Crealde Student

Posted on by Thor

In my Crealde Urban Sketching class, we take one class to do fast five or ten minute poses with each student taking a turn.

As a demo I sketch each student in turn and try and encourage the students to capture more that the person but the entire scene.

There is a frantic energy to working so fast and the goal to get the students to work just as fast and frenetic. Sketches become less detail oriented and more simplified. Detail is only added where it is needed.

I am always pushing students to look for the curve of the back so in this sketch there is one curve drawn behind the figure to show that curve. It was the first line to go on the page.

Crealde Student

Posted on by Thor

In my Crealde Urban Sketching class I pose for students after explaining how to get a figure on the page. I realized I put on weight during the pandemic when I saw one of my student’s sketches. Anyway. We then each pose in turn for just 5 minutes and we use all the tools in our artist toolbox to get as much information on the page as possible.

One sketch is used as a demo and the others I walk around to show my process at different stages. My next series of classes were canceled sing no enough students signed up. That gives me time to branch out and start exploring with my sketchbook on my own on weekends.

I am including these 5 minute sketches since I feel it is important to documents how different people handled the pandemic. Some like myself remain fully masked while others wear chin straps or feel the pandemic is over. Sine my ear is to the rail, I know better.

Crealde Classroom

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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

Posted on by Thor

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.

Monochrome Thumbnails

Posted on by Thor

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 2 Point

Posted on by Thor

At my Crealde Urban Sketching class I worked hard to socially distance my students when we worked in the classroom. I would carry a six foot long staff with me to class to be sure students were more than six feet apart. I would leave the classroom door open to get some cross breeze and I organized the table into a large square positioning each student at a corner.

Masks were required at Crealde at the time but that mandate has been dropped. Thankfully I haven’t been back in the classroom since the masking has been dropped.

This sketch was done as a demo after I introduced students to the idea of using two point perspective in a sketch. They were tasked with including as many other students as they could in their sketch.

As I worked on my sketch I walked around at each phase to show the students how much work was involved with the pencil rough, the inking and the final watercolor. I also offered each student individualized sketch suggestions to incorporate into their sketch.

Most of our work was done outside, but for one class I wanted to convey how to sketch people and place them inside a room.  Much of the challenge comes in getting students to understand how to use horizontal, vertical, parallel and diagonal lines. I am convinced that basic geometry should be a requirement for any student of art. I work my students hard but those who are up to the task start producing some amazing work.

Crealde Ventilation

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At my Crealde Urban Sketching class, I had the students sketch the darkened studio next to our classroom.

Black garbage bags and clear plastic were taped together to cover an open doorway to the studio, creating what looked to me like a scene from a horror movie. A small portable AC unit was set up to cool the room.

Part of the reason I had students work in the darkened room was that many student water colors never get dark enough. When water color dries the wash gets a bit lighter. With experience you adjust for this and paint a bit darker.

If you have a pure black on the page next to the pure white of the paper, that become an eye magnet. It is hard not to look at the high contrast. My goal is to get my students to create a full range of values from pure white to pitch black.

I have no idea what this doorway repair work was all about, but it offered a great way to show students how to look for a definite and clear light source in a scene. I usually make a concerted effort to be sure a person is in each sketch, but in this case it was liberating to just set the scene.

Crealde Urban Sketching Class

Posted on by Thor

When I discuss sketching people on location during my Crealde Urban Sketching Class, I pose for the students and then ask each student in turn to pose for 5 minutes. 5 minutes is about the most time you might ever be able to sketch someone on location before they walk off or turn their back to you.

The key to sketching people on location is being able to guess how long they will be focused and sty still. Any time I enter a restaurant I look around to see how much food is still on the plates of the people around me. If their cups are full and they are deep in conversation then it is a prime time to try and catch a sketch.

All of my students in this class are amazing and they all sketch very differently from each other. It is possible to tell at a glance which student created which sketch. That is what makes Urban Sketching so interesting.

Everyone is now on board with trying to complete each sketch with watercolor and finalized ink line. Though I often sketch the line work first, it is sometimes nice to just throw down some large puddles of watercolor to define a person’s general share and then refine it later with line work. I did this sketch in the time it took for 4 students to pose. Rather than sketch the model each time, I sketched the model once, and then sketched the students at work around her. I break the cycle of only focusing on what is expected.

Crealde School of Art Urban Sketching Class

Posted on by Thor

The Spring Session of my Urban Sketching Class at Crealde School of Art (600 St Andrews Blvd Winter Park, FL) will start March 29, 2020 and run for 6 classes. The classes are on Sunday mornings starting at 9:30am to 12:30pm. Each class begins in the main campus classroom where I introduce a premise. Much of the focus is on learning to create compositions that use the whole page. The supplies are cheap and easy to find, a sketchbook, pencil and eraser, pen and ink, and watercolor. The main hope is to share my love of sketching on location every day and to carry a sketch journal wherever you go.

In this class I had introduced some basic human anatomy (note the blackboard sketches) and the students are tasked with sketching one another being sure to get more that one fellow student in the sketch. For each student I go around and dash off a quick composition sketch. I know that an important aspect of this assignment was making students in the foreground large and far students small. My notes are usually dashed off on my iPad so I don’t waste paper. But if the student wants I do it in their sketchbook as well. In this note, I wrote BIG to stress the importance of making the foreground figure big and then focusing on the smaller figures behind. I am also showing the way to use tile floor and paneled ceilings to stress one point perspective to draw the viewers eye into the scene. We learn by doing. The goal is to produce a lot of sketches consistently. A sketch by definition is never complete so there is less pressure and the next sketch will be better having learned from what didn’t work at the moment. As Chuck Jones said, “All of you here have one hundred thousand bad drawings in you. The sooner you get rid of them, the better it will be for everyone.”

Urban Sketching: Tips and Techniques

  • Class starts on: Sunday, March 29, 2020
  • Duration: 6 Weeks
  • Sundays | 09:30 am – 12:30 pm
  • Location: Main Campus
  • Fee: $290

 Enroll now!

Crealde Urban Sketching Class

Posted on by Thor

My Crealde Urban Sketching Class begins Sunday January 19, 2020 starting at 9:30am. This is a sketch of the classroom. Outside the window you can see one of my students sketching on a sunny day. Inside I was demonstrating to another student how to block in the room quickly in a composition and how to place a figure. The primary reason for this quick sketch was to demonstrate how to leave large shapes on the page pure white and then apply a light wash over the rest of the sketch to make those shapes pop.

Each morning we start by exploring a premise in the classroom and then in the last half or the class we move out into the community to sketch on location. Just getting students to realize that when they draw on location, no one is judging them. I might offer insights, but I don’t judge the work. Each student has their own approach and temperament and the variety we see across the board is part of what makes drawing on location with other artists so exciting.

Last semester I started asking students to share their work on Instagram.  This allows them to share work with each other and possible hear from a much wider community of artists. On Instagram I also share all the rough class notes and composition sketches I do for students. That was students can see what was shared.

The past few weeks I have been pouring over thousands of my early student sketches and it has been an eye opening learning experience. Some of the sketches I did back in my 20s and 30s are bold and daring and it is making me want to experiment more with my work in the next year. I worked much larger in my youth, usually on 18 by 24 inch sketch pads. I scaled down when I started sketching once a day starting back in 2009. Part of the reason was to be sure that I could scan the drawings on my flat bed scanner. I think I might grow much faster as an artist if I return to working larger and find other ways to work around the limits of scanning technology. So here is to a bigger and bolder 2020.

The next 6 week Urban Sketching course has been canceled due to lack of enrollment.