The Practice of Sketchbooking: Ink, Watercolor, and Gouache

In week one, Steve Huston introduces the fundamentals of sketchbooking with a fountain pen, focusing on line weight, hatching, and form simplification. You’ll learn to break down complex objects into basic shapes and explore value through hatching techniques. Steve emphasizes the importance of experimentation and building line confidence with the permanent medium of ink. By the end of this lesson, you’ll have foundational skills in capturing structure and simple value statements within your sketchbook practice.

In week two, Steve Huston continues to guide you through sketching techniques with a fountain pen, focusing on capturing texture, depth, and energy in figures, still lifes, and master studies. You’ll explore how hatching and applying washes can shape value and form. Steve will spend time analyzing the methods of historical masters. By the end of this lesson, you’ll have refined your ability to interpret complex forms and use linework expressively within your sketchbook.

In week three, Steve Huston introduces the use of gouache to create composition thumbnails for landscapes and cityscapes. You’ll start with foundational techniques in color keying, framing, and simplifying complex scenes into basic shapes and values. Steve guides you through the layering of opaque and transparent gouache, teaching you to experiment with edge quality, color temperature, and gradation for depth and focus. By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to capture the essence of a scene with a few well-placed values and shapes, giving your sketches clarity.

In week four, Steve Huston guides you through painting draped figures in gouache, focusing on form, light, and color. You’ll begin with a pencil lay-in and build up layers using transparent and opaque gouache to capture the main shapes and colors of the figure and drapery. Steve then creates a callout sketch of an arm, emphasizing detailed color and value transitions. By the end of this lesson, you’ll have a solid foundation for sketching gouache figures with clarity and expressive brushwork.

In week five, Steve Huston focuses on creating dynamic figure sketches and expressive portrait studies in ink and gouache. You’ll start with warm-up figure sketches in fountain pen, using gestural lines and overlapping forms to explore movement and relationships between poses. Steve then guides you through compositional thumbnails for a portrait study, teaching you to experiment with color, edge quality, and mood. By the end of this lesson, you’ll gain confidence in capturing figures and portraits with fluid, expressive brushstrokes, and thoughtful composition.

In this week six, Steve Huston guides you through creating expressive gouache sketches of male and female portraits and figures, combining the techniques and concepts learned throughout the course. Steve demonstrates using shapes, values, colors, and expressive brush strokes to represent each subject’s unique character. By the end of this lesson, you’ll have the skills and confidence to portray figures and portraits in gouache with your own distinct vision.