Market Street Sketches: Preclass

Welcome to the preclass lesson!

Let’s talk about the supplies needed for this ink and wash drawing course – you may already have plenty at home you can use! I always encourage trying out what you’ve got whenever possible.

How class works:

In this course, you’ll see a video at 2x speed with narration – with repetitious parts cut out. Each drawing took at least an hour so expect that might be more as a student!

You’ll ALSO be able to watch an un-narrated video of the whole process, or at least mostly the whole process – you even get to watch while I go searching for a supply. That way you can draw and paint right along with it and listen to your own favorite music while we work together!

IMPORTANT: About the diagrams provided in each lesson

I made preliminary diagrams that I then used for my own drawings, and adapted them from those originals; then once I finished the art, I re-measured and re-created the diagrams for you. HOWEVER I stink at math and was doing this late at night so it is very possible a few measurements are not correct. To that end, there’s a printable PDF in each lesson where you can print the diagram on 8-1/2 x 11 paper, then use a ruler to measure the marks. There’s also a full size pencil sketch, pen drawing, and completed colored piece, all of which can also be used to measure sizes.

OVERALL: The diagrams are not rules! Please feel free to move things around. If you like tall windows, make ’em bigger. If you like short ones, cut them down. Bigger doors? Rock on. There are no rules – just the diagram guidelines to help you get started. 

ABOUT SIZE: The block of paper used  in this class is 3.9″ wide by 9.8″ tall. Leaving a border of 1/2 inch on all sides makes the drawings themselves about 9″ x 3-1/4″. You might prefer to work at another size though. Some of you may want to make your finished work a little shorter (to fit a slimline card envelope) and some of you might want to make it bigger to accomodate all the detail YOU want to add in.

You can either:

1. shrink the image while sketching by making windows a little shorter or cut down the area of the building trim a little to shorten it.
2. shrink or enlarge the diagram itself by indicating in your printer  prompt that you want it printed at 90% or whatever you choose. If you want to make it really big you can take it to a copy shop and have it blown up to 11×17 etc. THEN you need to measure the diagram’s lines. If you’re really good with math you can figure out the % and just change it – without reducing or enlarging the printout.

Adapt to other mediums as desired!

If you’d like to attempt these lessons in a different medium than watercolor, please do! Each one may have its own techniques in coloring, but the pen and ink is the same. A few notes:

•  Water-based marker: Practice a little on scrap paper to see if the color from your marker will translate to the desired hue on paper; straight application to watercolor paper can be really strong, so you might decide to scribble color onto a plate or mixing tile then paint it like watercolor in some cases.
• Colored pencil: Most colored pencils are at least a little opaque, so coverage over  lines will be dodgy at times; test your pencils and blending solution techniques on scrap to be sure that 1) your chosen pen won’t lift or bleed and 2) the blending medium will thin out the color enough to make it work. See the video below for ideas, but know that there is no colored pencil teaching in this class.
• Alcohol marker: Multiliners come in various widths so get some small ones; also, the Microns used are .5 and .3, but on bumpy watercolor paper, those nibs appear thinner than multiliners would on flat paper. So you may choose to scale down the nibs to smaller ones in order to achieve detail. As for coloring, the blending techniques for the windows can be challenging; see the video below for an idea on how you might handle some of those, but there’s no alcohol marker teaching in this course.

Before we start…a little housekeeping

I retain the copyright to the content you are learning in class. That means…

1. Do not sell or give away the concepts from my classes – you may not re-teach my instruction contained or created within these lessons.
2. Do not post a video tutorial or step by step photo tutorial of your own redraw of class content.
3. Do not repost any handouts you receive in class.

However…I love to see students making strides and taking this teaching and personalizing it with your own skills.

1. DO make your own designs and develop your own style! I love that!
2. DO gift your creations made with these techniques, of course!

At the bottom of each lesson you’ll see some ways to share your homework and ask questions, so that’ll be handy for you.

Supplies:

As with all my classes, use supplies you love, being prepared for different results. (Which is not a bad thing!)

Paper and pens

• Micron pens, size .3 and .5
• Arches Watercolor Block – 3.9″ x 9.8″, Cold Press or use a pad or  sheet and cut your own.

White mediums (don’t need all)

1. Daniel Smith or Winsor and Newton 
2. White Signo Uni-ball Gel Pen:  AMZ –  BLICK
3. Presto Jumbo White 

Daniel Smith Watercolors:

1. Cascade Green
2. Paynes Blue Gray
3. Cobalt Blue
4. Transparent Red Oxide or Burnt Sienna
5. Yellow Ochre
6. New Gamboge 

Brushes

1. Da Vinci Maestro Kolinsky Sable Round 4 OR Silver Brush Black Velvet Round 4
2. Silver Brush Black Velvet Round 2 or Da Vinci Cosmotop Round 2 

Miscellaneous

1. Pencil (any kind)
2. Kneaded Eraser 
3. Tombow Stick Eraser – or Mono Zero Eraser, round 
4. Tsquare and/or ruler