A Final Lesson on Sketching

The Sketch in Color has gone over textures, shapes, perspectives, and coloring. Now, it's time to go over techniques and tips, and ways to improve upon the basic structure of the sketch. One of these ways is to combine your tools--for example, using both marker and pen to outline the sketch.

Markers make significantly thicker lines than a pen does, which can be used to draw attention to bold surfaces and places where I want the shapes to stand out. They can also be used to highlight the center of interest. Aside from the regular black, colored markers are another way of coloring in a sketch.

I decided to try combining these two tools on a sketch of a tree to see what would come out of it. When it comes to the marker, Oliver recommends using "the side of the tip to create strong dramatic strokes", as well as to "emphasize the shadow areas on the branches under the foliage" (Oliver 48). I used the ink pen for the finer strokes and created variety in my sketch.

The black marker works really well with creating powerful shadows.

So, the title might say that this is a final lesson on sketching, but that's only because this is the last blog post I'll be making based around this book. In reality, learning about art and ways to create it is a never-ending (and enjoyable) learning process. I'll be continuing to apply Oliver's tips to my own sketches as I move forward!

If you've already finished your own blog posts, were you satisfied with what you learned? How are you going to apply that knowledge to the things you do in the future?

Oliver, Robert S. The Sketch in Color. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983. Print.