Sketching Teapots & Windmills

August 23, 2014 by Erin Hill Sketching

Just a few observations I’d like to talk about as we complete week 6. With every group each term, this is about the time some may begin to worry that you are not progressing.   Not everybody, but some.   Somehow it seems harder.  But you are not alone. This is how many feel and worry they are the only one. We do plateau at a point where we think it should be easier.  We are asking more of ourselves, so we […]

Categories: Art, Art to enchant, Out & About Sketch Classes, Reflections, Travel Sketching, Travelling with your Sketchbook, Uncategorized • Tags: Composition & Colour, Line drawing with Watercolour, Manly, Travel Sketching

Sketching Design, Packaging & Signage

August 2, 2014 by Erin Hill Sketching

New Sketchers. 10am Tuesday July 29 ’14.  Everybody is in a sunny mood when they arrive for our 3rd week of travel sketching. We seem to back to sunny days again. Christy welcomes everyone and Karen is there to assist. The setups this week look more challenging than they are. Big words, small type, borders, colour and patterns. Yikes. A colourful collection of household products ranging from a gorgeous large olive oil can to a tiny Tobasco bottle, with all […]

Categories: Art, Manly Sketches, Out & About Sketch Classes, Travel Sketching • Tags: Composition & Colour, Location Sketches, Manly, Travel Sketching

Sketching Vignettes. Small Aspects of Something Bigger.

July 26, 2014 by Erin Hill Sketching

New Sketchers. 10am Tuesday July 22 ’14. We had a very happy group of New Sketchers arriving ready for their second sketching  day. Christie explained what the subjects were about and how we would approach them. Vignettes it would be. The little snippets or small aspects of something bigger. What we were looking at was carved boxes, decorative bowls and stands, a Vietnamese dagger and a Victorian mantelpiece support. Sketch any or all, and perhaps spread them over two pages […]

Categories: Art, Painting Techniques, Sketching Gardens, Sketching houses, Sketching in Manly, Sketching Perspective, Travel Sketching • Tags: Composition & Colour, Location Sketches, Manly, Travel Sketching

Term 2 Sketching Begins

May 4, 2014 by Erin Hill Sketching

We are back for a new and polished up term. We tutors have spent time listening to what you’d like in your classes and that’s they way we work. So the new classes reflect that. This week’s blog comes to you from the South of France where I’m sketching with 3 painter girls for the week. Two from Texas, one from NZ and little me from Sydney. It’s a clear blue day and everything looks so lovely. Roses and aromatic vines climbing […]

Categories: Art, Flower Sketching, Out & About Sketch Classes, Self Publishing your Sketches, Sketching Classes, Sketching in France, Travel Sketching • Tags: Composition & Colour, Line drawing with Watercolour, Manly, Sketching, Travel Sketching

Sketching the Beach. Rain or Shine

March 29, 2014 by Erin Hill Sketching

THURSDAY MARCH 27 ’14 – GROUP 1 “Hello, its Christy here” and I’m taking the first group of sketchers today. 
‘Its raining, its pouring’… but we had no old man snoring, nor any bumping of heads. We had sketching, and no rain was going to dampen our enthusiasm for that. Today’s first group got settled and was amused to see the theme of the day was to sketch each other wearing a hat! One of our early sketchers had put […]

Categories: Art, Beach sketches, Food & Wine, Observing the Light, Out & About Sketch Classes, Reflections, Travel Sketching • Tags: Beach Views, Location Sketches, Manly, Sketching in the Rain, Travel Sketching

Sketching. Ripples and Reflections

March 22, 2014 by Erin Hill Sketching

THURSDAY 10AM CLASS.  MARCH 20 2014. More blue skies. Great that we decided to do water and reflections this week. We have lots to cover during a term and water and the way it moves and reflects is a very important lesson, given that we are surrounded by it. Our still life setups are goggles and snorkle with sea shells, the other a beach towel with shells. We need to remember to measure the shape you see. Good to have […]

Categories: Art, Manly Pavilion, Manly Sketches, Out & About Sketch Classes, Painting Techniques, Reflections, Travel Sketching, Travelling with your Sketchbook, Uncategorized • Tags: Beach Views, Line drawing with Watercolour, Manly, Quick Watercolours, Sketching, Travel Sketching

Discovering Manly Cafes

March 3, 2014 by Erin Hill Sketching

My perfect life would be to live in new and favourite cafes, moving from one to the next. Actually that almost happened this morning. Adeline and I met up to plan our next Sketch&French classes. That was Belgrave Cartel which I love. Next Alissa was arriving on the ferry and we would be looking for a new one I’d been told about. Great timing. I dash to the wharf and there’s Alissa coming through the forecourt. We walk all the […]

Categories: Art, Food Sketching, Out & About Sketch Classes, Sketching Cafes, Sketching in Manly, Watercolour Pencils • Tags: Food, Manly, Sketches, Travel Sketching

Start With Your Eye Level

March 1, 2014 by Erin Hill Sketching

THURSDAY FEB 27 10am class Week 4 begins. We didn’t believe it was going to rain. Reports for days said it would. I like to look at the sky and clouds and work it out myself. It might matter a teeny bit if we got rain because we’re doing perspective from a high pathway, looking down over rooftops and beyond. But of course we would first start in the Studio  with our warm sketches of Frenchboxes and building blocks. We talked […]

Categories: Art, Creative food, Food Sketching, Manly Sketches, Out & About Sketch Classes, Sketching architecture, Travel Sketching, Uncategorized • Tags: Composition & Colour, Location Sketches, Manly, Sketching Architecture, Travel Sketching

Our First Sketching Week for 2014

February 8, 2014 by Erin Hill Sketching

THURSDAY 10am Class.  FEBRUARY 6 2014. It’s a new year, it’s a new day, and we’re loving our sketching! Our first group of the day consisted of our loyal returning regulars and the others were ‘brand new out of the box’, excited new sketchers. To get the ball rolling, we started with sketching flowers and leaves, Hibiscus flowers and Callistemon, (I hadn’t known the formal name of the ‘Bottle Brush’ was Callistemon and that there are several species of that […]

Categories: Art, Flower Sketching, Landscapes, Out & About Sketch Classes, Sketching Flowers, Sketching Gardens • Tags: Composition & Colour, Line drawing with Watercolour, Manly, Sketches, Watercolour pencils