How To Paint Landscapes: Brush Pen Sketch

Jane demonstrates how she sketches using Brush Pens of various values on location at Mosquito Creek in North Vancouver.

When Jane comes to visit nature she tells us that she learns a lot of things and often internalizes them bringing these into her paintings and creative process later. She also finds that it helps to have a notebook (sketchbook) to take notes on what she experiences and uses certain materials to grab gestures, colour notes, shapes and values quickly to take back with her.

She shows us two sketch books: soft coloured ivory paper with a green softcover (Stillman & Brin-Delta Series) and smooth thick white paper with a dark-blue soft cover (Stillman & Brin - Zeta Series). She says the smooth paper allows the pens to flow nicely. Here Jane uses the 8 x 10 Zeta Sketchbook and Tombow Brush Pens for the creekside sketch.
Jane mentions that the Ivory paper is a little softer, and when using the brown and sepia coloured pens the expression can also be a little softer (i.e. in value and colour). Some of Jane’s sketches are shown from that sketchbook as examples.

Sitting comfortably close to the Creek Jane decides to do a black and white gestural sketch using different levels of grey, starting with an outline of the tree she observes.

If she really wants to study things she says she looks at them intently and in all the different directions (i.e. as leaves fall off branches for instance). The pens have a small point on one end that she uses to add such details as she sees fit, including the growth of little leaves.

Jane suggests to vary the direction of line, and size, in response to the subject. She notices then that as the leaves hang off the branch they look like they are floating even though they are attached (she excludes some connecting lines). "It’s fun to look at these details", she adds, as well as noting the shading and gestures.

Jane shows us how to add depth to the drawing: "The lighter value pens (grey) can be used to show those things that are behind, in the distance.” adding that she likes the pens to be slightly softer than black, and the darker accents can be added in with layers.

Jane also examples that you can fill in negative shapes such as branches, and that you can put in a negative/positive play while considering aspects of drawing right on location.

She then notices the lovely organic round shapes of the rocks that have been smoothed by the water with the light coloured moss in-between and notes these with continuous line and circular motions.
She adds additional marks with the pen for the shadows underneath the rocks, mentioning that the water rushes through these, which could be another painting itself, and decides to focus on the overall scene.

Jane tries to get gestures of both the linear aspects and circular ones; some big and some small.

Then the bark and moss on the tree catches Jane’s eye where she states that the point of the pen can add such textures. She tells us that she likes to vary where the texture will be and does not place it everywhere.

Jane shares that it helps her to recall these patterns later in her abstracts, and that these are the starting points of observations while “taking notes”.

"It’s good to take in nature and internalize it, and breath it in” says Jane and explains that in other times "you may study it with art materials; finding how the darks and lights play out, varying the values accordingly.

"Ideally if you have a little bit of the darkest dark you may want a bit more of the lighter grey, and then some mid tone grey too.” She tries to keep these in unequal proportions, varying the value levels to make a nice little composition even though it is just gestural.
"You can squint and see where some of those darks are as the light passes along.” she says while putting in several marks for trees in the distance which she sees are smaller and lighter. She also places lines behind others to imply depth (horizontal line behind foreground trees).

Jane feels that there is a lot of nice little line play in this natural setting and that one could keep going with it. But, in the end, she just wanted to do a quick black and white sketch and then maybe "soften in the ivory sketch book with a bit of warm colours"….Stay tuned for the watercolour sketch in the ivory sketchbook video