Nature Journaling by Faith: Preclass

Welcome to the Preclass lesson for Nature Journaling by Faith! I encourage you to make this class yours….customize the lessons as you are inspired along the way.

If you’re a person of faith, choose to use the Scriptures I have. Or a different verse. 

If you’re not a person of faith, add quotes, poems, whatever moves your heart.

Journal what you’re feeling. What you’re learning. What you are praying or wishing for.

Customize the art with things meaningful to you. Change the trees to ones in your yard. Paint grasses from the field near you. Swap out Mount Rainier for the tallest bit of land near you! Everything in this class is able to be changed up – and if you need help doing so just reach out and ask, I’m happy to help you.

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.

Sketchbook and tools

The class was designed for this 5×8 sketchbook but – if you have another vertical watercolor sketchbook you like, go for it! The tape here is 3/4″ and when I just priced it vs a thinner width, it was surprisingly cheaper for the wider tape. Go figure!

1. Pentalic Aqua Journal 5×8 BLICK |  AMZ 
2. ProConsole Artist tape 3/4″ AMZ
3. Westcott Tsquare JR BLICK  | AMZ

Watercolor paints

I recommend good watercolors – if you go cheap, you may get paints that fade out in light, and what fun is that to have around? Also – while I recommend the colors below, if you have a cool and warm red yellow and blue that are a little different, why not give them a try? You can always come back to this preclass lesson and snag the paints later.

So as I said, Daniel Smith makes quality artist paints – and they sell an Essentials set that’s perfect for a little kit and for learning to mix colors.

1. Daniel Smith Essentials Set BLICK |  AMZ |  JACKSONS 

Daniel Smith Watercolors can be purchased individually – linked are the 15ml tubes, whereas in the essentials set they’re 5ml tubes.

1. Cool colors:
   1. Hansa Yellow Light BLICK  | AMZ |  JACKSONS
   2. Quinacridone Rose BLICK |  AMZ | JACKSONS
   3. Phthalo Blue (Green Shade) BLICK | AMZ JACKSONS
2. Warm colors:
   1. New Gamboge BLICK | AMZ JACKSONS
   2. Pyrrol Scarlet BLICK | AMZ | JACKSONS
   3. French Ultramarine BLICK | AMZ |  JACKSONS

You’ll need something to mix paint in/on – you can use a white tile from the hardware store ($1), or a white plate (let it dry and you can keep rewetting the paint as needed). Or get a tiny palette; if your palette gets stained from the Phthalo Blue, use a Magic Eraser on it.

1. Whiskey Painters Scottie Artist mini palette   (oh my have prices gone up!)
2. Meeden (inexpensive) Watercolor Mini Palette 
3. Magic Eraser to clean palette

Brushes

You can use any brushes you like – in the course, demos will be painted with these four vegan brushes, but something similar sized in your own brush collection might be just dandy. Video below on the brushes.

1. Tintoretto Feltracco Travel Brush Series 1337 Round 8 JACKSON
2. Da Vinci Cosmotop Spin Brush set BLICK https://bit.ly/3XCuyeh AMZ https://amzn.to/43zZ641

Pens and pencils

I love a beautiful fountain pen, which is refillable – but you could also use micron pens. You’ll want something with waterproof ink:

1. TWSBI Eco fountain pen Fine nib  and Platinum Carbon Black Ink
2. OR a set of microns

You’ll also want whatever white pen you like, my recommendations would be either:

1. Uniball Signo BLICK | AMZ | JACKSONS
2. Copic Acrea paint marker BLICK AMZ

For pencils, it’ll help to have a soft pencil for transferring images, and a harder one that’ll be sharper and can press on the graphite on the back of the paper to push it across to the sketchbook (see the demo). A little set of pencils is a good thing:

1.  Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencils 6 BLICK |  AMZ  | JACKSONS
2. Faber Castell Kneaded Eraser BLICK | AMZ |  JACKSONS