This sketchbook session is a bit special, so it gets its own blogpost!

Earlier this week, ‘Nordic winter’ was the theme of TJ’s Patreon session, and we were going to draw/paint/sketch with a collection of my winter photographs as the references. TJ made a selection with views from Swedish towns, a landscape from Finland/Lapland, a few shots of my dogs, and the lighthouse from Denmark.

I had so much ‘goesting’ (craving) for neon pink. It is a joyful and bright paint that is incredibly hard to capture in a picture but fun to work with. I just had to use it. Using such a bright pink also helped me to let go of the reference images with the goal of creating sketches that were rather interpretations than capturing a moment- since, in a way, I had already captured the moment before.

TJ challenged herself to only use acrylic paint this month (and she has a beautiful color palette!), but while we were free to use any medium we liked, I gladly got the acrylics out after exploring gouache for a while. I noticed that TJ’s paint looks very different from mine. It’s fluid and it keeps moving while mine is much thicker with less fluid textures. I can add water or a medium to mine (TJ also adds water), but it’s not just about water. I discovered that there are 3 types of acrylic paint: soft body, heavy body, and fluid. I probably just walked past all the other options when I buy the paint tubes that I’m familiar with, but it’s good to know- and I’m curious about testing different paints.
Btw, it’s not just in acrylic paints that there are so many options these days. I recently saw an illustrator working with a fluid kind of acrylic gouache- while I am still swearing and making a mess with these old-school glass paint pots lol. I’m so tempted to try everything I see, but I already have so many materials ugh.

Neons and paints are all great fun, but the cherry on the cake was without any doubt seeing the sketches of the other participants. So exciting! Especially the ones featuring my dogs, … because, you know,… (my) dogs haha!

Often when I capture a moment to draw or paint, it feels like there is only one logical direction or outcome. The colors that I pick, and the lines that I put down, are my way of processing what I see through a medium onto paper. Seeing the work of others is such a pleasant surprise! There is a probability that this feeling of direction results from me eliminating certain options or making quick and unconscious decisions as I am already the photographer. Documenting real moments with a camera asks for quick decisions. You have to capture the light, decide on aperture and shutter speed, composition, and sometimes emotions too. Full on sunlight, backlit, blue hour,… all these factors set the mood of a photo.

When I am presented with references created by others, or a whole landscape in front of me, the choices are either not mine or possibly overwhelming and I have to start the whole process of decision making from scratch. I’m thinking out loud here, but I wonder if/how reference images influence the process. Would it be, for example, helpful for someone who feels stuck not knowing what to draw, or how to overcome the fear of the white page, to create their own reference images? Or is a big part of a concept like a live drawing session, the fact that we are presented with images that already set us free from deciding what to draw?

ps: I also shared close-up shots in the end to show a bit of the paint/pencil textures.