sketches for last week of April

I only did a couple on-site sketches this week - stopped at South Seattle College and wandered around & discovered this clock tower.  Man, it was hard!

The black smudges are because my fountain pen leaked and made a big black blob on the shirt I was wearing so I was trying to press some of the ink out.  Hopeless.  Ruined.  Oh well.....in the name of art, right?

Neighborhood house sketch done on my way home from work in my new Stillman & Birn book - that sure is great paper but I haven't decided if I like bound or spiral yet.  Also tried a new brush pen and discovered the ink isn't waterproof.

drawn from a photo  - Whistler Village from vacation  a couple years ago.

I purchased the book The Art of Urban Sketching - it's a wonderful book filled with contributions from sketchers all over the world, and so full of a variety of styles. Since copying is some sort of form of flattery, I thought I'd practice on some of the sketches from the book:

I particularly like the food truck on the top - it's the first time a vehicle drawing of mine doesn't look cartoony. I'll have to pick just the cars out of some of the others from the book to try to understand drawing vehicles better.  The colored sketch is a Cape Cod lighthouse from my photo.

I love that I'm continuing to work without penciling in anything first and yet shapes still seem to appear, mostly correctly!

This practice sketch is copying a Pinterest image - we'll be headed to FL in a few weeks for vacation so I wanted to get an idea about how to draw palm trees. This is one effort - more will show up next week.  I also want to practice a few ocean / water scenes since we'll be on the beach. I don't want to get there and have no clue about how to capture what I'm seeing. :)

thanks so much for checking in and browsing all my sketches. Hope you have a fabulous, creative week.

sketching continues

Didn't do as many sketches last week - will have to try to do better this week. I did finally invest in some artist quality watercolors for the first time so was eagerly awaiting my Dick Blick shipment this week.  I changed up my palette and added the new colors, then had to draw it!

I also ordered a couple of new sketchbooks - ones that seem to be favored by most of the urban sketchers I've been reading.  I got a Pentalic small 3x5 one (below) and then a larger one with heavier paper more suited to watercolor, a Stillman & Birn, alpha series (above).

I sat on my deck after work and drew this little sketch of my yard into the neighbor's.  We have a gorgeous red maple shrub that dominates this viewpoint.

We went to Virginia City to visit family - Dan's mom will be 93 in a couple weeks.  We stayed with his brother and wife and they have this lovely yard - tough to sketch, but I gave it a shot.  First time I painted on site in real time.  And, I did it all with no yellow - I totally ran out of yellow paint so couldn't get some of the greens I wanted, but.......the overall capture is fine.

Hope you're in the midst of a creative week!  Practice, practice, whatever your interest ---- do more of it!  :)

seattle skyline & taking a walk

Continuing my sketching.  After work on Friday, the weather was so pretty I decided to go to west Seattle and try a broader cityscape type sketch. It seemed like it should be easy cuz it's all rectangular shapes.  Well.......

then a touch of color & some darks

the reference photo:

 I cropped out the fence in the photo, but actually it was easily half my view. Also, I made a major error in scale calculation so totally ran out of room to get all the buildings.  However, the exercise was good, it was fun to do, and I was so engrossed that time just flew by.

Then I stood up and focused on a single element of the scene.

This weekend I went for a walk & did 2 quick sketches. My goal with both of these was to draw them quickly, while standing, pretending I was short of time but wanting to capture a view. I just read a Marc Taro Holmes blog post where he talks about the value of being able to simplify and sketching quickly that I found inspiring.      (this boat below hasn't moved from the yard in the 3 years I've been walking this route) The dark shadows are the blacks showing through from the other sketch.

(color added when I got home) - funny, I don't even remember seeing that arrow sign, yet I drew the tree behind it. :)

Marc also wrote about seeing & using darks which I tried to keep in mind with this sketch. By the way, his website has all sorts of tips and instructions about urban sketching - definitely a valuable resource.

Paint & shadows bleeding through from other side. Guess I shouldn't be so cheap and not draw on the back of the pages......

Hope you all have a fabulous and creative week!

a little urban sketching

Okay, here's a first. Sketching in public with just Dan (not part of the urban sketcher group).  We went to the Rhododendron Botanical Garden last weekend and I took my sketch stuff though I wasn't sure what there would be to draw.  We absolutely loved the bonsai museum (garden) that adjoins the botanical garden and there was lots to sketch there so I gave it a go......FUN and not so scary after all.

Here are the photos I took after the sketching:

A few days earlier Dan and I went to our fave local beach and I sketched a bit there.....

Added a touch of color at home....

A couple more sketches through the week from travel photos. I'm trying to work on being quick and representative rather than slow and exact.

Montreal, Notre Dame (furthest back bldg)

St Augustine, FL, Flagler College

Hope you enjoy a creative week.