Hello 

I am writing the newsletter this week from Marco Island, Florida. Last Sunday I did a watercolor demonstration for Dillman's Festival of Artist's and the Marco Island Art Center that is pictured above.

Stay tuned for more of these festivals of artist's in March.... they are a fun and free way to watch art being created and to learn a little along the way.

While in Florida I did a lot of sketching, painting and photographing and it made me aware of how important all three of these things were when it comes to creating art. this week's newsletter will talk a little about using photos to sketch from compared to sketching from plein-air.

On March 4th and 5th I am putting together an event  with my students and friends called SHOW-iN, a Pop-Up-Gallery and Expo in McHenry at the New Smith's Central Garage. Information HERE

Sketch!

David

Yes to Class at the Civic Center in Libertyville on January 26th
Yes to Class  at The Studio in McHenry on January 28th

Class starting February 6th at the Rivellino School of Art  in Long Grove. If you are interested let the Rivellino School of Art or myself know you would like to attend.

I saw many of these Banyon trees and thought how great they would be to paint if you loved negative painting.

While staying in Florida for a couple of days I got the chance to pencil and watercolor sketch, along with taking loads of photographs. As I was going through my photos I came across a couple photos that I didn't get time to sketch while on the spot and thought I would give them a try, sketching from the photos.

I discovered that drawing an object on the spot wasn't really that much different from drawing the object from a photo... I talking about drawing objects and not about creating and drawing a scene. Composing a scene from plein-air is very different from creating it from a photo.

When creating a scene plein-air, it sometimes can be overwhelming because of how much subject matter is in front of you compared to the scene being composed from a photo where you get only a small framing of the scene. Both ways can present you with challenges, good and bad.

I have found that doing both, sketching and photographing the same scene, using both ways together makes for a very good way to develop scenes. Sketch the scene from life and then also take photos of the scene. Sketching the scene from life gives you the original everything, the color, the shapes, the atmosphere, and the lighting. The photo gives you a cropping of the scene and stores up any memories of the subject you may have forgotten. What the photo doesn't give you is that original feeling of excitement when you are in front of a spectacular scene that takes your artistic breath away and is a scene you feels needs to be painted.

With most cell phones having cameras in them one now has a camera with them at all times, which means you will never miss a shot, even if you don't have a sketchbook with you, but try to have a sketchbook with you at all times it really helps you as an artist when creating art.

I recommend doing both, sketching plein-air and sketching from a photos..... basically, you want to sketch as much as possible any way you can.