I teach a Travel Sketch Class on Sunday mornings at Crealdé School of Art (600 St. Andrews Blvd.
Winter Park, FL). I had eight students for this first class with a wonderful variety of backgrounds and drawing styles. The first class is always fun because I get to introduce myself and introduce the pleasure and minor frustrations of drawing on location.
Instead of taking quick and sterile cell phone photos, it is a real blessing when travel sketching because locals become curious about the tourist who is being still. In Germany a local artist introduced herself and invited me to visit her art studio which was right next to the historic church off of the town square. My German is spotty at best but we both understood each other’s drawings and the challenges of being an artist.
For the first half of the Crealdé class we stayed in the art studio which had air conditioning. I introduced thumbnail drawings as a low stakes way for us all to start putting lines and washes on the page. I introduced my concept of setting the stage and then adding the actors. The actors in this case were arrangements of flowers on the art table.
I tried to stress the idea of having one BIG object and the several progressively smaller objects going back into space. I limited their pallet to just black ink grey washes or Prisma color scribbles and the white of the page. I always stress the idea that each object in the sketch needs those 3 values to feel 3D. I also stress that any object should have 3 sides to appear 3D.
Once most everyone had filled a page with thumbnail sketched, we then went outside to continue doing thumbnail studies of sculptures and objects on the Crealdé property. Many artists crowded under the tent, but some artists branched out on their own to sketch. I always admire these lone wolves.
Outside I did a thumbnail sketch and walked the sketch around to show the student each step in my process. I also used that opportunity to give personal feedback and offer suggestions on how I might approach the composition differently.
Three hours was over in the blink of an eye. I love joking around with the students to let them know that sketching is play rather than hard work. We will be missing next week’s class because of Labor Day. I asked each student to bring in a book or some samples of an artist that they admire in the next class. My hope is to learn what art they love and help it inspire them when they sketch on their travels.
I already feel this is a fun group that embraces the task of sketching on location. There is some uncertainty, but I keep stressing that we are only doing sketches not some important museum painting. On this low stakes first day each student created at least 5 or 6 thumbnails. One student had 11 thumbnails that were bold and easy to read. This is going to be a fun group to work with.