5-minute Sketching: Landscapes

I’ve been slowly reading a lot of varied books on sketching, drawing, art, design, etc. I’ve been finding the way in which they force me to think differently and see differently really helpful in reframing a lot of the ways in which I think about life, work, and art. Last night I finished reading through Virginia Hein’s 5-minute Sketching: Landsacpes. I’ve skimmed through a few other books from this serious, but am now going back for more serious reads. The format is not perfect, but it’s definitely interesting.

What I love about this book is how much sketching art work the author shows from different artists. And in the case of this book I’ve found a lot more artists whom I want to follow; I’ve already added several to my RSS feed.

But the ideas and thoughts throughout the book also made me think about how I work and what I do as I’m working. I’ve been having a running battle with my sketching for a while now, because most sketchers do their work in ink and watercolor. I don’t dislike watercolor, I’m even taking an online course to try and get to know it better, but for my style of working, I’m not sure it’s the best medium. This book had a decent amount of work in it that was using different mediums and the author herself uses a wide variety, it was great to see and be inspired by it.

As for the format: I get that the 5-minute series is for quick ways to do better sketches around a particular topic, but sometimes it gets old. I read it all, but I spent a lot of my time looking at the reproductions of the sketches, which were by far the most valuable part of the book for me.