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Every time when the end of a journal draws closer, with just a few pages left – something starts itching. It’s the anticipation, knowing that with just a few pages left, another book is filled with memories, special moments, random sketches and a lot of learning curves.
It’s also the anticipation of a new sketchbook! I don’t know about you, but I have a stack of empty sketchbooks, of different sizes and brands, so I get to choose every time. I like changing format and paper quality, rather than sticking to one particular brand or size. The start of a new sketchbook means new challenges, experiments and play!
So these pages below are quite random – the last one of my Stillman and Birn sketchbook, that I bought in the US. Up next is a Seawhite landscape sketchbook.
Painting fruit with watercolors, and playing around with new tools on the right hand side page: goache!
Enjoying a Saturday afternoon with an espresso, with an interesting perspective – looking downwards from the first floor of the coffee shop.
The post Those last few pages of a journal appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
Summer is on my mind…. i wonder if you could tell by my sketchbook pages.
The post Summer on my mind appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
I am so excited that in Sketchbook Skool, we keep adding amazing artists to our Fakulty. Nina Johansson, who is a fantastic illustrator, urban sketcher and watercolourist is officially joining us, and I just got back from Stockholm, where we filmed a bunch of lessons with her.
She is very inspiring, and so is her art, but Nina is also my kinda gal – positive, passionate, skillful and she has a great sense of humour to top it all off.
We’d been preparing for the video shoot via email and Skype – and then meeting in person is such a treat – especially since she’s been such a great host to make my stay in Stockholm convenient and fun.
Thanks to all great prep work and to our creative film crew, everything went smooth and we had a lot of fun during the shoot!
Gabrielle (sound), Me, Peter (camera) and Nina
An extra treat after wrapping up was having dinner and a sketch with Nina in the center of Stockholm, celebrating our accomplishment.
And on my way back, I made good use of my travel time and enjoyed drawing.
I absolutely love how the drawing below turned out – using just a fountain pen and a grey brushpen. It also opened up an interesting conversation with two of the flight attendants who spotted my drawing. I love how art can connect!
The post Sketchbook Skool News: Nina Johansson! appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
Draw Tip: Do you have no idea what to draw? Draw people! It’s a great exercise on drawing features, hands, gestures, postures and shadows, and to try out all kinds of art tools. And: you will never run out of subjects because they are everywhere.
The post Drawing People appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
Welcome to Draw Tip Tuesday!
Do you ever fear that first blank page in a brand new sketchbook? I think we all do. It’s a blank slate, a new start. Which is awesome, but what if that first drawing doesn’t quite work out the way it looked in your head? Um well, nothing disastrous about that, BUT it can make you procrastinate on your first drawing in a new sketchbook. Procrastinating could easily lead you out of the drawing habit, and we don’t want that!
Have no fear. There’s a simple solution and it’s a golden oldie.
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The post Draw Tip Tuesday: How To Deal With The Blank Page appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
Often during sketch meet ups, I feel torn between: ‘I wanna make a ton of sketches!’, ‘I love meeting and hanging out with other sketchers!’, ‘I want a look into each everyone’s sketchbooks!’… And then I end up with one or two pages with half-hearted drawings, just because I was distracted by my own thoughts or not focusing on either hanging out with the others or my drawings….
Yesterday, though, it went well. The ‘official’ sketch crawl started at 2 in the afternoon, but I hooked up with some early bird sketchers to draw in the hall of the Rijksmuseum for a couple of hours. A perfect place to observe, study and sketch people. I stood close to where people line up for tickets, so sometimes there would be a long line of people waiting, that I could study closely, and then I would alternate that by drawing people from a bit further away when the line got shorter.
I had to ‘collage’ people (especially in the second drawing, in which I wanted to capture a scene), as they were coming and going. So I would draw someone’s coat or hairdo, combine it with someone else’s legs or posture, and use a third, fourth, or even fifth person for the hands, shoes, features…
A lot of fun!
Later we met up with a group of about 20 sketchers and hung out in Vondelpark, at ‘t Blauwe Theehuis, which is one of my favourite places because of the building, its location and the great atmosphere. Oh and pretty good coffee too. The weather was nicer than expected but very cold, so I just enjoyed drawing the bar and the people in the cafe inside.
Later we all ‘crawled’ to the next location – it had to be an inside location because it was just too cold. Great hanging out for hours with this fun mix of people who all have one thing in common: the love for drawing!
The post The Amsterdam Urban Sketchers – sketchcrawl appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
Tomorrow, April 23 is the 51st World Wide Sketchcrawl.
‘Sketch-a-what?’, you may ask. A sketch crawl basically is an event where a group of people gathers to sketch. The group could stay at one place or move from location to location, sketching the place and then moving on to the next. All over the world, there are ‘urban sketchers’ groups you can join for these sketch meet ups.
It’s a great way to meet like-minded people and inspiring artists. If you think it’s scary to draw on location, drawing in a group like this can be your first step to many adventures outdoors. It feels safe because you’re not alone, and you will feel encouraged and inspired by the others.
The Worldwide Sketchcrawl Day has an extra aspect: it’s a quarterly event on which sketch crawls are held all over the globe, all on the same day.
You can read more about the World Wide Sketchcrawl here, and find out where a sketch crawl is held near you, here.
Here in Amsterdam, a group of sketchers will meet at ‘t Blauwe Theehuis (one of my favorite places ever since I was a kid) in Vondelpark
Will you be out sketching on location with some sketch pals too?
Or maybe, if you’re in or around Amsterdam, join us!
You can find details on Facebook, here.
The post World Wide Sketchcrawl appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
By: Koosje Koene,
on 4/18/2016
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Welcome to draw Tip Tuesday!
Here’s today’s tip: always carry a sketchbook with you, and use it. You will create a treasure of memories for yourself, capturing things photos or videos could never do.
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So – use your journal and make awesome art.
The post Draw Tip Tuesday: How To Make Your Drawings Count appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
As a kid in high school, I learned about hatching and cross hatching in art class. I absolutely loved it! A while ago, my dad found this drawing I made in class, for an assignment on cross hatching. I got an 8.2 for it, which is a very fine grade! (homework is graded on a scale of 1-10)
I still really do love hatching and crosshatching. Adding it to a line drawing creates such a fantastic sense of light and depth and volume and shape. Another advantage is that it brings you into an almost meditative state.
The drawings below were done in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I ran out of time on that right hand side page, but I quite like the unfinished drawing. I added a splash of watercolour to bring some balance to the journal spread.
The post Hooked on Hatching appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
I love drawing on location! Lately, I really enjoy drawing interiors, for some reason, and i love the fact that there’s always surprises and interesting corners to draw, when you really take a close look. An extra challenge is also people coming and going, or other things changing while you are drawing a scene. While I was doing the drawing below, the waiter suddenly started to move tables to prepare for a large group coming in later – it messed with my reference points but luckily, I had most of the needed things in there already and didn’t need to bother drawing the tables in their changed positions. It happens, you know – it’s a bit of ‘risk-taking’. And that’s part of the fun: you can’t always control the situation.
But what if you can’t go to a cafe, a mall, or some interesting place for a drawing? Well, your living room will do just as well!
Each time I draw our living room, I notice different things. I choose different angles to draw from and it never gets boring.
…especially when living with a musician, there are many instruments scattered around. And again: it’s a bit of risk-taking because you never know if any of the instruments you’re drawing is going to be picked up and played on!
The post Places appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
…and then suddenly you catch the flu! Well, I did, in any case. I think it’s been 20 since I caught the flu virus that kept me in bed for over a week. It messed with my body, my brain, my schedule, even my drawing skills… And it meant I couldn’t make any new Draw Tip Tuesdays!
I feel a lot better now, thanks, even though I’m still in recovery mode.
So anyway, that’s why today will be Throwback Tuesday – once again, by popular demand: How to draw buildings without feeling intimidated!
The post Draw Tip Tuesday – Urban Sketching appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
Sometimes you just don’t know where to start when you are somewhere and you want to capture the scene or the vibe, or all the colours that you see… Well I learned a fantastic trick from Miguel Herranz: capture parts of the scene in frames, and fill your page like that. 
If you draw a scene, but don’t have time to fill the whole page with all the things you see in the background, add lettering instead. A great way to document things and make notes so you won’t forget.
Or if a scene overwhelms you, you could just use a tiny sketchbook, and make a quick, tiny drawing. When it’s small, you can’t add too much detail, so the size helps you to filter them out:
Here’s another way: to capture different moments all on one page:
What I also really like doing, is to use a grey brush marker to add quick background shapes – it adds a certain sense of depth to a line drawing.
The post Travel Journal pages #4 appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
On my recent trip to Thailand, I brought a Moleskine, a tiny sketchbook for quick small sketches, and a Strathmore Grey toned peper sketchbook, which I dedicated a while ago to draw ‘places’ in. These can be interiors, or interesting places I visit – well anything really. For the drawings I use black pen and I hatch the colour in with colour pencils.
So I drew my view sitting in front of our hotel room in Chiang Mai City:
And I drew the most spectacular tree house in Rabaeng Pasak Treehouse Resort:
And the view from the bed right after waking up in Lhongkao Resort:
And one at the last day before flying back to Amsterdam – the view from the hotel in Chiang Mai City: I did this drawing kind of rushed and I like it the least of this series, because it has no particular focus point and it looks a bit disorganized. But still – it contains great memories, and when I look at it i feel the heat again, hear the city sounds and the chattering of the people below the balcony. And capturing the moment and the memory is what it’s all about.
The post Travel Journal Pages #3 appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
By: Koosje Koene,
on 1/17/2016
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Yesterday I showed the travel journal pages I filled before the new year started. Here’s more!
Food, of course… I just have to document it, when it’s good. Can’t help myself.
We rented a motorcycle and left Chiang Mai City. Travelling light has a lot of advantages. You don’t need to schlepp around all kinds of unnecessary things (that you won’t use anyway) all the time, and you can travel with 2 people on one motorcycle. One bag in front, one at the back and you’re good to go!
So we went up north and found a gorgeous place – a treehouse resort of which I will share a drawing later, in a different post. 
Oh and.. more food…
A page in my mini-sketchbook on a sleepy morning in Mae Ha Pra. Doing art during breakfast.
And one of those typical drawings where the hand goes and starts drawing lines and the mind goes: “What are you doing? are you really going to draw all these leaves? This is way too complex!”. Because I really loved the feeling of the black ink lines flowing onto the watercolour background I prepared the night before, it was easy to ignore that voice in my head and just go along with it, bit by bit. I am very happy how it turned out and it reminds me of the fact what a difference it can make to work on a watercolour background – the sunny yellow adds so much to this line drawing!
The post Travel Journal Pages #2 appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
Now that I’m catching my breath after the very exciting pre-launch week of the new term in Sketchbook Skool (you didn’t sign up for “Expressing” yet? Seriously? You still can; there are a few seats left! Click here to sign up right now before enrollment closes!), I would like to share my travel journal pages I filled during the trip to Thailand I came back from last weekend.
The excitement of a holiday starts in the plane! So great to kill time during a long flight. I didn’t even watch any movies; drawing this was very satisfying. After finishing, I put an eye mask over my eyes, an audiobook in my ears and managed to get a little bit of sleep.
You may have noticed I have visited Thailand more than once – I and my husband just really love the country. There are so many beautiful places to discover, the people are so lovely, the pace is so much slower than here in the Netherlands, the temperatures are so lovely in winter, and of course… the food is delicious!
We stayed in Chiang Mai City for the first days, to acclimatize a little and to shake off business and busy-ness.
And to spend new year’s eve.
The tradition of letting up paper lanterns for good luck is (although quite polluting) very magical.
I wanted to draw that! So I decorated the first page of my sketchbook – there was a LOT of hatching, I kept coming back to it to fill the dark sky.
The post Travel Journal Pages #1 appeared first on Make Awesome Art.
My online drawing course "Just Draw It!" has been running over the past 6 weeks.
The group of participants has been awesome! They worked on their assignments with a lot of excitement, putting a lot of time and effort in practicing the techniques they were learning.
They're energy sparked on to me each time I logged in to the course platform, to give them feedback and help them to take their drawings onto the next level. It's fantastic to see people's skills grow, and seeing the drawings develop in such a short amount of time!
"Just Draw It" is designed to make you more confident about drawing by taking small steps at a time. Quite a lot of participants have mentioned in their introductions that they would love to try drawing in public, but they just feel it's too scary or intimidating, they don't feel confident enough.
To take that step out of the comfort zone, at the end of this course I declared today to be 'Just Draw It Sketchcrawl Day'.
All participants of the online drawing class were heading outside on the same day, and sketch in public. We may all live in different parts of the globe, but still, we're doing it together. It's a comforting and empowering thought that while you are putting your lines on paper, your class mates are doing the same thing in their own corner of the world.
So that's what I did. I headed out with my sketchbook, made sure to stay caffeinated, and drew. I had a fantastic morning!
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| I started my 'sketchcrawl' at one of the many Saturday markets in Amsterdam. I sat on stone steps, on a folded cardboard box from the flower market stall so I wouldn't get super cold quickly. |
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| Of course I DID get cold but that was a great excuse to 'crawl' towards a nice and warm place to sip a cappuccino while sketching the people around me. I used a multi coloured colour pencil. |
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| I really enjoyed doing those quick people sketches so I filled another page and used coloured pencils and a grey brush marker to add a bit of colour. Then I needed a change of scenery so I 'crawled' to the busy indoor market, and used colour pencils to sketch people there. |
Urban Sketching can be fun and adventurous. It allows you to sit down and stare. It brings you to places where you normally wouldn't spend as much time. You get to spy on people.
And sometimes you'll be surprised by people who come up to you:Last weekend the weather was gorgeous. Crisp air, lovely warm autumn sun. So I found myself a seat in the sun to enjoy an hour of sketching while listening to an audiobook. A sweet couple came up to me and asked if they could take pictures of the drawing, and of me. I felt kind of silly to go on the photo but we had a great conversation about drawing and making art. This wouldn't have happened if I would have stayed at home to draw at the kitchen table.
Welcome to Draw Tip Tuesday!
I often use a water brush when I am drawing on location. I received several questions about it so here's a quick video of what exactly the waterbrush is.
Whether you’re using a jar of water and a brush, or you find yourself a water brush, you can make awesome art.
And if you want to learn more, head on over to my website,
koosjekoene.nl and join one of my classes today!
We all want the perfect circumstances. The perfect tools. The right time and place and the most interesting and meaningful subject to draw. But sometimes you just need to get over your perfectionistic self, and just sit down and draw. I filled this sketchbook spread while sipping a take away coffee on the Amsterdam Leidseplein. I usually never hang out there (because it's kinda touristy and busy) but circumstances brought me there so I just started to draw what was in front of me and highly enjoyed it.
Welcome to Draw Tip Tuesday!
Do you think urban sketching is intimidating? Do you wonder where to even start when drawing architecture? And what about perspective and vanishing points? Yikes, it can all be so overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. As long as you trust your eyes.
There's more where this came from! Follow me on YouTube by clicking here Copyrights koosjekoene.nl
Music by Pascalo
No thanks I don't feel like talking about the above. Still, I wanted to share this art journal page with you, and give you a few draw tips:
Tip 1
Whatever is going on in your life - draw anyway.
It
will make you feel better, even if it's just a little -
it'll get your mind off of things for a moment.Tip 2
Hanging out with other sketchers is also very helpful - I felt lucky to join the latest Amsterdam Sketchcrawl. Lots of chatting plus some sketching - both of Amsterdam and of my fellow sketchers:
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| The Prinsengracht (canal) and some fellow sketchers at the quai side |
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| Sipping fresh mint tea, chatting about art supplies, drawing, and sketching each other |
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| Sitting at the bar - I am still planning to add a bit of text (a conversatiuon I overheard while I was sitting there) in the white area on the right page |
In case you're concerned: I am feeling much better now.
Tip 3
Buy yourself a little art supply present - it'll want you try it and before you know it, you are experimenting and playing... which will make you feel so good!
I bought a bottle of brown ink, filled my fountain pen with it and did a selfie - I enjoyed every minute of it.
Last year when I was in New York, I visited a couple of art supply shops and came back to Amsterdam with my trolley being super heavy because of the stacks of sketchbooks I found of sizes and brands that aren't so easy to get by here in the Netherlands. They are great souvenirs and will last quite a while too!
One of the sketchbooks I found there was a Strathmore toned paper book. In the netherlands, you can only get them with a ring binding and a flappy front and back, this one is nicely bound with a hard cover.
I had been drooling over Miguel Herranz's toned sketchbook pages, and even made a little drawing of my coffee in Danny's grey toned sketchbook when we met in Amsterdam in 2013. Both of them had told me that there is quite a challenge in finding the right way to make good use of the toned paper and to keep at it until the very last page. Others too told me that the toned background is fun but tricky.
So I knew it was time to try it myself. If you follow me here on my blog or elsewhere on social media, you will have seen many of these toned paper sketches in the past months.
I found that the brown paper background seemed to work really good with black pen and a pinch of white. I used a white gel pen for bright whites, but a white colour pencil could do too. Sometimes I would add a dash of 1 single colour with colour pencil. A grey brush pen was wonderful to add some shadows, or to create a bit of a 'blurry' background. Watercolours did not work at all, colour pencils however, gave a bright effect. I discovered though that in all drawings I should use a graphic approach and stay away from super realistic pencil or colour pencil drawings. Think black pen lines were mostly the best basic starting point.
And then, finally, during my stay in Norway, when I had hours of drawing time, I sat down at the small kitchen table to draw the kitchen. At first I made a black line drawing and added shading with hatching lines. I was pretty happy about the result - but I wanted to get all the colours in too. So I grabbed my colour pencils and instead of colouring each surface evenly, I decided to keep on hatching.
So finally, almost at the end of the sketchbook, Ifound the right approach for this toned paper background! Such a revelation!
I discovered not just the technique that worked best for me, but also the subject that works best: rather than drawing an object, I should draw (part of an) interior!
So I made another interior drawing, of the living room (in the back, you can see the blue kitchen table I made the kitchen-drawing at).
At the last day, I sat myself down on a tree trunk in the front garden to draw the cottage again and played around a little more with my coloure pencils.
Boy am I glad I bought another one of those sketchbooks: I have one with grey paper and I might just dedicate it to drawing interiors only. It'll take a while to fill it because these drawings are quite elaborate, but that's okay - it may be a great project for winter!
Summer in the city! Gosh we are lucky lately, with wonderful days of warm sunny weather.
What do you do when the weather is so gorgeous? Head outside and draw, of course!
Great view. And it's all mine!
I realize time and time again that I am a real city girl. Sure, sometimes the busyness of the city and the rush the city is in and the impatience people have sometimes gets on my nerves. But mostly, I enjoy living in the city. And even in a busy city like Amsterdam, you can always find sweet, quiet spots that make you forget about location overall.
At least I don't need to worry there's nothing to draw, that's for sure!
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