Foundations – Jamie's Sketchbook

Foundations 2025 Complete

Wow! I did it! I completed every single exercise. I learned a lot about why I have not been successful in the past, and it’s mostly to do with life interference, and health issues.

Here is the whole collection of exercises and I am so grateful for all I’ve learned and how much my drawing has leveled up. I’m not sure I can put what I’ve learned into three takeaways that relate to the lessons themselves, as much as to what pushing through to complete these assignments taught me. My skills certainly improved, but having taken the class five times before, I can’t say the words were new. Applying it massively helped. Pencil miles helped, as John Muir Laws calls it.

Many of my sketches still don’t have the look I really want to achieve, but I finally do understand that is about skill and practice. I need to learn and continue to improve things like depth, and dimension in my drawings. I also realize those are lifelong pursuits, not a once and one sort of learning. The learning spiral, as Liz Steel describes it in her class. I’m really proud of some of these sketches, as they definitely represent a level up of my skills. Particularly the chair, Stonehenge, and the sink.

On to the next. Travel Sketching is running as a live class in April. I will be traveling the first week of it, so I’m going to try to get those lessons done ahead of time. I will also try to apply the techniques to my travel sketches while on an actual vacation! I tend to not due to anxiety, but we shall see. I begin to realize that lots of practice in advance might be the secret to having the skills to overcome the on location challenges.

I may also do Edges as an independent study. I’ve never done that course, and I think it comes next in terms of building skill. I haven’t decided yet. If not now, I’ll certainly join it when Liz next runs it.

Tuzigoot

For the final livestream of class we were asked to submit a scene we thought was very challenging to sketch and she would select a couple to discuss for our final review. I was lucky enough that she chose my photo of Tuzigoot National Monument.

I took notes, and then attempted to sketch this view following her advice, and the techniques learned in class.

Not bad for my first attempts. I actually learned a lot by doing three versions in a row. One thing I certainly learned is I need more practice drawing these kinds of ruins, if I want them to make any sort of sense to understand what is going on. All that stone on stone on stone, yet to create the depth and shading to visually represent the many rooms, and layers. Plenty to practice!

Sketching from a Focus

My final sketching assignment for Foundations! Can you believe it? After SIX times, I have finally succeeded in doing ALL the sketching assignments for this course! Woot!

Sketching from a focus is such a great way to be able to sketch what is important first, and it’s okay when you run out of time!

I ran out of time sketching this little sideboard at the the restaurant, so the one side of the shelving unit just did not get sketched. My focus was on the tubs of utensils, so they are in more detail, and I let the rest be less detailed.

I did have a major week of plumbing issues get involved, so I decided to make sketching the faucet part of my assignment, focusing on the faucet itself, and greatly minimizing the clutter behind with only suggested lines.

Creating a Focus

Doing multiple thumbnails to tell different stories, and create a focus was a great deal of fun.

I actually managed to get out and sketch on location for the outdoor assignment. I was rushed, and found the scenes overwhelming, but it was definitely rewarding to try. I look forward to being able to do more sketching on location!

Using a Viewfinder

The exercises to use a viewfinder were fun. It really did make it so much easier to get tricky angles, and size placement.

I left the grid lines visible to remember the assignment and how I accomplished them.

Evolution of a Door

The most sketched subject I did this year in Foundations was my front door, apparently. From foliage against a building, to a door assignment, as something seasonal, and lastly for the line and color exercise, I’ve sketched my door.

As the months have passed, my bougainvillea has grown, encroaching further and further into the walkway in front of my door. It had more flowers, and was predominantly pink, then fewer flowers, and more green, but also more overgrown. Until finally it got cut back to appease the HOA. (I waited as long as I could in order to enjoy the best bloom season!)

Artistically, this door has been sketched and painted with a variety of techniques, each skill building on itself. I even got better and began to include the lamp, which seemed too hard to draw at first.

Measured Set-up

Using a measured set-up is so helpful in getting placement and proportions and even angles more accurate. I typically forget to do it, so this lesson in my Foundations class was quite helpful.

It really helped me get the foreshortened tube more accurate, as well as the door.

A Chair

Draw a chair. Seems like such a simple exercise. This is the one that has stalled me out every time I’ve taken this class. It’s been quite the challenge to sort out all the reasons this exercise was my breaking point five times in the past.

I am thrilled that I found myself out (getting out is one of my obstacles to these exercises) and there was this fabulous chair with no one in it, right across from me, screaming to be drawn and telling me this chair is perfect for this lesson. (Which I am once again behind on for a good three weeks. Stalling out again!)

I am determined to complete all lessons for this run of Foundations, however. Even if it is taking a lot of mental work to sort through all the thoughts, blocks, and things!

My volumes guidelines are not too apparent in set up sketch, but I did draw this as a series of boxes. It really did help get the proportions more accurate.

This feels like a breath through! If nothing else, because the sixth time is the charm in completing this!

All Foundations exercises after this will be new. I’ve always gotten stuck right here, and so I’ve never completed the remaining lessons! I’m determined, however. I may be three weeks behind, but with any luck, getting through this particular block it will now get easier? Especially since I rather love this little chair sketch.

Books

Draw a stack of books is the exercise for drawing with volumes. Books and all those angles are a very challenging subject! Likely why I’ve only accomplished this assignment twice!

Since I chose D&D books two years ago, after I had just begun playing again. So I chose the same subject matter, only with the current campaign books I’m playing. This recording of life, and the sketches to reflect that make these pairings quite special. This is why I want to sketch and learn to sketch so much. To capture life in such special ways.

Learning tools like sketching using volumes to aid in tackling such hard subjects as stacks of books is why I keep at the classes. I am ever surprised that drawing really is such a skill that takes decades of practice to learn. People who are skilled at it make it look so easy and effortless!

Shapes

I always seem to do much better with shapes as a drawing technique than any other method. A couple years ago I was shocked how nicely the sketch of the ruins turned out. So this year I decided to try the same technique on an old travel photo I took of Stonehenge back in 2000.

Loving how the blooms in the watercolor help add to the atmospheric nature of this sketch.

The paint is Daniel Smith Joseph Z’s Warm Grey. I had been testing grays a few days ago, and this paint was still in my palette, so I used it. I’m becoming obsessed with monochrome sketches, so I may be exploring that more in the future. What might this sketch look like in the toned Kuretake Gansai Tambi Sumi or Graphite or Blackish paints that I was swatching this weekend, for example?