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Jean Mackay – Sketchbook Happy Hour (Online)
Date recorded: Friday, April 11, 2025
Bring your preferred beverage and a sketchbook and join Jean Mackay as she shares some favorite sketchbook pages, offers tips for keeping up a sketching habit, and sketches California tide pool discoveries in ink and watercolor. Feel free to bring your own subject matter or sketch along using reference material provided.
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Bring your preferred beverage and a sketchbook and join Jean Mackay as she shares some favorite sketchbook pages, offers tips for keeping up a sketching habit, and sketches California tide pool discoveries in ink and watercolor. Feel free to bring your own subject matter or sketch along using reference material provided.
Jean Mackay is an artist, educator, and naturalist. She has been keeping an artist journal for more than nearly 20 years as a way to study and share the beauty and diversity of nature, as well as to record the art of everyday living. Working in all kinds of settings, from tide pools to farm fields to her own backyard in upstate New York, Jean’s watercolors reflect a keen eye for detail and profound sense of wonder. She is the author/illustrator of The Nature Explorer’s Sketchbook (2020). Jean teaches online and in-person classes and offers immersive workshops nationally and internationally. She has been an instructor with Winslow Art Center since 2020.
If you enjoyed this presentation or have any thoughts on it or questions, please leave a comment. If you made a piece of art inspired by this presentation, we’d love if you’d upload and share!
25 Responses
@DanitaReynolds– Love the crab and the way your page turned out!
Just catching up…i always love watching and listening to Jean work her magic …and especially with tide pools! Thank you Jean and Martha for generously offering Spring Fling!
Cheers,
Karen
Jean, Thank you your inspiring presentation. I appreciated your comments on how you organize the use of your sketchbooks – sometimes that stops me in my tracks….afraid to muck up a sketchbook. lol. What is the type and size of the Handbook used in the demo?
Hi Diane– Glad you enjoyed Spring Fling! The sketchbook size is 5.5×8 inches, so when fully open it’s about 11×8. The paper in it 140lb watercolor paper and the binding opens flat. Don’t let your fear of messing up prevent you from using your sketchbook. The only way to get better is to get going and keep turning the pages!
Thanks for joining me for the Sketchbook Happy Hour. Here’s the finished page– As you can see, I decided to add more aggregating anemones to convey the cloning and aggregating nature of these. Hope you’ll have the opportunity to explore the real thing someday!
So glad you could come along! I love your sketches. The blue background is very engaging and bright. I like your handwritten labels, too. Thanks for sharing your work.
Thank you so much Jean and Winslow Art Center! This was such an enjoyable and informative class!
Hi Misty- Thanks for posting here. Your sketches turned out great– especially with your lovely lettering. I love the sense of light you got on your pink volcano!
A watercolor beginner, enjoyed this so much as the inking part helps in creating a result. Have never seen anything like the subjects, so it really was like painting space aliens like someone else commented.
Thanks for giving these “alien” subject a try! All the larger creatures in the ocean rely on these smaller and less known ones at the base of the food chain. Great job on your anemone drawing. I like the way you created depth with the ink. It’s just enough to convey the dimension. I hope you’ll keep going with watercolor!!
I enjoyed this very much. Thank you! Now I want to try doing a crab on the opposite page. Wish me luck. LOL!
25 Responses
@DanitaReynolds– Love the crab and the way your page turned out!
Just catching up…i always love watching and listening to Jean work her magic …and especially with tide pools! Thank you Jean and Martha for generously offering Spring Fling!
Cheers,
Karen
Karen— thank you! Hope you get out and sketch the real thing soon!!
Wonderful demo – I will try my hand at it. 🙂 Please tell us the type and size of the Handbook journal you used in the demo. Thank you.
Jean, Thank you your inspiring presentation. I appreciated your comments on how you organize the use of your sketchbooks – sometimes that stops me in my tracks….afraid to muck up a sketchbook. lol. What is the type and size of the Handbook used in the demo?
Hi Diane– Glad you enjoyed Spring Fling! The sketchbook size is 5.5×8 inches, so when fully open it’s about 11×8. The paper in it 140lb watercolor paper and the binding opens flat. Don’t let your fear of messing up prevent you from using your sketchbook. The only way to get better is to get going and keep turning the pages!
Jean…what size Micron pen were u using?
Hi Lin— I used an 005.
Always wonderful! Thank u!!
Glad you could join the Happy Hour!
The wrong photo posted first– that was from a recent trip to the ocean where I sketched on location. Here’s the finished class piece.
Thanks for joining me for the Sketchbook Happy Hour. Here’s the finished page– As you can see, I decided to add more aggregating anemones to convey the cloning and aggregating nature of these. Hope you’ll have the opportunity to explore the real thing someday!
Thank you for an inspiring trip to tide pools.
So glad you could come along! I love your sketches. The blue background is very engaging and bright. I like your handwritten labels, too. Thanks for sharing your work.
Thank you so much Jean and Winslow Art Center! This was such an enjoyable and informative class!
Hi Misty- Thanks for posting here. Your sketches turned out great– especially with your lovely lettering. I love the sense of light you got on your pink volcano!
A watercolor beginner, enjoyed this so much as the inking part helps in creating a result. Have never seen anything like the subjects, so it really was like painting space aliens like someone else commented.
Thanks for giving these “alien” subject a try! All the larger creatures in the ocean rely on these smaller and less known ones at the base of the food chain. Great job on your anemone drawing. I like the way you created depth with the ink. It’s just enough to convey the dimension. I hope you’ll keep going with watercolor!!
I enjoyed this very much. Thank you! Now I want to try doing a crab on the opposite page. Wish me luck. LOL!
I have every confidence in your crab, Danita. This is a lovely page!
And here it is. Crab added.
Thank you! I enjoyed this class and I am now inspired to paint the mussel and other shells I have picked up while beach combing.
These sketches are really nice, Alice! I like how you got the soft glow and textures on the mussel!
Looks nice, Alice! Keep sketching those beach finds!
Nice!