Review: Sketching Landscapes in Pen, Ink and Watercolor (Craftsy course)

Sketcher and watercolour artist Shari Blaukopf has just launched her first online watercolour course on Craftsy. It's called Sketching Landscapes in Pen, Ink and Watercolor.

I've been following her blog for a long time and has even featured her drawing tools before here on Parka Blogs.

I've always wanted to learn from her, to see how she mixes and uses watercolour. So I'm delighted to see the course and bought it instantly. At the time of this writing, her Craftsy course page says that more than 500 have enrolled in her course.

By the way, Craftsy is an online platform for video tutorials with a focus on creative arts.

That's the course page. The actual retail price is USD $34.99 but there are occasional discounts. Regardless of the discount, the course is well worth the money for 171 minutes of instructions.

The course is split into 7 lessons, namely:

• Shari's Sketchbook's
• Composition
• Skies
• Big Shapes
• Texture
• Adding Depth with Value
• Expressing Unique Moments

For the course, Shari demonstrates the complete process of painting two landscapes from start to the end. This is a watercolour sketching course so she'll be using pen, ink and watercolour. You'll learn basic sketching techniques for use with watercolours.

In summary, it's about choosing the correct composition, putting down the lines, then the watercolours. In between, there are many tips given, such as how you can create textures, make your lines more lively, how to think about colours and more.

The instructions are clear and concise. She talks about her thought process and shows off all the techniques she uses.

The course is suitable for beginners and intermediate artists. Even if you know nothing about drawing, you can still follow along because the lessons are guided all the way.

What I like about the course is each time she mixes a colour, she'll mention the pigment name. You'll always know the colours she's using and can use the same colours.

There's homework at the end of each lesson as suggested by Shari. You can complete the lessons and share your art on the Craftsy platform or ask questions and get some feedback from Shari herself. Those question boxes are just beside the video.

Another highlight of the course is being able to check out some of Shari's sketchbooks. It's one thing to see the scanned sketches that she post regularly on her blog, but it's so much more inspiring to see her many beautifully filled sketchbooks. She also talks about the different brands of sketchbooks she uses.

Overall, the content presented is really educational. And I'm also impressed by the production quality of the video which is really professionally made.

It's really worth the money.

Highly recommended.

Register for the class now or check out more reviews from other students on Craftsy who are also taking the same course.