- £75
Travel Sketchbook
- Course
- 13 Lessons
Create an eclectic, mixed-media sketchbook that is vivid and inspiring. Learn what I take with me to sketch on holiday and how I capture the sense of a place. Bring home a sketchbook you are proud of that captures the memories of your time away.
Was £125 Now £75. Course will be taken off sale on August 31st 2024. Available to you until August 31st 2025. Segments may appear in other future offerings.
You can arrive on holiday full of good intentions to sketch but come home with an empty sketchbook! This course will help you prepare for your holiday and give you straight forward tasks to work through to gather and interpret what's around you. Come home with a vibrant mixed-media sketchbook full of memories!
Slow down and enjoy your time away whilst quietly noticing. Use your camera and capture your environment with simple techniques to draw in shape, line and pattern.
Slow down and enjoy your time away whilst quietly noticing. Use your camera and capture your environment with simple techniques to draw in shape, line and pattern.
The course consists of ten sessions, as well as an introduction and farewell. Each session features a video tutorial, as well as footage of me creating my holiday sketchbook, still images to guide and inspire you as well as tasks and advice to help you get the most out of your travel sketchbook. The course is about how to find your own visual language, and how to approach drawing, to give you confidence to draw outside, and how to make the most of being on holiday, capturing the essence of where you are staying and create a mixed media sketchbook that is full of vitality.
The course is suitable for all and assumes no prior experience of drawing. It is a course to encourage and enable you to be able to capture the place that you are staying and build your creative confidence. You will need a willingness to participate and try new techniques and ways of creating sketchbooks.
The course is suitable for all and assumes no prior experience of drawing. It is a course to encourage and enable you to be able to capture the place that you are staying and build your creative confidence. You will need a willingness to participate and try new techniques and ways of creating sketchbooks.
Here is a little more information about the course. If you have any questions, you can ask me by using the links at the foot of the page.
Travel Sketchbooks was the first course that I took online and I don't think my studio has ever been this tidy since!
This course is for you if:
- You always go on holiday with good intentions to draw but come home empty handed
- You need to gain confidence so you can edit and grab the essentials in your drawing
- You want to capture the character and story of a place
- You want your sketchbook to be colourful
- You love shape, pattern and colour
- You are eager to try new ways of drawing
- You would like to create a sketchbook that mixes drawing, collage, found objects and photographs
I’m a great believer in using what you have - I like to repurpose old books, and create collage papers. You can draw with anything….just so long as you get started and draw. I will show you how I approach drawing - so that you can be bolder and more confident and find your flow. You might have lots of experience, or very little, the tutorials are structured to encourage and advise and I create a supportive teaching environment whatever your level of experience.
PR
"The course reminded me how much pleasure I can get from drawing, from sitting with a piece of paper, looking and drawing. What I found was that I can start being interested in something, e.g. the curve and shape of an olive tree and then find myself being interested in the leaves and the way they join onto a branch and the shapes they make. It's really important to me to have re-discovered this love of looking, drawing and absorbing myself in the process."
CS
"My takeaway is that not every page needs to be a successful end product - more important to have a go and see what happens as you try new techniques. I enjoyed having set tasks and meeting others on line."
JH
"This was my first online course, and I loved it. I did mine based on my first visit to Archacion and I now have a lovely momento that really captures the essence of the place, like a series of postcards to myself. I learnt loads of new ways of recording what I was experiencing and the course definitely opened my eyes."
KW
"It was a brilliant course (the first online course I ever did). It prompted me to do a travel sketchbook when I went to Cyprus in 2018. It brings back such happy memories - far more than photos ever do. I’ve done others since and those prompts/ideas from Helen’s course are always at the back of my mind."
CJ
"Even though I wasn't travelling the course was still relevant, I chose a National Trust site which I visited several times throughout the course. I found it very liberating, and the fact that I could work at my own pace meant I could get so much more from it. Helen put so much thought into the content and was generous with her feedback and encouragement."
You will be invited to join my Facebook group so that you can share your ideas and receive feedback from myself and others. It will help keep you inspired, motivated and accountable for getting started and fulfilling your create aspirations.
This course consists of:
- Welcome session
- 10 video tutorials allowing you to follow me as I create a mixed-media travel sketchbook
- Set tasks for you to go through to create your own dynamic sketchbook
- A concluding session
- Access to my ongoing Facebook community to continue your creative journey in a supportive, like-minded community
What you will need to have:
- The materials on the materials list (see below)
- Access via a PC or laptop to my website where you can access the password protected pages
- Broadband wifi with sufficient speed to watch video content
- You will also need a willingness to have a go and try new ways of working - not focussed on the outcomes, but on developing a creative flow and adapting new techniques
What to expect:
- You can access the course immediately. Delivery is via video tutorials that you can start, stop and repeat as you wish.
- There are tasks set for you to try what you have been shown in the videos.
- You are encouraged to take photos of what you create and upload them to my Facebook Group.
- You can ask questions in the group, or by email.
- You will have ongoing access to the course.
Materials list
I try to travel light and only take a few things when I am travelling. On this course, for travelling, I took:
A5 sketchbook
charcoal pencil
pencil
Fine liner black drawing pen
scissors
Caran D'ache drawing block
A couple of paint brushes
An envelope of some papers to collage with in colours I thought might suit my destination)
A glue stick or all purpose glue
In the studio I used:
Paint - acrylic or wall emulsion paint tester pot
Erasers
Lino cutting tool
Ink blocks (I used Tim Holtz Distress Inks)
Tracing Paper and computer printer (optional)
Coloured ink/acrylic paint (or gouache or watercolour)
A5 sketchbook
charcoal pencil
pencil
Fine liner black drawing pen
scissors
Caran D'ache drawing block
A couple of paint brushes
An envelope of some papers to collage with in colours I thought might suit my destination)
A glue stick or all purpose glue
In the studio I used:
Paint - acrylic or wall emulsion paint tester pot
Erasers
Lino cutting tool
Ink blocks (I used Tim Holtz Distress Inks)
Tracing Paper and computer printer (optional)
Coloured ink/acrylic paint (or gouache or watercolour)
Contents
Welcome to Travel Sketchbooks!
Hello!
Sessions
Session 1 - Be prepared!
Session 2 - Make it yours
Session 3 - Make your mark
Session 4 - Keep it simple
Session 5 - Layering
Session 6 - Out in nature
Session 7 - Studio Play
Session 8 - Adding pattern
Session 9 - Adding Colour
Session 10 - Completing your sketchbook
Next steps
How to build on what you have learned
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