spent in deep connection with that world. We’re hoping that some of our more experienced participants will even turn these little inspirational moments into larger studio works, as we, no doubt, will also.