On Sketching
A spring (April and May 2025) Painting Letter
Hi, I hope you are doing well.
I combined the April and May newsletters into one because I’d love to share the sketches and drawings I’ve been working on over the past two months. They may seem simple or even a bit rough, but they’ve been incredibly helpful for improving my skills.
I think there are two variables that come to mind when I reflect on my sketching practice: drawing what I see in a quick and effective way. A sketch, by definition, is a simple, quickly-made drawing that doesn’t include many details, according to the Cambridge dictionary.
First of all, sketching frees my mind from the pressure of perfectly reproducing what I see. It allows me to put a few lines on paper, clear my thoughts, and let the joy in. Time is crucial here: quick sketches are meant to be quick, reducing the gap between intention and action. There’s a spontaneous element that naturally comes into play.
Secondly, these sketches are an amazing exercise in learning to choose what matters and what doesn’t. They make the block-in practice both efficient and fun. By sketching quickly, I basically don’t give myself time to overthink how I should be drawing, I just get to work.
It’s about wanting to draw or sketch and doing it right away, opening a sketchbook or a drawing pad and making some marks. Sketching whatever is in front of you, maybe even using a fun color. Just sketch. And enjoy it.
These casual and quick exercises help improve my drawing skills. Over time and with practice, the way I observe becomes sharper. When I aim for a more accurate drawing, I do invest more time into it. But the principle of deciding which elements should be included and which can be left out remains very similar, in my opinion.
I see it as a matter of spending more time and adding more detail to the initial block-in of the sketch. There's also an opportunity to be more intentional, knowing that you're committing to a more detailed drawing that demands your full observational and measuring skills.
I would love to say that I have my painter glasses on non stop, so I see masses of color and structures quite often and when something catches my attention, there is a profound need to reflect that on paper or canvas. Doing what you like, what it makes you feel happy it is important too in my opinion. Sometimes I just want to feel the pencil on top of the paper.
I work a lot with digital images that I take with my cameras or iPhone. They’re an essential part of both how I create and how I share my work. I really enjoy taking photos and recording videos of my daily life: the places I go and the experiences I have. Most of the time, when I’m not working from life (which doesn’t happen very often), I return to those images.
For example, I know how beautiful the landscapes are here in Belgium, where I live, and I love revisiting those photos to understand how they’re structured and explore how I can interpret them in my own way through painting.
These are some sketches I did, inspired by landscapes I saw in the countryside—like the ones shared above. I recorded a video for my YouTube channel where I sketch on an A3 Fabriano spiral drawing pad using black oil pastel. It’s all about simplifying the drawing and making quick, expressive marks.
JOIN ME ON PATREON
I recently shared with my patrons a casual video sharing some thoughts about how quick sketches are improving my drawing skills.
If you want to support my work on Patreon you can join on two different tiers:
One being the Studio Support tier starting at 3 euro per month or join me on the Sketchbook Session tier starting at 7 euro per month (having access to all content of the Studio Tier), where once a month, I go live on a quiet livestream working on my sketchbook. These are two sketches done on the May Quiet Livestream Sketchbook Session.
LATEST VIDEOS
On my YouTube channel you can watch two recent videos where I am sketching on my sketchbook. The first one where I just made some blue crayon sketches and, the second one, making a more elaborate portrait drawing on my bigger sketchbook. This is the perfect time for subscribe to my channel, if you haven’t :)
Before I go, I’d love to share this resource with you. The Prado Museum in Madrid offers a free Virtual Tour on its website, you can literally ‘walk’ through the digital museum and explore its collection in amazing image quality. I’m not an expert on how it works, but here’s a tip: if you want to see a specific painting in the collection (like Velázquez’s Las Meninas), you can search on Google to find which room it’s in and then use the interactive map to go directly there
I hope you have a nice day. Thank you for taking your time to read this Spring painting Letter and subscribe to it. I wish you lots of happy times sketching with your favorite medium, if that is something you like to do :)
I am curious what kind of sketchbook/paper do you like to use to sketch? Always happy to talk about art supplies.
See you next time.
Elena
A quality newsletter - thankyou for the insightful reflections on sketching & your process.