Sketchbook Exercise: Floral Silhouettes

Painting without a plan is the best

Hello lovelies,

How was your week? Mine could have been better; my kid had the stomach flu, and I had pharyngitis, which made me lose my voice completely. Whenever I feel a bit down, I can always cheer myself up with some drawing. But since I wasn’t feeling that great, I thought I’d do a simple sketchbook exercise and take you along with me. Without talking though haha.

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What you’ll need:

• some paint (I used acrylic gouache because it driest fast and doesn’t reactivate when you paint over it. This is Turners Acrylic Gouache, J.Black Blue)

• A brush, preferably a bigger one to make large shapes. I used a size 10.

• White pens or pencils for the details. I used a Polychromos White pencil, A Pilot Pintor (acrylic) brush pen, and an Arteza gel pen white.

• A dark pencil for details. I used a Derwent Inktense Indian Ink.
  

How it works:

Make some big flower shapes. You can use reference pictures. I looked at a few pictures from a previous drawing sessions and used them as a starting point to create my own shapes. Have fun with the shapes, it doesn’t matter if they aren’t completely correct because we’re just sketching and we can add whatever details we like later. I used a bit of water with the paint because I like it when it isn’t a complete silhouette, it gives a tiny bit of depth.

The most important part: LET IT ALL DRY!

Then add the details in whatever way you like. You can only add highlights, or some outlines, or some textures; I did a bit of everything.

The whole thing took me about 15 minutes and I felt a lot better, it made me get out of my head and do like a sort of meditation exercise.

Have fun!

Pauline x

I would love to see your results if you do this exercise. Tag me (@lascarlatte in Instagram) :)