Year of the Spark! Welcome to Lesson 20 with Lynn

“Thumbnail Sketches & Directional Mark Making”

Supplies you will need:

your sketchbook or a larger sketchbook your favorite markers and writing tools watercolors and brush

Hello hello dear Sparkers!!

I am so excited about this seemingly simple but super important way to work in our sketchbooks. We will start our lesson with a quick discussion about the miracle of the thumbnail sketch!

A thumbnail sketch is a small sketch that provides a place to work out all of your ideas. “Thumb nailing” is where you have the freedom to try anything. This is where you will work out your compositional proportions, play with color and value as well as try out different mark making ideas. Thumbnail sketches help you organize your thinking, see what happens when you move your focal point and gives you a chance to find your best choice for a larger version of your idea. And they are free!! You can do dozens and dozens!

I think you will be amazed at the way your sketches will continue to change and simplify. Enjoy the freedom of the thumbnail as you distill all of your design elements into a miniature map of painting possibilities! Or simply do thumbnails for fun! YAY!!

We will warm up in our sketchbook by drawing thumbnails of a three well known paintings. We can learn so much and understand the ideas behind design choices when studying master paintings. For the fun of it, you can move around a few key elements and see how the composition changes…. sometimes for the better? Sometimes not so much!!

Please feel free to use three paintings of your choice, if you prefer. I chose Van Gogh’s painting “Haystacks in Provence” for the demo in the our lesson. I am also a huge fan of Gustav Klimt’s compositions. Check out “Poppy Field” for a visual treat.

Lots to learn by thumbnail sketching Van Gogh’s painting. What is pulling your eye the most?

Here is another example of a painting to thumbnail. I LOVE the way that Andrew Wyeth designs his page….wow! Such dramatic design choices delight our eyes. Wyeth takes the chimney shapes so close to the top, that it creates visual tension. Even with just a few key elements, Wyeth is a master of leading our eye around the painting, using modernest abstractionism underneath his realism.

“Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth 1948

Here is my page of thumbnails for Wyeth’s “Christina’s World”

For your warm up, do one page of 4-6 thumbnails for each of three famous paintings. Make notations on the sides of your pages about things that occur to you as you move your markers along the thinking and design choices of these artists.

Break it down into simple shapes, find your key elements, consider why your eye wants to notice certain areas.

Think visual map, shift the color and just have fun!

For the main lesson I want to share something that I learned accidentally while I was out in the field doing thumbnail sketches for Plein Air Painting. Our task is to decide how to take all of the visual information in front of us, our entire view of the world and somehow translate it onto the page and into ideas for an interesting paintings. The thumbnail sketch is a super valuable tool during this process. I also found that drawing with what I call “Directional Mark Making,” is a useful tool as well. The way it works is simple, you make the mark on your page in the direction that the thing you are drawing appears. Basically it’s just a tool to help move your eye around on a two dimensional page things you are describing and seeing in a three dimensional world.

A photo of Wonderland Lake in Boulder, Colorado

Another great tool is a “viewfinder” a simple “frame” that you can hold and reduce your view by looking through the opening. Your camera or phone camera is great for this as well. You select, visually edit and get to refine your view. It’s nice to take photo reference while you are out to refer to when you return to the studio, but your thinking and planning is best done by sketching on site and trying out ideas on the page. Sketch, sketch, sketch!!

Some thumbnails of Wonderland Lake. Notice the marks are done in the direction of the thing I am describing.

Some basic notes and sketches in my sketchbook.

Here are some more pages speaking about thumbnails and examples of using Directional Mark Making to help shape our ideas.

For your assignment, you will create 10 or so thumbnails using markers. This can be done using a photo reference or working outdoors.

Next, do 10 thumbnails sketches with marker and watercolor. The use of another medium will open up the possibilities even more. Remember your sketchbook is like a laboratory!

Fill it with any thing that comes to mind! Play!!

And Finally, put a star or a mark next to your favorite one or two sketches!

As always, ENJOY! Looking forward to seeing your sketchbooks!

xoxo Lynn

A few extra examples with watercolor and marker from my sketchbook:

You can see the little stars next to the sketches that are the most exciting to me or that I think will work bigger…….

More examples of thinking through possible designs with marker, watercolor and directional mark making…..

Have fun everyone!! Loose and free!!!