It’s been interesting to see how my combination of text and sketches has evolved over the years, and today I want to share a few examples with you. (Note: I included some of these in an email I sent out recently, but I’m adding more examples in this article!)

Before I started regularly sketching, I kept written journals when I travelled and only occasionally added a drawing.

Whenever I included a sketch, the stories were richer.

So I was determined to learn how to paint with watercolour so that I could create more image-based travel sketchbooks.

In January 2007, I started sketching my life in preparation for a 5-week visit to Europe later that year. (Sketching my life was simply a means of training for this upcoming trip!)

I was so happy that I filled two Moleskine sketchbooks on that trip – filling my pages with a few sketches per day, accompanied by my usual written accounts of my adventures.

I became obsessed with sketching after this trip, and sketching my life became an end in itself. It helped me see beauty in the ordinary and enjoy the small moments of life.

Over the years, I created habits to incorporate sketching into my busy everyday schedule, but I often rely on writing to complete the narrative for each day.

Special memories are encoded into my sketches, but my handwritten notes record (often with a touch of humour) additional little moments that I would otherwise forget.

I’ve also come to realise that the process of composing my sketches and notes on the page is a very distinct creative act – one that I enjoy almost as much as the sketching itself.

Here are some examples (from my sketchbooks over the years) showing a few different ways I add text to my sketchbook pages.

Writing in a long text block aligning with the width of my sketch.

Writing in a small text block fitting into an open-corner of my sketch.

Columns of text.

Varying the colour of my text in random text blocks across the spread.

More random notes across the page.

Text incorporated into the sketch.

A full page of text contrasting with the openness of the opposite page.

Text as background.

Text in a shape with an overlapping sketch.

There is so much that you can do when you add a bit of writing to your sketchbook pages! And this is something that I’m really looking forward to exploring inside Sketchbook Design in the coming weeks, as there are always so many wonderful ideas shared in the classroom!

Just for the record: You don’t have to have neat handwriting, or journal your life as I do- there are lots of different ways to add text that will contribute to story-telling within your sketchbooks. And yes, we also look at these options inside Sketchbook Design.

I’m so excited to be going through this course again – starting this week!

Live Version starting 9 September 2026
Work through the lessons in 9 weeks with  an inspiring group of sketchers
+ take part in 9 bonus weekly Q&A livestreams

Find out more about Sketchbook Design

Buy Sketchbook Design with Foundations and Watercolour and save! 
Find out more about the Sketch Your Life Bundle

Do you add writing to your sketchbook pages?

If yes, I would love to hear why you do and what kind of things you write about.

If no, why not?

If it is something that you wish you did more of, I would love to know what’s stopping you. What are the barriers to writing in your sketchbook?

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

The post Adding writing to my sketchbook pages and a question for you appeared first on Liz Steel.

On the two train trips, I finished pages in my sketchbook, edited two 40-minute videos for Patreon (for members of my Sketching Adventure community… I’m referring to my Alsace vlogs here and here), and then, in my spare time, I sketched the view out the window in three combination panoramas.

Once in Paris, my friend Magdy met me at the train station. We jumped in a taxi, and on the way I saw a few Paris highlights – the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides.

She took me to her neighbourhood, and we had a lovely lunch.

And then I was taken to the train station. Thanks, Madgy, for looking after me so well during my brief visit to Paris. It was lovely to catch up with you and J!

I arrived in Toulouse after 8 pm, so it was around 9 pm by the time I got out to walk the streets.

I didn’t sketch (it was still very warm!), but I walked around, took a few photos, and got a feel for the city. (BTW: I didn’t see any sketchers!)

Once back in my hotel, I did these colour swatches to record my first response to the pinks of Toulouse. These were test swatches for my demo – the left column contains my tempera sticks as a first layer. Three watercolour washes form the vertical columns.

What a lovely travelling day this was! Of course, it would have been nice to have had more time in Paris this trip, but I’m happy I managed to sneak in 5 hours!

The post France 2026: Travelling day (5 hours in Paris) appeared first on Liz Steel.

It’s been a few years since I have been able to host an interactive version of this course (with weekly livestreams), so this is a big event.

I firmly believe any page can be made interesting by spending a little time designing the layout and adding notes and other elements.

This design can elevate your sketchbook in amazing ways: Pages that contain sketches which you were not 100% happy with at the time can become your favourites!

This month I’m spending a lot of time working on pages from my two France Trip sketchbooks – thanks to the monthly theme of Finishing Touches inside our Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon. And I’ve been reminded of how much this extra time in my sketchbook, once I’m back home, increases my connection to my sketches and pages. My France books are even more precious to me now that I’ve been able to finish pages – adding a few final touches to my sketches, and including notes and other design elements.

I’m now even more committed to doing this with my everyday sketchbooks, and so this Live Version of Sketchbook Design is coming at a perfect time.

I always get so much inspiration from the beautiful pages created by the cohort as we go through the lessons.

Here are some examples from previous cohorts.

Very inspiring, aren’t they?

The Live Version starts on Wednesday 9th September, and we’ll go through the on-demand video lessons over 9 weeks. Here is the schedule that we’ll follow:

Introduction (1 week) – starting Wed 9 Sept
Lesson 1: Adding elements (2 weeks) – starting Wed 16 Sept
Lesson 2: Contained compositions (2 weeks) – starting Wed 30 Sept
Lesson 3: Open compositions (2 weeks) – starting Wed 14 Oct
Lesson 4: Designing on the fly (2 weeks) – starting Wed 28 Oct

Each week, we’ll catch up in a bonus live session (held at alternating times to suit every time zone) to recap the current themes and look at work from the classroom. These livestreams are so much fun! Livestream dates and times are listed on this page.

Here’s a brief overview of the course with some images from the video lessons.

You’ll learn how to…

Add elements to your pages such as text, headings, borders, maps, secondary sketches and colour blocks.

Design contained compositions where your sketches and other elements are separate – with distinct white space around them.

Create open compositions: keeping corners open, extending, combining, overlapping or random placement.

Explore ways of using either open or contained compositions – or a combination of both!

Sketch spontaneously and design on the fly when sketching out on location to create a sequence of pages that relate to each other.

Use a few practical design principles to create interesting pages without spending a lot of time planning beforehand.
 

Find out more about Sketchbook Design here

Please let me know below if you have any questions about Sketchbook Design!

The post Live Version Sketchbook Design coming soon! appeared first on Liz Steel.

Our itinerary included

• a few hours in Wissembourg
• even less time in Saverne
• overnight in Obernai
• a visit to Chateau du Haut-Koenigsbourg
• overnight in Ribeauville
• one and a half days in Strasbourg.

What a beautiful part of the world!

We ended up sketching complex scenes and doing a lot of mixed media experiments. It was a case of straight in at the deep end!

My goals for this trip were to do more full-colour sketches and explore ways of combining opaque and transparent media. I tried a lot of different things during these first four days and refined a few new techniques!

I was extremely happy with what I achieved during our time in Alsace. As mentioned in my Reflections article, all the trip prep work I did really paid off.

And just for the record, half-timber buildings are definitely my favourite style of architecture to sketch at the moment!

Thanks, Kerstin, for making this trip happen and all the inspiring art conversations. It was wonderful to sketch alongside you in Alsace!

Here are the highlights of our mini road trip…

First sketch in France, standing up and being interrupted by a car whose driver parked right where we were standing.

Lunch and a view of a crazy tall roof.

Sketching from a cafe and fighting jet-lag. For the record: this was not the most complicated half-timber building we could have sketched from this position.

View from our hotel room…

…which we sketched the next morning!

We needed something calmer and simpler for the next sketch.

An impressive castle…

…but it was hard to find a good view to sketch it from (which wouldn’t result in a stiff neck!)

So we did two quick sketches (10 minutes and 15 minutes each)

And then sketched from the nearby cafe.

I called Ribeauville the “neocolor town’ as the colours of many buildings exactly matched my Neocolor II selections!

A lovely end of the day sketch!

A simpler subject sketched after running into a few friends!

Shari, Brenda and Suhita were in Ribeauville too – teaching a joint workshop! Small world indeed!

This is the classic view of Strasbourg Cathedral, which we didn’t get to sketch (too hot and too busy!)

But we did find a spot under some trees to do a backlit sketch of it.

A leisurely breakfast!

The gorgeous Petite France part of Strasbourg – sketched early morning before it got too hot.

  
A crazy street view sketch – I was in a flow state when I did this.

Another experimental sketch of the cathedral.

Here is a close up of my favourite parts of the sketch.

A quick sketch of a lovely dark half-timber building on the main square. (Another sketch done in flow state)

An evening sketch (9pm) of a building that felt very Parisian to me.

 
All these sketches used a combination of media, as you can see in these screenshots from the videos I filmed for members of my Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon. I loved documenting my sketches in this way (if you are a paid member of my community, here is the direct link to these videos).

It was such a special 4 days of sketching – I had so much fun playing with shapes, colour, pattern and texture in mixed media. Thanks again to Kerstin for making it happen!

The post France 2026: Alsace road trip appeared first on Liz Steel.

Watch it here

Thanks to all my friends who allowed me to film them! (Links to their work have been included in the post.)

It was such an incredible week, surrounded by lots of inspiring sketchers and catching up with my friends. I think this energy comes across in this fun video! 🙂

I hope that you enjoy it!

The post France 2026: Vlog from the Symposium appeared first on Liz Steel.

My trip involved a 4-day road trip with Kerstin in the Alsace/Strasbourg region, 10 days in Toulouse for the symposium and a 4-day road trip from Toulouse to Paris airport with Francoise. (Note: I only had 5 hours in Paris in between two train trips).

As with last year’s overseas adventures, I will share highlights here in the coming weeks (and maybe months!), but will start off with my typical reflections post.

This year I will simply share a list of my thoughts that are going through my head at the moment (written a few days after returning home):

• The 6 weeks I spent doing all kinds of trip prep (see blog article here or browse Patreon videos here) really set me up for success!
• I was really happy with all the media that I took and used all of them throughout my trip (with the exception of tempera sticks, which I took mainly for my demo at the symposium. (Note to self: probably will not need them for the next trip!)
• Apricot (Neocolor II) and Blue-Grey (Luminance) were the two new colour fads of the trip, but in Alsace I became obsessed with shades of brown! There was also a bit of an Aubergine / Caput Mortuum Violet theme running through all three weeks as well.
• Light cobalt blue (Cobalt Blue 5%) is my most used Neocolor II by far!
• I only used my dagger brush once in the whole trip (what???), and that was for the demo I taught at the symposium.  I’m using some other brushes these days, which I explored during my trip Prep phase.
• I love mixing up transparent with opaque, water-soluble with non-water-soluble.
• I really want to explore collage and use of stencils to get shapes with crisp edges (thanks to the workshops by Marina and Nina which I did during the symposium – stay tuned for more about that)
• I’m still searching for the best line tool to use over Neocolor II
• I’m really happy that I took coloured pencils rather than watercolour pencils this trip. I did not miss my WCPs, as I had a few Inktense pencils and my Neocolor II if I needed water-soluble marks.
• Mixed media layering is very forgiving but does take more time. So these days I’m often the last to finish and the one who takes the longest to pack up!
• Half-timber houses are my new favourite style of architecture to sketch (but I prefer the framing to be random rather than too regular).
•  The regions of France that I visited were all insanely beautiful!
• I’m very thankful I survived the heat reasonably well (it was hot every day until the second last day!)
• I had a LOT of amazing art conversations (sharing a room with Suhita during the symposium was a major part of this), and there are many concepts to think about and ideas to develop in my work.

As always, people are the best part of any trip – so thanks to everyone who was part of my France adventures!!

If you are a paid member of my Patreon community…
On Friday, I hosted a livestream to flip through my books as they currently are, and emphasising how important it was for me to simplify the complex scenes I was sketching before I started my mixed media sketches. Watch the replay here.

In the coming weeks, I will be finishing off my pages (taking advantage of our monthly theme – Finishing Touches – to do so!)

Anyone can see a preview of this livestream (and pages from the first week of my trip) here and if you scroll down my Quips page (a new free feature on Patreon) you can see more images from my trip and some of my trip prep.

I’ll start sharing highlights from the trip here in the coming weeks – so stay tuned for that!

The post France 2026: Reflections from my 3-week trip appeared first on Liz Steel.

I decided to

• use a lot of opaque media (mostly Neocolor II and acrylic markers, with only a little watercolour),
• work larger (going to the edge of the page) and
• at times, to intentionally lean my vertical lines. 

Here is a selection of some of these out-of-character sketches – I went through all of them in a livestream recently.

There is something super nice about seeing vibrant, matt, opaque colour in my sketchbook (it jumps off the page!), and I love the fact that I’m using different colour combinations than normal. It’s a great way to feel inspired while sketching the same ‘boring’ everyday scenes over and over!

The post Exploring opacity and going to the edge appeared first on Liz Steel.

I’ll be teaching how to combine dry media with watercolour during my demo titled ‘Mixed Media Architecture’, and so I’ve been doing a lot of experimentation in the past few weeks to work out what to take with me. There are so many options!

I love making ‘Trip Prep’ into a big personal art project. I know that I can just pack a few art supplies and it would work fine. But I like to take the opportunity of an upcoming trip to do a big review and try new things. For me, travel is a time to focus seriously on my art, and in recent years I’ve really enjoyed experimenting while travelling.

Last year, I had so much fun creating a dedicated Trip Prep Sketchbook and filming a series of videos for my Patreon community as I prepared for a 9-week trip to Europe. I’ve done that again this year.

The first thing I did was rewatch the Mixed Media Review video I created shortly after returning from my 9-week 2025 European trip to remind myself of what worked and how I used the various media.

For example: I used ink and graphite a lot last year for complex scenes when I didn’t have the time or focus for watercolour. Such as this sketch from Poznan in the crazy days before the Symposium.

While I loved doing this style of sketch, this year I want to have a quick dry media full-colour option – especially for gorgeous old towns with lots of colour and half-timbered buildings, which I hope to visit.

So I started a dedicated sketchbook (9×6″ size) to experiment with dry media combos. Here are a few pages from it…

I’ve also been thinking a lot about the Pink City of Toulouse and ways of creating possible Toulouse colours by layering media (wet and dry).

As a result of my testing, I’ve decided to start using coloured pencils again, and I’m particularly in love with all the muted options available in the Caran d’ache Luminance range. These go well with Potters Pink and two opaque watercolours I added to my palette last year (Warm Light Yellow and Naples Yellow Reddish).

I’ve been loving exploring pink options – a hue that I normally don’t use that much!

This photo shows some of my ‘building colour’ tests for the various locations on my itinerary.

I’ve also been revisiting Neocolor II. For various reasons, I’ve hardly used them this year, so it’s been great to work with acrylic markers (a combo I used 18 months ago).

I also filmed a special bonus video all about Neocolor II and why I love using them so much. They are the tools I get asked about most, so I’m really happy to have a good introduction video now.

Another really fun aspect of my Trip Prep project this year has been using photos from my 2026 European trip to test out new media and approaches.

There is something very special about redoing a sketch I did 12 months ago using a different technique and then assessing whether this new approach would have worked better. I can still remember the decisions I made then (often responding to common travel sketching challenges), and it’s been very helpful to consider what I might do differently this year in a similar situation.

I don’t really like sketching from photos of my upcoming destinations, as I’m afraid it might affect my response when I’m actually there. I also prefer, as a general rule, sketching from my own photos, so revisiting scenes from last year has worked well!

Here are some of these quick sketches I’ve done in my Trip Prep book this month:

All of these sketches were done in 5-10 minutes, working small, and with the goal of simply exploring colours and techniques. So they are more ‘colour tests’ than ‘serious sketches’.

This last sketch is the exception. I did this in my 8×10 Alpha during a video call with @francoisechome and catching up on her recent visits to Rouen and Brittany. It was a good opportunity to test my mixed-media tools and techniques in my regular sketchbook. I used Neocolor II, Acrylic Marker, Coloured Pencil, Tombow marker and ink (Fude nib) and this sketch took longer (mainly because we were talking non-stop at the time!)

Note: I think half-timbered buildings might be my favourite architecture to sketch!

I’ve absolutely loved doing this Trip Prep Project in the past few weeks – and filling an entire sketchbook before my travels begin!

It makes me happy to get my coloured pencils out again – but oh! it is extremely hard to limit my selection as there are just so many brands and nice colours to choose from. The last Trip Prep video, featuring my final selections, will be shared with the community later this week – this photo was taken during the culling process.

If you sign up for my Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon for a month or two (of course, we hope that you’ll stay longer!), you’ll be able to watch all of this year’s Trip Prep videos and last year’s ones too.

I will be sharing weekly travel vlogs there too during July and a livestream at the end of the month to share all my travel sketches from France.

I can’t wait to start using all my trip prep ideas on location while travelling!

Thanks to everyone who is part of my Sketching Adventure Community – I’ve loved getting all your feedback during my Trip Prep and especially all your thoughts and questions about using Neocolor II.

Looking forward to seeing some of you in Toulouse!

The post France 2026: Lots of Trip Prep with dry media appeared first on Liz Steel.

It’s been 4 years since I last participated, and this year I modified the challenge to suit the fact that I’m in serious Trip Prep mode and exploring different dry media options for quick travel sketching.

So my approach to the challenge was more about Watercolour Plus than strict direct watercolour. In the end, approx 50% of my sketches were direct watercolour, in that I started with paint first!

My goals for this month included:

1. complete 30 small sketches with watercolour using photos from previous travels
2. decide on a primary triad using Daniel Smith or Schmincke paints.
3.  try some different flat brushes
4. compare different ways of combining watercolour with other media (the dry media that I plan to take with me on my upcoming trip to France)
5. explore some mixes for a Toulouse-inspired colour palette (think muted pinks and pale terracotta) and revisit a few opaque paints I have in my palette at the moment.

And I’m happy to report that I achieved all my goals and hit 31 by the 16th of June!

As you can see in the combo image above, I used the same three Scottish photos for many of my sketches, but then towards the end I moved into warmer colour schemes. These sketches were all done in under 12 minutes, with the exception of the two big architectural sketches, which were each completed under 20 minutes. The roofscape sketch was done while on a Zoom call with Uma – I was very happy to have a trial run of her Toulouse workshops.

I’ve been filming weekly videos for my Sketching Adventure Community on Patreon explaining my approach with time-lapse videos for many of these sketches (see here, here and here) but here are a few of them…

Can you tell what other media were combined with watercolour in each of these? (I used three colours of ink, coloured pencils, Inktense pencils, Tombow markers, Neocolor II)

Are you taking part in the 30×30 challenge this year? How’s it going?

The post 30x30 watercolour challenge: 2026 edition appeared first on Liz Steel.

This will be a chance to sketch your way through Foundations alongside an inspiring cohort of sketchers worldwide!

Each week, you’ll be prompted to move on to the next section of the course, and there will be a bonus livestream with me at the start of the course to introduce the concepts and  so that you can ask questions in real time. I love sharing the concepts for this course!

Click here for the lesson schedule and the livestream date and time.

I only do a group version for Foundations once a year, so this is a big event!

Foundations, my most popular course, covers all the essential skills every sketcher should have. Designed for beginners, it teaches fundamental observational skills and urban sketching basics.

It’s also perfect for self-taught sketchers seeking improvement or seasoned sketchers wanting to work faster.

In Foundations, you’ll learn to:

• Build a solid foundation with essential skills for sketching
• Develop effective techniques for sketching on location, regardless of subject matter
• Improve your ability to sketch faster and more spontaneously

Foundations sets the stage for all my other courses, containing the essential techniques I use in every sketch. I love revisiting the basics, and each time I go through Foundations, I develop new techniques!
 

Find out more about Foundations

12-week Group Self-Paced Version
starting 17 June 2026

Work through the course with
an inspiring group of sketchers from around the world and
take part in an interactive Live Q&A session for
real-time insights and inspiration

In preparation for this Foundations Group Event, I’ve put together a collection of images that illustrate the course’s main themes using more recent Foundations demos!

Are any of these concepts things that you want to develop in your own work?

The core skill we develop inside Foundations is learning to see the world in terms of edges, shapes and volumes (ESV).

I have a specific way of thinking about these: Feeling Edges, Abstracting Shapes and Constructing Volumes.

I think about edges, shapes, or volumes (or all three) in every sketch I do, and whenever a sketch (or a part of a sketch) isn’t quite working, I go back to thinking about ESV.

In Foundations, we use edges, shapes, and volumes for simple objects (such as this still life) and more complex scenes (see below).

Here are a few more ESV examples from the course. 🙂
(Yes, there is a Borromini demo in Foundations!)

Learning to simplify objects and scenes into big shapes is an essential skill for painting.

But you can use shapes for any media.

Note: I got a bit excited doing the demo on the left, calling it ‘the shape of the year’ because it featured a beautiful mix of shadow and negative shapes.

When to use volumes. BTW I particularly enjoyed doing a demo of my sewing snips!

We also look at accuracy – how to sight measure or use what I call ‘minimal setup’.

Here are my working drawings for four different views of a Cafe Table Number. I never cease to be amazed when measuring foreshortened lengths – compare View 1 with View 4!

Many beginner sketchers are obsessed with learning perspective, and while it is good to understand perspective eventually, developing basic observational skills is more important. This image shows you how I drew these two sketches of a terrace house, thinking about shapes, angles, and foreshortened lengths – I didn’t use perspective! 

We also look at how to combine ink and watercolour and how to decide what to draw in ink and what to describe in watercolour. Or maybe even use watercolour pencils, especially for a detailed object.

There are many different ways to approach ink and wash – this image shows three demos of a patterned cushion.

In the last part of the course, we focus on basic skills for sketching on location. We’ll explore strategies for limiting what we sketch (ie. we don’t have to draw everything!) and we’ll learn how to draw the main edges going in the right direction! 🙂

Note: Although the ultimate goal is to sketch on location, it’s totally okay to do the exercises from photos.

We also explore simple composition rules and how to create a focus for our sketch. Once again, using shapes and important edges to help with this!

The last concept that I’ll share today is the idea of working out from a focus. This involves starting a sketch with the most important part of the scene (the focus) and then working spontaneously out from that point. Here are a few process photos from a demo I did last year when we went through the course.

Ah! Putting this article together is definitely increasing my excitement to revisit Foundations again! 🙂 I love this course so much!

As you can see from this summary of concepts, Foundations is a comprehensive course designed to be an ongoing resource!

You have lifetime access to all the lessons (and livestream replays) and free access to all future group events. Many Foundations participants have gone through the course numerous times.

If you have purchased Foundations at any time you can be part of this Group Version for free! To join  – simply go to the Foundations classroom via My Account/My Courses on the SketchingNow site and follow the instructions under the Welcome video. Or check out the email I sent to you last week!

I would love you to be part of this cohort!

1. Gift Certificates I have Gift Certificates available for my SketchingNow courses and bundles – starting at only $59 USD. Each one comes with a printable gift certificate. Find out more here.

2. Free Intro Lessons If you want to find out more about Foundations, I have three free Intro Lessons  – sign up for them here.

 
If it’s a good fit for you, I would love you to be part of this Group Version of Foundations. 

The post Foundations starts this week: Summary of the main concepts appeared first on Liz Steel.