• Brownsea Island, Dorset. Watercolour postcard sketch made from life on the beach and recreated later in the studio while reflecting on observation, memory and the purpose of art.

    This weekend we visited Brownsea Island and spent a quiet afternoon on the beach. The weather was grey and cool at first, but when the sun finally appeared my wife and a newly-discovered relative decided to brave the sea.

    While they waded into the cold water, I pulled out a small watercolour postcard and made a quick sketch.

    Looking at it later, I realised something. People often ask how I developed my loose sketching style.

    I don’t think looseness is something you can simply learn. It comes from years of drawing, observing and making mistakes until you finally trust yourself to leave things out.

    In this video I try to recreate the sketch in the studio and discover why it worked in the first place.

    The answer isn’t really about watercolour technique. It’s about attention.

    When we’re sketching, we’re forced to slow down. We notice things. We spend time looking. Every brushstroke becomes attached to a memory of the moment.

    In a world full of photographs, social media, AI-generated images and endless distractions, perhaps that’s the real value of sketching. Not that it produces a picture, but that it helps us pay attention.

    Watch the video below and let me know what you think.

    Can a sketch sometimes tell us more than a photograph?

  • Learn how to draw a roaring angry hippopotamus with this simple step-by-step drawing lesson. We’ll start with a few easy shapes and build them into a powerful hippo with huge teeth, a wide-open mouth, and a fierce expression.

    Hippos may look slow and peaceful when they’re resting in the water, but they are among the most dangerous animals in Africa. When threatened, they can charge at surprising speed and open their mouths incredibly wide to show off their massive tusks.

    In this lesson, we’ll capture some of that power and energy in a fun cartoon style that is easy for beginners to follow.

    Follow along with the video and you’ll have your own angry hippo drawing in just a few minutes.

    Happy drawing!

    You can buy my drawing books from amazon from this page linkhttps://www.shoorayner.com/easy-books-on-amazon/

    Download the pdf help sheet and colouring page here

  • I’ve been working on a set of how to drawings to use at the Cheltenham Science Festival.

    Last Friday, I joined Becci Smith and Jules Howard at the Cheltenham Science Festival.

    We should have taken a selfie of us all but at least Jules took one of me showing the children how to draw a Koala on the visualiser and big screen.

    We had chosen 10 animals as pairs that filled a niche, so that the children could choose one that Jules would expand on, telling us about their nasty habits and why we really wouldn’t want them living in our house. Afterwards, I would show how to draw the animals.

    Becci was a fantastic moderator, engaging the children and keeping the whole show running down to the minute.

    It was all great fun. The children did fantastic drawings and best of all I have rehearsed and rehearsed the next nine how to draw videos!

    Thanks to all at Cheltenham for making everything go so smoothly and thanks to the schools that came and did such amazing drawing.

    That was actually the first event I’ve done in a very long time and was very pleased to be asked to return in October to draw at the Literature Festival.

    Now that is out of the way, I’m full steam ahead on what is almost a career change. I should be ready to announce it all in the very near future!