Last newsletter, part 1, I talked about getting out there and taking photos and sketching when traveling, this week I want to show you what I sketched from last weeks photos and from plein-air
The musician above was done from a photo I took last week at a folk festival. It would have been so much harder to sketch if I did it live as
this guy was moving so much when playing his music.
This brings me back to sketching from life compared to sketching from a photo. I believe after one learns how to draw really well and from ones minds-eye, it really doesn't matter so much what you sketch from, it can be from the live subject or a photo of the live subject. If you are sketching and learning to draw, that is totally a different story from travel sketching. lf you are learning to draw you have a
different mind set from when you are figuring out a way to simplify the value pattern of a scene. When learning how to draw and sketch you are thinking more about the shape of individual objects compared to entire scenes. Both ways are important and both ways need to be done often to make you a better artist at whatever level you are at.
The sketch of the boat below shows how I sketched from the photo I took of a boat going through a lock. I do the sketches to figure out
the large value patterns. I don't do them as a tight rendering of the subject matter.
Sketching for me is all about figuring out the scene for a later painting. this is even true if I sketch with a watercolor brush.
Plein-air painting is what is different for me when comparing painting outside to studio painting. Sketching is something I do for both plein-air and studio painting, and is what makes sketching so important for me when painting a finished
work of art either plain-air or in the studio.
David
The boat scene below shows how I simplify the value pattern to make it easier to paint as a finished work of art.
