I have a strong preference for open-ended sketches, starting at my focus and working outwards in a spontaneous way (Foundations Lesson 11) so having an entire month of trying to contain my sketches using framing devices has been radical for me. But oh! so much fun!

I had lots of different starting ideas (you can get a glimpse of them here) but in the end I focused on using foreground elements and often converted them into a negative space frame. I tried using trees, buildings, windows and narrow streets as frames and thought about white vs dark frames.

I explored ways of using these framing techniques for the 3 layers approach from my Travel Sketching course (if you haven’t already heard I’m hosting a Live Version of Travel Sketching starting 13 May 2026 – find out more here).

I was also very interested in discovering when the frame or the sketch itself became the more dominant feature in the end result. 

So many ideas to explore!

As always, this month inside the community I filmed weekly update videos explaining the ideas I was working through and then last week we had our usual monthly livestream where I went through all my work, answered questions and did a demo. So much fun to hang out with everyone.

Here are some highlights from my framing month….

A few local sketches… side framing

Top framing

Top and bottom framing with lots of negative space

Beecroft Note: if you are part of the community you will know that this is a cropped version 🙂

The view into the garden from my friends’ place.

Then a few sketches from photos. These were from a trip to Europe when I first started sketching.

Back then I took way more photos and seemed to have quite a few framed compositions. 🙂

City Sketching… you’ve seen these two before but this image shows you how they sit next to each other in my sketchbook

Foundations Park in The Rocks – trying buildings and a sandstone cliff as a framing device.

 
Sitting in the colonnade of a Jimmy B building (the GPO in Martin Place).

And finally two table-top sketches. You’ve seen the first one before. 🙂

At the time I felt tempted to add the black table shape but decided to leave it as it was – I was chatting with my friends and knew I wasn’t concentrating enough to make an informed decision.

So I decided to do another version.

This is my afternoon cup of tea on my filming desk! I loved doing this sketch!

Thanks to everyone who is part of my Sketching Adventure Community and especially those who have been joining in with the Framing fun! You are all so inspiring!

The post Framing my compositions appeared first on Liz Steel.

I love sketching food! It adds so much colour and texture to my sketchbook pages and is a great memory of times with friends (without making them feel uncomfortable by drawing them – I prefer to sketch strangers!).

In this article I want to share a few of my recent food and drink sketches.

This first one was from Easter Saturday when I spent the day catching up with friends on the Central Coast. Even though it was a wet day we had a lovely time outside in their back terrace area. This was a relaxed setting for sketching food as we were sitting at the table for hours and there was no hot food – so no time pressures!

I was experimenting with our current Patreon theme of Framing with this one.

The next sketch was more pressured – hot food during lunch with a friend in Eastwood.

It is much harder to sketch food when at a restaurant with a friend so often I simply get the outline loosely drawn, take a photo and then come back and add more details and colour later (ie. when my friend is in the middle of telling me an involved story).

BTW if any of my readers have any suggestions for places to visit in Eastwood I’d love to know! I lived in Eastwood for the first 7 years of my life and it’s changed a lot since then. I should definitely visit this suburb more often 🙂

Other times I take a photo and sketch later (my niece cooked dinner). Thinking about Lesson 2 indoor exercise from my Edges course (Hard and Soft Edges) while doing this.

And sometimes I’m on my own but hungry! So this is an example of a rushed sketch.

As for hot drinks… sketching tea is easier than coffee as the tea remains hot in the pot.

Cast iron teapot with Oolong tea and some Pink Flamingo Inktense (my current favourite colour!)

My strategy for coffees is to draw the surface of the coffee first and then draw the cup around it. This particular sketch was done during the OneWeek100People challenge so was done very quickly so I could get back to drawing people.

Ah! remember when I used to do a coffee sketch every morning? I prefer to be sketching outdoor scenes these days and soaking up some morning sun so it’s rare for me in my everyday life to actually sit in a cafe and order a coffee.

More tea…I really don’t need it! Lots of fun loose strokes in this one.

And just to finish off this article, here are a few of my food sketches from my trip to Wellington NZ back in January. One of the ways I like to relax when I’m travelling is to have a leisurely solo cafe sketching session.

Ah! I think it’s time for a cuppa now 🙂

The post Recent food and drink sketches appeared first on Liz Steel.

Today I’m sharing highlights from my sketches of Sydney City which I do on Wednesdays in the late afternoon before going to a mid-week meeting at my church. Some weeks I have too much work to make it a sketching outing, but I do try to sneak in a sketch most weeks.

These were all done to fit in with our Sketching Adventure Community monthly themes:

Unused Supplies in January, Value in February, Three in March and Framing in April.

And once again I’m sharing them in random order.

St Mary’s Cathedral using framing

Empty foodcourt using 2 x 3 media – 3 x Inktense and 3 x Tombows

3 layers of people in Haymarket – three layers at St Andrews Cathedral and some framing.

Three trees in The Rocks and making some friends from WA and VIC who sat and sketched with me.

Town Hall – starting with the darks (part of our Value theme) and demonstrating that value is more important than hue as I used three different coloured Tombows in the dark area.

Empty Foodcourt – using Values and starting with the darks.

Framing using a tree and garden bed of Hyde Park looking towards the Australian Museum.

And the last sketch in this article was done back in January using my Unused Supplies and three inktense pencils and three Tombows. It was a super quick sketch done before meeting up with my friend Olga from Auckland. I love having dry and quick drying media for super quick sketches in half-opportunities.

The post Recent City sketching - towers and interiors appeared first on Liz Steel.

Longtime readers of this blog (and a big hello to you!) will know that for many years I’ve had a morning routine of going out for a coffee and a sketch (and often a walk too!) I did this even when I was working as an architect (see here for an example).

This means that before I start my workday I have done a sketch and I’ve gotten my creative juices flowing. I’m also keeping an internal dialogue happening so that I can make the most out of any dedicated sketching outing ( it’s like doing scales before a performance). Some mornings I can focus on my sketch and some days I’m rushed and just go through the motions but my regular sketching habit is always good for me! (Read more about this here).

The biggest challenge with this type of sketching habit is keeping myself inspired because the subject matter is repetitive – I’m returning to the same locations over and over. And this is why in recent years I started changing my media so that I had something new to focus on. But there is a limit to how often you can change media and it’s easy to become overwhelmed  and end up spending a lot of money!

However having different conceptual themes to focus doesn’t have these problems. This is because they help me to change the way I see my subject – developing my observational and interpretive skills!

And this is why our monthly themes inside my Sketching Adventure Community has been so incredibly impactful to my everyday sketching!

So far this year we have focused on Unused Supplies in January, Value in February, Three in March and now this month we are looking at Framing. In this article I’ll share some highlights from my everyday sketching that cover these themes. 

But before that… there is another challenge related to a regular sketching habit. And that is… I end up filling a lot of sketchbooks and then have to work out a sustainable way to share them. 🙂

There is no doubt that my weekly update videos and monthly livestreams inside my Community is the best way to share my everyday sketches as a whole but I do want to continue sharing the highlights here. Last week I decided that it was time to rebuild my relationship with my scanner (it has been feeling very neglected lately!)  and re-visit the process of publishing scanned versions of my work. The result is that over the next week or so, I’ll get up to date with this year’s sketching. I hope you enjoy it!

Just for fun, I’m not going to put the images in order so this collection of morning sketches is totally random. I’ll include a brief description of which theme I was using.

The above sketch is one that I’m very happy with as it combines Inktense pencils and Tombow Markers in an interesting way. Note: I started using Inktense and Tombows as part of our Unused Supplies month and I’m still using them!

Okay… now time for the rest of the collection!

Framing: A dark shape for the foreground trees.

Framing: Is one white tree doing enough?

Value: Three-colour value study (rather than grey monochrome)

Unused Supplies: Tombows

Value: Adjusting the values of a scene which was mostly mid-tone

Values: Alternation – a concept I started thinking about at the very end of the value month.

Unused Supplies: Two quick little Inktense and Tombow sketches

Three: Using a new triad

Three: Three layers (a concept from my Travel Sketching course)

Three: Three Passes plus 3×3 media

Three: Three passes

Framing:  Extending my sketch to include a foreground element as a framing device

Value: Monochrome value study and colour study

Value: Starting with the darks

Three: Three houses

Three: Only using three tools for a sketch

Three: Three objects in foreground and three layers

Three: Three layers (different base colour for each)

Three: Using a triad (I had a few big lightbulb moments using a triad during the month which I shared in our monthly livestream).

I hope you have enjoyed seeing these (scanned) sketches! Hmm… Can you tell that it’s a big deal for me that I scanned so many sketches last week? I’m very proud of the achievement 🙂

Next article I’ll share some of my City sketches that I’ve done this year. So stay tuned for that!

If you are interested in joining us in the Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon – find out more here. 

The post Thoughts on building a regular sketching habit appeared first on Liz Steel.

Back home I did some sketches from photos. (Hmm, emus are lots of fun to draw and so are boobook owls).

I then did some research on three of the animals we saw in the nocturnal house. I know about bandicoots and potoroos but I had never come across a bettong before.  My nieces and nephews said they look like a mini-kangaroo with a possum head. There is no doubt that they are very cute. Check out two YouTube videos here and here.

And while thinking about Australian marsupials – this is the time of the year when I always think about bilbies as I have a tradition of buying a chocolate bilby every Easter.

Last year I sketched a foreshortened bilby (see here). but this year I was more interested in comparing them with bettongs. (The comparison sketch is a bit of a guess!)

I’m really happy that I now know about bettongs!

Let me know in the comments below if you live in Australia and have been ignorant about them as well.

The post Discovering bettongs (a cute Australian animal) appeared first on Liz Steel.

I filmed a video sharing the highlights! To watch on YouTube please click on image above or here.

And here is an index to all my articles and videos about this trip…

Blog articles:

• Wellington 2026 Part 1: First days
• Wellington 2026 Part 2: Workshops and lane way sketching
• Wellington 2026 Part 3: The second week

If you are part of my Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon here are links to the videos there.
(Note: you have to be a paid member to watch these)

• New Zealand Trip 2026 Part 1: Using Tombows
• New Zealand Trip 2026 Part 2: More Tombows with other media
• REPLAY: January Livestream – Unused Supplies and Wellington Sketches
• Using values to solve problems: Finishing a Wellington sketch that I knew at the time wasn’t working
• You might also be interested in the way I chose my Inktense selection here.

I hope you enjoyed being part of my Wellington trip!

The post Wellington 2026: Highlights video appeared first on Liz Steel.

This month inside my Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon we’ve been exploring the theme of ‘three’ and it’s been a lot of fun.

I am seeing ‘threes’ in lots of different aspects of my sketching including:

• using a watercolour triad (discovering three colours which work together well and have enough pigment variation!)
• sketching three objects
• sketching scenes with 3 layers (this is a theme from my Travel Sketching course and I’m gearing up for a Live Version of this course in May)
• using three passes when sketching with my current mixed media combo of Inktense, Tombows and ink.

I’m looking forward to sharing all my sketches from March in our usual monthly livestream for paid members of the community but here are a few little still life studies I did last week! Three objects in three passes.

Here’s a link to find out more about our community – we would love to have you join us and get inspired to build a sketching habit!

The post The theme of three appeared first on Liz Steel.

I did two rounds of 100 and was interviewed for a newspaper article.

Some years I don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to the challenge (so I know what it’s like to approach the 100 goal in a minimal way) but this time I was able to ignore most of my work and sketch a lot! 

I was contacted by The Guardian Newspaper on Monday morning about writing an article on the challenge and this meant that I did more sketching than usual early in the week so I could send them the finished image on Thursday.

Read article here

I hit 100 at 3:30pm on Wednesday but had to keep sketching faces until the next morning when I hit 120 and finished the 5 double page spreads in my book.

I did a combination of sketching from photos and sketching on location. I think this approach works really well for this challenge.

Most of the on-location faces were done at Goodfields Eatery in Lindfield and a Westfield Foodcourt. It was wonderful to go back to Goodfields -over the years the interactions with the owners, staff and other patrons in this cafe were always a highlight of this challenge. I realised this year that I was missing this aspect.

I was really happy with the combo of water-soluble pencil (Inktense) and marker (Tombow) and my colour scheme which was randomly chosen while I was doing the first few faces on Monday. I used similar tools  in 2025 but it was good to expand my limited colour palette.

Last year I used a grid as well (fitting all 100 people into the one double-page spread) but this time I increased the size and changed the shape to square.  This square format gave me more options for placing the head and I loved varying the position of the shoulder lines. I would prefer to work a little larger (it would make doing the features easier) but that would then result in more time needed for each sketch!

Each square was 5x5cm and I took 3-4 minutes per sketch with a little touch-up time on completion of each spread.

I had completed my 120 faces by 9am on Thursday morning and then during a scheduled call with Uma Kelkar I started Round 2!

I wanted the second 100 to be looser and include more than just the head. So sketching crowds in India from paused videos was perfect. I didn’t have a plan when we started but after the first few sketches I soon got into a rhythm of randomly alternating between Inktense, Tombow and Fude lines.

I’m really happy with this second round of sketches – I got to 63 in an hour with Uma and then reached 100 on Friday after a second session. Note: I was a bit too generous with how I counted people in round 2 🙂

I love this challenge so much! It’s intensive but lots of fun and there is certainly something special in the crazy goal of 100!

The result of this year’s  challenge is that I have a list of aspects of people sketching that I want to work on in the coming months. It’s one thing to do this type of shape based sketches based on paused video, but it’s another thing entirely to sketch moving people. 

If you did OneWeek100People I hope that you enjoyed it! Hitting 100 is not important – the goal of the challenge is simply to sketch more than you normally would.

Thanks to everyone who has been part of this special week – there has been a lot of activity on Instagram! I’ve loved seeing everyone’s work both there and inside my Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon.

And as always huge thanks to Marc Taro Holmes – the creator of this challenge. It makes me so happy to co-host this challenge with you!

The post OneWeek100People2026: Two rounds and a newspaper article appeared first on Liz Steel.

I haven’t been sketching people much lately and  as I didn’t get a chance beforehand to warm-up and work out my tools I decided to start this year’s challenge at home working from photos. I intend to sketch on location this week, but I just wanted to start easily. Plus it was a wet day here in Sydney so a good day to stay home. 😉

Over the years I’ve amassed a large collection of photos (I take screenshots when I’m watching YouTube videos) and so I have plenty of reference photos handy. Sketching from photos is certainly not nearly as much fun as sketching in person but it is a good way to work out my approach and technique.

I enjoyed filling a grid so much last year that I’m using that again. But instead of fitting all 100 on a single double-pages spread, I’m working larger and will need 4-5 spreads to hit 100. I’m also using a square grid so that I have a little more space to position the head.

As for materials, I’m sticking with a limited selection of water-soluble pencils and markers(Tombow). Last year I used Albrecht Durer watercolour pencil but today I used Inktense. I found them harder to use but I know that as I become more confident sketching people this week I will adjust to the more intense colour.

As always there is something very special about this challenge and after doing 24 faces in 2 x 45 minute sessions I’m already feeling the benefit! My marks became more confident after the first 10 faces (I was working from right to left) and I got into a rhythm mixing the pencil and markers.  This mixed media approach of mine does take more time than simply doing line drawing as I’m using multiple pencils and markers in every sketch but I like the flexibility of this approach.

I hope you have a good Day 1 of the #oneweek100people2026 challenge!

The post OneWeek100People2026 has begun! appeared first on Liz Steel.

It was also the first time I’ve taught a two-day workshop for a number of years and I really enjoyed having more time to build skills and get to know the participants!

We had a lovely inspiring group. Everyone did such great work and I absolutely loved sketching with you all over the two days!
(Special thanks to those of you who travelled big distances to Sydney for this workshop!)

We spent the first morning in a great location with lots of options for subject matter (from simple to more challenging) and we focused on building and refining essential edges skills.

We did exercises for measuring angles and lengths, and also used intersections and relationships (plumblines) to improve the accuracy of our drawings.

It was nice also to have a table for our throwdowns!

In the afternoon we went to the top of the island – to the convict precinct – and got out our watercolour. We started doing some swatches (watercolour plus some watercolour pencil) relating to our subject matter…

…and then I did a full demo, showing how I used the concepts from the morning session to draw the barracks building and then apply some simple watercolour washes.

Great work everyone!

While we were sketching we were entertained by the happenings on a nearby crane. We noticed a lot of workers in orange on the scaffolding and then realised they were passing elements from one level to the next. It was like something in a Richard Scarry book!

On the second morning we headed to my favourite part of the island – behind the big industrial sheds…

…and looking at the cranes on the other side of Fitzroy Dock. 

We then did a number of shape thumbnails of one of the cranes that I christened Fred. 🙂

As it was an overcast day we weren’t able to do the shadow shape exercise but instead we did a value based sketch – focusing on LMD (light, mid and dark). It was great that I was about to use a brand new approach that I had developed during our Value month inside my Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon in this way.

For the final session we headed back up to the top of the island to the Drawing Office area.

After showing the group how to use shape thumbnails to work out what will make a successful sketch…

…I did a full demo starting with shape. This is a progress shot.

And then it was time for the group to sketch, choosing their own subject if they wanted. Great work everyone!

It was such a fun two days and I look forward to teaching this workshop again in the future!

I currently don’t have a date scheduled for the next occasion, so if you are interested in attending please sign up to my monthly newsletter for the first notification of any future workshops.

The post Workshop Report: Sketching with edges and shapes on Cockatoo Island appeared first on Liz Steel.