Illustrating Nature course

I’ve been slowly making my way through the Illustrating Nature course by Laura McKendry on Domestika. I wanted to start dipping more into how to use watercolours, and although this course doesn’t cover watercolour basics I was really drawn to Laura’s non-traditional and energetic mixed-media illustrations.

This course is all about creative experimentation, making mistakes, playing with different media and different ways of referencing subjects. I’ve mostly been doing the tasks in my regular sketchbook/journal, which is not exactly made for watercolour or pencils, but is fun to flip back through and see the things that I’ve done. It really feels like the beginning of something, where I’m not too concerned about the quality of the result as much as what I can learn whilst doing it. I feel so creatively energised trying all these different techniques!

I’m still yet to do my “final” pieces, but here’s some of my quick studies so far, mixed in with random journal bits.