My next Crealde Urban Sketching class was canceled since not enough students signed up.These thumbnails were done on the Crealde campus with an Urban Sketching students. He only had a pencil and paper to work with so I used just a pencil to block in the quick compositions. I enjoy doing these since there is no pressure to produce a refined and finished sketch. Looser is better.
Crealde Classroom Pandemic Sketch
In my Crealde Urban Sketching course we tend to take one class to sketch fellow students as they work. I do quick 5 minute sketches to demonstrate how to position a figure on the page. This particular sketch seems to be a sketch on top pf a sketch. I forget what I was demonstrating with the rough grid pattern. I was probably stressing how to avoid lining everything up on a grid and avoid horizontal and vertical lines.
Most classes are outside exploring the campus with our sketchbooks. I do this because it keeps my students safer during the pandemic. I was advised to offer an advanced urban sketching course but not enough students signed up so it was scrapped. No artist thinks of themselves as intermediate or advanced. Heck every one on my sketches is a series of mistakes.
The next series of Crealde Urban Sketching classes is starting up January 20, 2022. We meet on Sundays from 9:30am to 12:30pm.
Crealde Pandemic Student
At Crealde School of Art once each series of classes I pose for students doing 5 minute gestures and then I have students pose in turn. With one student I will do a 5 minute demo to show how I approach getting the figure on the page with as much information as possible. Rather than just using a pencil, I use watercolor as well to get quick color shapes down on the page.
With more time I would work on top of this adding detail in ink and making the darks darker. My process is pretty simple, in each section of the sketch I want to have three values, the white of the page, then a medium value and a dark dark. In this sketch I only had time to throw a medium value over the darker areas of the figure.
Sometimes detail is left out due to time constraints but then you realize that the that detail isn’t always needed. The goal is to dance on the line between crazy rough and gloriously refined. So long as each sketch is not the worst I have ever done, I can keep moving forward.
My latest Urban Sketching Class for advanced students was canceled because not enough students wanted to sing up. Either students are social isolating or there isn’t much interest in sketching on location. I still wear a mask every time I sketch on location. The pandemic isn’t over and I have dodged the COVID bullet so far.
Crealde Classroom
Most of my Crealde Urban Sketching classes have been held outside during the pandemic. Sometimes however the weather forces us indoors. For those classes I teach the students how to populate a sketch with multiple people in an indoor setting. The lesson starts at the blackboard where I explain how to relate one figure to another in a sketch.
I put away the desks for this class so we would have a wide open space to sketch. Many students have difficulty sketching people who are behind a desk. Like most of my sketches done on location I teach the students to think about drawing the room and then adding actors to that room.
As always, I do a sketch along with the students and show them my progress at the various sates of the sketch’s progression. I have a love affair with line and I try and convey that passion to the students. Watercolor washes are a fun afterthought to pull together all the elements that have been locked in place with line.
The next series of Sunday Crealde Urban Sketching classes starts after October 17, 2022.
Crealde Urban Sketching class
My Crealde Urban Sketching class will be starting on October 23, 2022, just in time for the Halloween season. Each class begins with a premise that help build towards students completing a sketch in two hour time. We cover perspective, composition, placing people in the scene and much more. For some this is the first time using a sketchbook to document the world around them.
Crealde School of Art has now broken the course into two groups. The first intermediate group is a beginning series of classes that covers the basics needed to complete a sketch. All these classes take place on the Crealde campus, usually outside.
A new series of classes for more advanced students ha been introduced which will be for students who took the first course and want to take on more challenging subject matter. These classes will meet at various locations around Orlando. In these classes students will get used to the notion that people might look over their shoulder as they sketch.
Check out the Crealde web site if you are interested in joining us for Urban Sketching: Tips and Techniques.
Crealde Panorama 2
On Sunday mornings I teach an Urban Sketching Class at Crealde School of Art. For this class I had students doing nine thumbnail sized sketcher per page. This sketch is essentially three thumbnails sketches stitched together to create a panorama. This was the second sketch of the series of sketches I did. Since the start of the pandemic I have become a bit forgetful about carrying my art supply bag with me everywhere I go. Before the pandemic I was sketching on location every day but now I might sketch on location once a week, spending most of my time working isolated in the studio. In this case I went to move a car in the driveway so I could drive my seldom used Prius to Crealde and I forgot my bag in the car that I had moved.
So for this series of sketches I found a single pencil and drew on the table cloth paper that is in a roll in the classroom. So the sketches might be thumbnails but the paper is probably twenty four inches across. I could not resist using those full twenty four inches to sketch on.
There were some really spectacular results in the thumbnails produced in this class. Each student draws in their own style, my goal is never to influence how they sketch of apply paint. Instead I offer suggestions on how to take in more of the scene in front of them. The challenge is to offer each student what they need to progress to the next level, so after a brief introduction of the day’s premise I then walk from student to student and offer one on one feedback usually in the form of a sketch.
At the beginning of this series of classes only one student wore a mask. Now three students wear a mask at least when inside. I always wear a mask since I never know when a student might approach with a question. I don’t mind being the odd man out, I always have been and I am well aware that this pandemic is far from over. Many people seem too choose ignorance and hope as a reaction to the pandemic. Hope is not a solution, simple measures like wearing a mask getting vaccinated and social distancing are.
Monochrome Thumbnails
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.
Crealde Thumbnails
After several classes on perspective and composition, my Sunday morning Crealde School of Art Urban Sketching students are tasked each class in creating a page of thumbnail sketches that offer a visual tour of the campus. I often do a brief set of my own as I wander the campus and offer notes for each student. In this case I just worked in back and white to demonstrate how to cut up the image into a set of large simple dark and light shapes. In one sketch I was demonstrating that the sidewalk and grass can be very much the same light value since they are both illuminated by very bright sunlight.
The challenge of the exercise is to try and make it look like you are walking along the paths and the same objects might appear small and then larger as you approach them. Students also find that the much smaller sketches can be completed faster since large washes of watercolor are not needed to cover the sketch. Much smaller puddles of wash are easy to add with the pointy tipped water brushes many students have in their kit.
The other basic lesson is that a light object will show up best if there is something dark behind it and a dark object will appear best if there is something light behind it. These thumbnails basically use just 3 values, black, white and grey. That is all that is needed to get a sketch to jump off the page.
Crealde Urban Sketching First Class
At Crealde School of Art we started a new series of Urban Sketching Classes on Sunday mornings. I have kept the first two classes outside. Surprisingly the class is full with nine students. My first lessons are about using perspective when drawing on location.
The first assignment is for the students to draw a tent out behind Crealde. Everyone stayed under the back awning crowded together, so I decided to sit under the tent to give them one person for them to include in their sketch.
I shared each stage of this sketch as it was completed and also gave each student sketch notes to help them with their sketch in progress.
One other student wore a mask and I wore mine outside since I would get close to student to offer notes and suggestions. My mantra throughout was for students to make a mess. I certainly made a mess of this sketch which was done in an ancient sketchbook filled with tissue paper. Since my attention was focused on the student, I didn’t take any time to focus on details.
Crealde First Class
On Sundays I teach an Urban Sketching Class at Crealde School of Art. From the very first class I encourage the students to explore the beautiful campus with their sketchbooks.
In each class I press a particular point and rather quickly get the students to apply the concept in their sketches for the day.
I sketch while they work and share each stage of my sketch to show how long I take on each step of the process. As I walk around I give each student individual attention usually doing thumbnail sketches on the back of my sketch to express how I might tackle the scene they are working on.
This sketch was done back when masks were required at Crealde. That requirement has been dropped, but I remain masked in public at all times. When sketching people will often approach to see the work in progress. They never seem to stop when the line work is being done, but once color hits the page, people become curious.
My last series of classes was canceled because not enough students signed up. That should give me a breather as COVID cases are rising in Florida again. I haven’t experienced a classroom full of unmasked students yet.