Travel Sketchbooking with Susan Cornelis

Susan Cornelis's Journal Page
This is the first page that Susan did... that's me all bundled up doing the first exercise and feeling a tad bit cold! Check out Susan's Blog for more about our day.

On Saturday, three of us from Marin County drove up to Susan Cornelis' Watercolor Sketchbook Workshop in Sebastopol on Saturday. The day started out to be very cold, we all bundled up and painted anyway. She had a lovely garden filled with interesting things to paint.

Her workshop taught us how to create "Vignettes" in our journals. Susan showed us how to create a vignette of a page emphasizing the design and leaving a lot of white. She used negative and positive painting to leave interesting white shapes from the paper to add to the composition of the page. She taught us how to have the shapes hit 3 sides of the paper. We played with light and dark shapes across the page using alternation and overlapping shapes, painting in front and behind to create interest.
Over and under, back and forth was our mantra for the day. Are the whites interesting shapes? With watercolor, the paper is the white, we do not use white paint.

We started out into the garden with a 15 minute exercise. 10 minutes to draw the image with a ultra fine sharpie and 5 minutes to paint.


We did two more of these 15 minute exercises. You really had to be fast and just capture the essence. When you are traveling you do not have time to do everything, just capture what "hums" for you and get it on the paper quickly.

Susan had a big brass bell she would ring to start us off and then tell us to stop. "No Cheating" and doing more after the bell! It was a great exercise and I was amazed at how much I could get done in a short time if I wasn't too concerned about being "perfect" and doing it just right. This is my traveling palette, very small and simple.

Then we piled into our cars and drove to Graton to practice our crafts as if we were on a trip. We started out at a local restaurant.


The assignment was to paint at the table..... it helps to do a semi contour drawing of some one else... Susan asked us to do someone across the table. Just draw an outline and do not put in too many details... perhaps just one eye. My new friend, Paula, from San Rafael, was patient with my efforts. Then, Susan, taught us how to include elements from the table and perhaps collage something from the location. I did the bread and olive oil and added a few touches such as Paula's interesting necklace, buttons and painting her wonderful hair.

This was all done in a very cramped space with people sitting on either side of me... if you keep your tools of the trade simple, it works.... "travel light" was another mantra of the day.

We then went outside to do a couple of local scenes. This antique shop area was my first attempt. I was not too happy with it so I did not complete the page and decided to move on to another location.

Susan had done a demo painting this building so I ended up doing it myself, of course, no where near as skilled as my teacher but good enough to help me remember being there and having a great time in the class.

It was a wonderful and long day... I left Marin at 8 am and got home at 6:30, tired and filled with enthusiasm for the things I had learned that day. Susan is an excellent teacher and if you live in the area, try to take advantage of her offerings. Her web site is http://imaginewithart.com.