Date: Thursday 17th April 2025

Subject: Sketching Marine Life

Medium: Graphite Pencil

Course length: 6 x 1.5-hour lessons (9 hours total)

Included in the workshop: All tuition, reference photo (emailed), feedback and recording of the course.

A workshop kit containing everything you need is available to purchase for this course for £8.99

Suitable for: Beginners and advanced artists.

Location: Live via Zoom – invitation sent after booking.

Time: 7.00pm-8:30pm GMT (Please be ready with your materials by 6.45pm)

Price: £99

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COURSE STARTED

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My Zoom sketching courses have taken us on journeys to various parts of the globe in search of wildlife to discover and sketch. So far, these sketching journeys have mainly explored land animals and birds.

This time we will be donning flippers and snorkels to sketch a selection of animals that live beneath the waves.

This course will focus on the fundamental techniques of sketching wildlife with a graphite pencil. We will look at the use of basic shapes to quickly establish correct proportions. Shading - utilising techniques such as hatching, scribble shading, blending and highlighting - will be closely covered in each of the subjects. These techniques will be important in sketching the variety of textures in skin, scales and finer details.

Along the way, as we get to know the individual subjects through the sketching process, we will also learn something of their habitat, physiology, status and other facts.

After the course, you can discover and research even more marine wildlife to add to your collection of

sketches; the more you practice, the more your sketching will improve!

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Lesson 1 - Thursday 17th April - Seahorse

Seahorses always seem to be graceful, serene-looking fish. The way that they gently bob along, upright through the water like a child's hobby horse, has made them one of the more endearing sea creatures.

In this lesson we will begin by looking at the basic geometric shapes that combine to create the outline and proportions of this equine-looking fish.

Textures and details will be sketched and refined using both the pencil and kneadable eraser; a very useful highlighting tool. Finally, some seaweed 'foliage' will be added to make the sketch more complete.

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Lesson 2 - Thursday 24th April - Clownfish

I'm pretty sure that most people would recognise those pretty little striped fish, thanks to the film 'Finding Nemo'. It may seem a little strange to be sketching this colourful orange/white striped fish in monochrome, but I think it's a good opportunity for 'Finding Tones'.

Nothing too complicated about the overall shape and proportions this week, so we will have time to

concentrate on shading and soft blending techniques, after which we will add some sea anemone to create a naturalistic environment for the clownfish.

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Lesson 3 - Thursday 1st May - Green Sea Turtle

The colour of the fat, not the shell, gives the green sea turtle its name; its diet consisting of seagrasses and algae. This endangered reptile is one of the longest living marine animals, reaching 80 years old if not hunted. 

This week's lesson begins with us breaking down this somewhat complicated-looking image into basic shapes, lines and angles, making life so much easier when it comes to sketching all those components – shell, flippers, head and neck.

The giraffe-like patterns will perhaps be the most daunting part of this week's sketch, so I will try to show you a less daunting path to creating these markings.

Again, the kneadable eraser will prove useful as a highlighting tool for the 'crazy paving' effect on the

turtle's shell, as well as the rays of sunlight piercing the water in the background.

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Lesson 4 - Thursday 8th May - Dolphin

The bottlenose dolphin is a very familiar animal, due to its popularity in marine parks, films and television – who remembers 'Flipper'?

Dolphins are also one of the most intelligent animals on the planet and have been the subject of countless studies and interactions with humans.

The focus of this week's lesson, after creating the dolphin's distinctive body shape, is to create movement in the water with sunlight filtering down from the surface.

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Lesson 5 - Thursday 15th May - Hermit crab

The seas are full of fascinating, often strange, creatures. Hermit crabs are definitely one of the more interesting marine animals. Their appearance varies according to the type of shell they inhabit at any given time. This is an interesting topic for us to sketch, because of the different textures on the hermit's body (mostly the legs are visible) and the shell. Certainly one for us to get our claws into!

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Lesson 6 - Thursday 22nd May - Great White Shark

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, along comes one of the most feared of all marine animals, the great white shark.

The world's largest predatory fish is, of course, famous – or infamous – thanks mainly to Spielberg's

classic movie, starring Bruce, the mechanical rubber shark. Whether or not it's 'Jaws' reputation is

deserved, we shall hopefully find out in our final lesson.

As before, we begin by establishing the all-important basic shapes to create the outline and form. The

tonal shading is mostly smooth; graphite pencil blended with paper towel.

Once the tonal form is established, we can create the dappled light on Bruce's skin with the kneadable

eraser. Hopefully, we're not gonna need a bigger pencil!

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There is a kit available to accompany this course, which includes:

• ​2B Graphite Pencil

• Kneadable Eraser

• A4 150gsm White Paper (8 sheets)

• Reference Photos (7) included in the kit or emailed after booking)
   

​​** Kits are posted out approx. 1 week before the course starts **