I brought my compact travel art kit with me on a recent search for fossils along the coast of the North Sea. Creative inspiration can be found everywhere, and sometimes can reach all the way back into childhood memories. Join me as I share with you the treasures of the Yorkshire coast from fossils to the folklore-rich Witch Stones (aka Hag Stones, Odin Stones, Adder Stones) and some of the sketches this trip inspired.

A peek inside my thought process for creating a watercolour pet portrait of Bella, a sweet elderly dog for International Pet Day.

Ever wonder what is actually like trying to draw or paint moving animals from life? Join me as I take you through my sketching trip at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, including all the highs, lows, and surprises that sketching outside brings! There are things you can do in advance to help prepare you for success, and to determine what that success even is for you. However, a lot of the skill building will come from actually putting pen to paper on the day itself, despite all the chaos nature and other people may throw at you.

Sketching moving animals from life is a unique challenge, but is there a way to help prepare yourself for it? In this post I share how I prepped for a sketching trip at Yorkshire Wildlife Park, and a simple exercise to do at home that helps bridge the gap of drawing animals from reference images and animals from life. I also talk about how I choose my art supplies for the travel kit, and how preparing my creative mindset is integral to my self-studying practice.

Exploring my new six colour limited watercolour palette with an unconventional split primary yellow. I use Azo Orange for the warm yellow and Azo Green for the cool yellow, and explain how I can mix a yellow from the two. Let’s dive into some colour mixing and a sketchbook test with a leopard portrait.

How do you handle very intensely granulating paints in watercolour? Join me as I walk through how I planned the painting of a lion portrait in watercolour and gouache to account for the heavy granulation of French Ultramarine PB29 by Schmincke.

How I identify and use my fears in art to figure out what to create and study next. Art fears often are the origin of “art block”, an umbrella term encompassing many causes and types of creative blockages and things that cause an artist to not create the pictures they want to make. By recognising fear as a helpful tool in my creative journey I can use it to identify areas that may become potential blocks towards what I want to create, and instead formulate a plan to pursue art in that direction.

Art supply recommendations can be overwhelming and confusing, especially to beginners. There are so many opinions, and often contradicting information. Rather than adding another list of supplies to the noise, I offer a list of seven things to consider before buying art supplies to help you navigate all the information online.

If you spend time around art communities you may come across Draw This In Your Style challenges. In this blog post I share my approach to hosting my own DTIYS challenge using a recent ink and watercolour character illustration. I also explain what the challenge is, and how you can host your own.

Explaining my self studying method to prepare myself for painting animals from life this year. I share my process and thinking by talking through a recent pencil and watercolour sketch I did of the polar bear Hamish. The goal-focused method involves considering the materials, conditions, time constraints, and approaches required when painting a moving animal on location.

After a surprise visit to the Ruskin Collection in Sheffield, and taking my sketchbook out to draw there, I ponder the benefits of observational sketching, developing and artists eye, and creating our own collections of oddities and curiosities for still life studies.

A peek into my creative process of taking a sketch from my sketchbook and turning it into ink and watercolour illustration. I’m only using one pen for inking the lineart of this medieval era inspired elf character.