Sketching Sardine Cans in 2022

Now that we’re living in Portugal, canned sardines are an obvious sketching subject. Even before we had arrived here, I started practicing sketching them. Most of them have been thrown away or lost, but here’s a sardine can from 2022 that I painted in my make-shift studio in Los Angeles while we were waiting for our Portuguese travel visas. It was painted with tight lines but loose watercolour and plenty of splatters on the background.

Sketching Sardine Cans in 2026

Fast forward to 2026 and my desire to sketch sardine cans has resurfaced. I saved a recent can and it’s been sitting on my desk while I drum up the enthusiasm to sketch it. Tonight was the night.

This time around I sketched with loose ink lines, and loose watercolour. About half way through this sketch I almost abandoned it, as there was nothing about it I liked and the main element of the bent metal lid looked bland and unrealistic, but I persevered.

Adding Tonal Shading

When I started to add tonal shading for depth the sketch started to come alive. It’s a valuable reminder that tonal shading and adding shadows have the power to pull a sketch together. So to power through the ugly stage of a sketch, and just keep going.

Adding Watercolour

I added some watercolour pencil for a grungy feel and to add texture. I also used a raw sienna watercolour pencil to add a few faint lines in the base of the can, and then diffused parts of them by adding water.

I haven’t used watercolour pencils for this kind of faded detail before, but in a recent Liz Steel Edges course she talked about ways to lose edges, and how she often sketches in watercolour pencil and then paints over them with watercolour to lose the edges, instead of sketching in ink.

I think it would have been good to if I’d lost some of the edges in other areas of this sardine tin. For example, on the left hand side of the bent metal lid the hard ink line is a bit distracting. It would have been better to lose that ink line and just rely on the watercolour to delineate the edge, or only have ink lines in the darker shadow areas but lose the ink line at the edge of the highlighted areas.

On the other three sides of the tin lid, we lose the ink lines that are there because of the dark shadow areas, but that left had side of the lid didn’t need that continuous ink line.

Adding Splatter

I finished it off with some splatter in the two primary colours of French Ultramarine Blue and a gold shade I mixed from Burnt Sienna Light and Quin Gold. Got so carried away with the can, I completely forgot to add sardines. But I’m wondering if an empty can doesn’t somehow convey more than a can full of rosy-cheeked sardines?