Sketching in Sepia: A Beginner’s Guide to Contrast & Dramatic Values

Learn to make your sketches pop with brilliant light and dramatic shadows!

In this class, we’re going to work with just one color to truly explore value. By setting aside color and working on exploring a full range of light and dark in our work, we can create art that makes a strong visual and emotional impact.

I’ll be demonstrating the wonderfully portable and affordable Pentel Color Brush Pen in sepia. You can take the class using ink or watercolor, and I’ll demonstrate each of those.

We’ll study the value scale, then we’ll do a simple warmup exercise painting a piece of fruit.

After that, we’ll dive in to a classic Italian village scene, painted in sepia like the old masters used to do.

In this class you’ll learn:

• The benefits of painting with just one color
• How to identify values using a value scale
• How to paint from dark to light in sepia ink or watercolor
• How to soften or sharpen your edges
• How to add finishing details and adjust your values to make your painting pop
• How to apply these techniques to full-color paintings and sketching on location.

Preview

1 image