4/10/16

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!



2 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:12 AM

    I'm having so much fun following along with your urban sketching. Thanks for sharing your great sketches.

    Stay inspired!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:42 PM

    Cool, as usual, and yes, Ms. Cheapskate, draw on only one side of the paper when you're using watercolors! xo, Pat

    ReplyDelete

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