Creative Sketchbooking by Pam Garrison

All levels | 2 hours 32 min

Taught by Pam Garrison

In this first class, Pam Garrison shares simple exercises for releasing creative inhibitions in your sketchbook. You will use both your dominant and non-dominant hands to create blind contour drawings that look like mere scribbles on paper, then use a colorful paint palette to transform those scribbles into thoughtfully painted shapes. This exercise results in aesthetically pleasing sketchbook pages that are created through the process of intuitive creative exploration.

Learn how to:

Do dominant and non-dominant hand blind contour drawing
Fill in your blind contour drawings with paint

Chapters

Playing with Pens and Paint
Series Overview01:19
Part 1 Overview01:07
Materials01:37

Sketching and Painting
Dominant hand sketching03:27
Non-dominant hand sketching02:32
Painting20:49

Final Details
Finishing line work12:28

Materials

Here’s what you’ll need:

Two sketchbooks of any size with paper that can handle water (Pam uses a mixed media sketchbook and a watercolor sketchbook)

Waterproof ballpoint pens

Black and white gelly roll pens

Uni-ball pens

Variety of paintbrushes (Pam uses a simple variety 6-pack from Michaels)

Paint palette

Variety of colors of craft paint (Pam uses a vibrant selection of neon and bright colored paints, but you can also use primary colors or any colors of your choice)

One sheet blotter paper or watercolor paper

Learn how to do blind contour drawing with your dominant and non-dominant hand and fill in your abstract drawing with acrylic craft paints.

Learn the foundation for creating mixed media art in this class with artist Pam Garrison using pens and acrylic craft paint.

Member Gallery

Browse members' projects from this class and share your own work! Learn how to take great photos here.

ADD YOUR IMAGE

Discussion

Notes

Your timecode tags and notes for this section

Transcript

Creative Sketchbooking

Now Playing

Part 1:

Creative Sketchbooking: Playing with Pens and Paint

Pam Garrison

Watch Preview

Chapters Materials Gallery

Part 2:

Creative Sketchbooking: Painted Backgrounds and Responsive Drawing

Pam Garrison

Now that you’ve had a chance to practice with pens and paints, let’s play with a few new mediums. In this class, Pam shows how to create watercolor backgrounds in a variety of colors and brushstrokes. Allow yourself to see whatever shapes come to mind and loosely outline them with pen. Add pops of color with brush pens and colored pencils, or leave your composition as is—let your creativity take the lead.

Watch Preview

Chapters Materials Gallery

Part 3:

Creative Sketchbooking: Playing with Collage

Pam Garrison

Now that you’ve created several spreads in your sketchbook, learn how to add elements of collage and hand lettering. Using cut out cardstock shapes or old paint chips, learn how to use collage to cover up unwanted doodles or to add extra dimension to your background. To complete your composition, use hand lettering to fill in blank spaces with a favorite word or quote. Best of all, Pam shares various techniques to create your own unique lettering style.

Watch Preview

Chapters Materials Gallery

Part 4:

Creative Sketchbooking: Out of the Sketchbook and Onto the Canvas

Pam Garrison

Combine all of the techniques you’ve learned in this course to create a cohesive and stunning piece of wall art. Before you get started, you’ll need to decide which mediums and techniques you’d like to use in your artwork. Once you have a rough plan, Pam will walk you through the process of pulling these elements together to create an expressive statement piece.

Watch Preview

Chapters Materials Gallery