At my Sunday morning Crealde Urban Sketching class I often have the students to a page of monochrome thumbnails drawings. Most students get caught up in trying to mix just the right color when doing watercolors over thir sketch and this exercise helps them realize that how dark and light the washes are is of far greater importance.
This sketch was done back in 2020 when masks were still required at Crealde. I continue to wear my KN95 mask both indoors and outdoors when at Crealde. With this latest series of classes just one student also wore a mask. As BA5 cases rose this last week two more students chose to wear masks in class.
With summer fast approaching it is becoming harder to justify holding every class outside. I had one student outside who sat with no cover when the sun was behind a cloud. After 15 minutes she was in the blazing sunlight and barely able to see the brilliant white page she was working on. I encouraged her to seek cover and keep the people she had sketched and incorporate a different background. She pulled it off very successfully.
Most of my sketches done on location inn Orlando have been inside air conditioned venues, precisely because of the heat. Last weekend we sketched indoors and it was amazing to see how different everyone’s sketch was.