I went through and looked up all the times I’ve taken, or partially taken, Sketchbook Design. Every class with Liz Steel begins with posting one’s current sketch. A sample of where their style and skills are before beginning the course. I was curious what had I posted before each run, and it always is so interesting to look back and review.
These are from the years 2021, 2023, 2024, and 2025.
This year, it seems I’ve mostly just made pages with weather cards on them, so that is most definitely my “current” style of page!
This is also one of those unfinished pages from my previous entry. Obviously another week passed, so I added yet more date and weather cards. Then I decided it was a good page to finish off by documenting this year’s planner season, and Hobonichi purchasing. Just like that, it’s a page about current life!
Liz Steel’s Sketching Now Travel Sketching live run, begins later this month and I am jumping back in for my third attempt. I did finish the first run. The second run, I started but let’s just say life had other plans. I have tagged the whole archive of my posts if you want to see the full saga. The official start date is May 13th, but I’m getting a head start on the Introduction lessons.
The “Before” Sketch
The Introduction includes a “current sketch” exercise. Your sketching where you are right now, before the course begins. Since I’ve done this before, I decided to sketch my back yard again. This is the same view I did as my first before sketch. Not only has the yard changed, but so has my sketching.
Naturally, I also had to document the fact that after seven months of delays in the landscaping (It’s been a whole drama!) the yard has finally been weeded. Those prickly lettuce plants had grown over six feet tall. Six feet! They were taller than me. I have photographic evidence. I think they were starting to develop permanent occupation plans. So the timing of this sketch gets to commemorate both that drama and its blissful conclusion on the day I did these. A dramatic before and after set of sketches for the yard.
The before sketch, with weeds, is in the Albrecht Dürer watercolor pencils, The after sketch is GoldFaber Aqua Markers. You can see the difference in the mediums, since I used the same color palette for both sketches. The marker version is noticeably brighter and more saturated; it’s the same scene, same composition, same palette, but a different medium. I really want to see how different mediums behave, and comparing the same color palette is a great way to do that.
Backyard, full of weeds in in Albrecht Dürer watercolor pencils.Back yard, freshly weeded, in GoldFaber Aqua Markers.
The yard features some very photogenic old barrel planters that are in the process of dramatically decomposing. They show up in both sketches as dark, slightly melancholy blobs surrounded by splaying lines. Less moody than the photographs of them!
Back yard sketches, before and after weeding. 30 April 2026.
The Kit
Part of the Introduction is also assembling materials for the travel sketching kit and doing a color/material chart. I wrote about my obsession with testing multiple media in this limited palette.
Travel Sketching Kit, April/May 2026.
Here’s what I’ll be working with for this run:
For line work, I have an Isograph 005 and 0.30, a TWSBI Urban Gray (F nib), a Copic BS, a Pentel Brush Sepia, and a Tombow WB-HB Fudenosuke Hard.
The course calls for graphite, but I’m skipping it since I find graphite too smudgy. I do have the one 3H pencil. For pencil sketches, however, I’m substituting three Derwent Inktense pencils: Charcoal (2100), Neutral (2120), and Sepia Ink (2010). I also have the class palette in Albrecht Dürer watercolor pencils, Derwent Inktense pencils, plus GoldFaber Aqua Dual Markers, Albrecht Dürer Pitt WC Markers, Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush pens, and Neocolor II water-soluble crayons.
For watercolor, my palette is: Hansa Yellow Light, Hansa Yellow Medium, Monte Amiata Natural Sienna, Quinacridone Gold, Transparent Pyrrol Orange, Quinacridone Rose, Potter’s Pink, Sap Green, Cobalt Turquoise Light, Cobalt Blue, French Ultramarine, Transparent Red Oxide, Van Dyke Brown, and Shadow Violet. There are also two Caput Mortuum swatches at the side, because I’m currently infatuated with that color.
The Sketchbook
I’ll be starting in my current 6×9 inch Stillman & Birn Alpha, even though I only have a few pages left in it. Shortly I’ll be moving to a 7.5×7.5 inch softcover Alpha. Both are Stillman & Birn, both are the Alpha series, just slightly different proportions. It’ll be interesting to see how the square format feels for travel sketching.
The weeds are gone, the kit is ready, and the barrel planters have been immortalized in watercolor. What more could I need? I’m ready!
Concluding The Messy Middle from last week, you saw a sketchbook in progress — pages waiting, spaces held open, intentions taped into place. This is the update. The pages are filled. Titles are added.
Frank Lloyd Wright Spire, three sketches
This is my Edges Lesson One outdoor outing — the Frank Lloyd Wright Spire at the little commemorative park at Scottsdale Road and Frank Lloyd Wright Blvd, sketched on location. I knew it was going to be the last good weather day for a while, so there was no hesitation — I had to get out there while I could.
The sketches are chaotic in the best way — three poses of the spire, which also happens to tie in perfectly with Liz Steel’s Patreon March Challenge of three things. The outing felt messy and alive, and I wrote all of it down right there on the page while I was still sitting in the shade. I finished this page by adding the date and the Title to it. I also tried to lift the wet paint transfer that the wind had put on the ink sketches.
Bathtime at the Reflection Pool — 15 grackles and 1 lovebird
But this is the page that made the whole outing. I’d gone to sketch the spire, and I found a lovebird.
Fifteen grackles and one lovebird, bathing at the reflection pool. A few escaped from a pet store years ago, apparently, and they’ve been surviving in the wild ever since. I spotted it, grabbed some photos, and left the blank page so I could paint these birds at home.
One lovebird, three poses — green, orange, and full of personality
Three lovebirds — one lovebird in three poses, because it was there taking a bath. They’re green and orange and yellow and absolutely full of personality. The journaling on the left is written in that teal colour block wash, and it holds the whole story of the outing: the victory of getting outside, the chaos of the spire, the unexpected gift of the birds.
One Week 100 People — 30 done, faces and figures
The One Week 100 People page got its finishing touches too — thirty people including the children, faces in watercolour on the left, ink figures on the right. I added the numbers and the titles to finish off this page.
Weather log 11–19 March 2026 — record breaking heat in March
I knew my outing day was the last cooler day for awhile, but wow has the heat spiked! Breaking records by a mile! And it’s just going to get hotter, if you can believe that. I don’t usually see these kind of temperatures until May. We went from a warm pleasant 84°F on Wednesday the 11th to 103°F — record breaking — by Wednesday the 18th, with an Extreme Heat Warning extending through the 22nd. In March. The thermometer icon I drew in red says everything. And it’s only getting hotter!
Titles and notes help complete pages, and aid in telling the story of the everyday life I’m documenting with my sketchbook. This mini series of posts has shown a bit of the process for what is usually only shown completed. It’s easy to think I should complete pages in just one sitting, all perfect, but the truth is that isn’t how it’s done, really, if you are going to add a little sketchbook design to your pages.
Yesterday, I went out and sketched on location, which I rarely do
This was Lesson One of my Edges sketching course — the outdoor assignment. I picked the Frank Lloyd Wright spire in Scottsdale. I’ve photographed it many times, but never tried to sketch it. The assignment was to sketch a monument, and this spire came to mind. I had no idea how complicated that thing actually is.
I picked the best possible day for it, keeping a sharp eye on the swings in temperature lately. Clouds were big and plentiful, temperatures a gorgeous 74°F, with plenty of shade. I knew I had to grab it — next week is forecast to hit 100°F, which would be the earliest I’ve ever seen it that high. So Tuesday it was.
I did two ink sketches first — the assignment was to sketch edges where planes change, so I did one thumbnail of the whole spire and one attempting a closer view. I liked how the plants came out. The angles on the spire itself? Not so much. It is genuinely, mercilessly complex and I had completely missed that fact until I was sitting in front of it with a pen in my hand.
Then I moved on to a direct watercolor sketch to do the changes is color assignment. This became a wet, blobby situation. And then the wind caught the wet page, flipped it over, and smeared wet paint all over the ink sketches on the other side. Ack!
Of course it did.
The wind had danced with my page, and I had a puddle of water in my palette because I forgot a water container, but I had water. Oh yeah, I also forgot to refill my fountain pen, so I ran out of ink and had to use a fineliner. I was lucky I had my paint! I wrote my notes for next time right there on the page, on location, because some lessons need to be recorded immediately:
Don’t run out of ink — good thing I carry many pens
Do carry a water container — I was using a well in my palette
Do bring a clip — even a little wind will flip a wet page and ruin everything
Do think about page design a little first
Do enjoy the birds
That last one is important.
There were fifteen grackles at the reflecting pool while I was sketching. And then — a lovebird. A few escaped from a local pet store years ago and a small flock has somehow survived in Scottsdale ever since. It came and went so fast I barely registered it. I thought I’d missed my chance.
It came back. I got a photo.
I have a spot waiting on the page next to my journal notes for a proper lovebird sketch. That’s a whole other post.
My sketches are a mess. The watercolor is blobby, the angles on the spire are wrong, the wind made a disaster of my pages. And I sat there on location and wrote in my sketchbook that it felt chaotic, and also that it felt great.
Both are true. That’s the joy of sketching on location, isn’t it?
I will have many chances to improve my rate of on location sketching this year. Not only do I have the four outdoor assignments for the Edges course. but this year is rich with Sketching Now courses that are outdoor. The Travel Sketching course is running in May, and the Watercolor On Location will run this summer. In the heat. Oh dear. I’ll need some strategies for that!
This is my 6th run through this course! Sketching Now Watercolor was my very first Sketching Now course, back in 2018. I also did it in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024
Here are all the exercises I did this year for it. I used a handmade paper for some of the assignments that was so very different to work with. Colors are luminous on it, and it is highly absorbent. It takes forever to dry, and so colors really merge and blend. Detail is lost and I was too impatient to go back and try to add more details after it had dried, so my work has a very soft, and blended look. It has taught me a lot about the paper, and how much of impact paper really does have on watercolor. With each new practice I’m getting better and better at it.
My biggest takeaway this time through was the effect of paper on how watercolor performs. I think if I use that handmade paper my sketches will need some lines to bring out the subjects, but for class, I enjoyed experimenting with direct watercolor, no lines.
Next up with be Edges and I’ve never done that course. I think I did the first half of lesson one the last time it was run live, in 2021. I’m really looking forward to shifting my focus from watercolor, to line and practicing my drawing.
January is moving by so fast! I did work on Alex Boon’s Inktense course in his Nature Journaling Circle. He offers a recommended set of 12, and an optional 12 he recommends to make it 24 set.
These swatching exercises were extremely helpful in learning how to work with these, and how they color mix.
For the watercolor course, I did one of my favorite exercises, the wardrobe. My wardrobe is mostly black, but for this winter I did add this festive plaid shirt that was so fun to paint!
The first days of January. Still working with inks, especially those that explode so beautifully when dropped into water, like Noodler’s Rome Burning. This is an exercise from Nick Stewart’s Udemy course on Fountain Pen Ink.
Lupine and Laughter continues each Friday and I had more inks to test.
The new live round of the watercolor course started, and I did some of exercises in my S&B Alpha sketchbook. I also did the exercises on a handmade watercolor paper that is turning out very interesting to work with.
I am always fascinated by mixing greys and how varied they can be with different colors.
A collage page, with printed stickers, for the end of the Lupine and Laughter series.
My very favorite of all of the Sketching Now classes! I’m so excited to be starting this group run, and return to these lessons. Every time I go through this class, my sketchbook and sketching level up significantly. Every time!
This is the spread I used as my “Current Sketch” starting point for Intro Week.
Sketchbook Goals is exercise one, and since I seem to have a floral theme for this page most of the years I’ve taken this course, I painted the peonies I bought this week.
Handwriting Tips is the next lesson, and I’m not feeling like doing too much differently with my text these days, so I just kept my page simple, but focused on the overall design to match the other half of the page.
I had left over paint in my palette so I painted a simple color block later in the sketchbook, thinking that having this beautiful color show up again would create a flow within the sketchbook. It sure does!
Travel Sketching has begun, and I’m definitely needing the practice! I recently traveled and did not sketch on location. Still working on that! It was so crowded I feared I’d be in the way too much, hogging a bench, etc. Therefore practicing very fast techniques should help in the future.
My second run through Liz Steel’s Travel Sketching course and I’m excited about it. I learned so much the first time! This year I’ll be traveling one of the weeks of the course, so I hope to use the skills I learned last time, refresh the skills this time, and hopefully get some real travel sketching done on location!
Here are my materials for the class. I’m using the same palette of watercolor pencils as she recommends. I’ve been using this palette since the first run of the class, and they are excellent. I am adding the same palette in Inktense pencils, and in Neocolor II so I can learn the differences in the media, while keeping my familiarity with the colors.
I’m using my standard watercolor palette that I’ve been using for a few years now. While I want to make a few changes to this, I won’t before my trip, or before class, so I can use what I know. I’ll be using the recommended A5 book size, with a Stillman and Birn 8.5 x 5.5 inch softcover Delta Series. The paper is ivory colored, cold press surface, and 270 gsm.
Another color chart with the Travel Sketching Palette, this time on the Delta Series paper. Very interesting, and different results over the Alpha or Gamma Series papers. I’m surprised. The page did not curl when wet with paint. It developed this very interesting granulating effect. I thought the paper was disintigrating, at first, but then I realized it’s just taking on that texture when painted. It seemed my paints appeared less pigments, but the colored pencils appeared more pigmented. All three types of dry media look more vivid on this paper, it seems.
I continue to be surprised by the Neocolor II. They are so smooth and easy to work with. I have only done one sketch with them, so I look forward to learning more. They activate with water beautifully, too, as seen above.
I’m tempted to pull out this same palette of colors in the Gansai Tambi, too. That could be good fun. The same palette, many media.
Jamie's Sketchbook 