Urban Sketching – Rapido Rapido

My Urban Sketching class had its final session today. We've had a lot of dropouts so the last class was a nearly private session; L–, and me along with our instructor J–.

The subject of the last day was people. We sketched and sketched, this time with pen. For a person;

• Find the tilt of the hips and shoulders,
• Connect those with the curve of the spine,
• Place that bowling ball head on there; use the pointy little nose to show which way the head is looking,
• Think about the body's balance and which leg is holding the weight.

And you know what? It really clicked, both L– and I were dashing off little stick squigures with abandon. We drew some marching ladies, fancy dancers, and fashion models in stark stances.

Next: a little more color work. The rightmost watercolor below was done with a wet-on-wet technique. The watercolors are painted on moistened paper. This made the color drift around the page. You may think those are chunks of salmon, but they're oranges.

We sketched and chatted about kids and travel and France and spouses and fishing. Until finally, we were down to the final dozen minutes or so. We snagged a sketch of this outdoor scene and started to move up the sketching food chain; where you're not as concerned about comprehension as where you want to draw the viewers attention.

And lastly we spent ten minutes on this.

This class was more a beginners guide to sketching technique than the "Urban Sketching" title that drew me in. I had spent much of the six months piddling my way through You Can Draw in 30 Days, inspired by my brother who was working on it at last summer's G-Fest.

This class was a good reminder that there's no substitute for time, intensity, company, and most of all, all the fun, limiting exercises that take your brain and doubts out of the equation and force you to put something on the paper. Many thanks, J–.