This past Sunday Crealde Urban Sketching class, we did thumbnails.I always like to do quick sketches and in this case since I I forgot my art bag at home, I didn’t push these to watercolors. Instead I finished the sketches digitally back in the studio. This isn’t my usual working method but it gives passable results. Since the sketches were just pencil on paper, the line work was not as dark as if I had used a pen.
My three thumbnail sketches all featured the tent behind Crealde which we get quite a bit of use out of. Temperatures heat up by noon so the students are told to always remain in the shade and the tent helps keep them shaded.
For some reason many students find perspective challenging, so we return to that base premise over and over. A sketch is usually blocked in in the first five minutes and the rest of the time is spent adding small intricate detail. By sketching smaller, my students get used to finishing sketches faster. Eventually they may feel the rush of trying to capture fleeting moments in a quick and spontaneous sketch. No sketch is perfect, so I try and get them to abandon any sense of preciousness for their beloved sketch. It is always a pleasant surprise to see all their work lined up at the end of class.