quick sketching and slow drawing

This blog was prompted by a conversation with one of my work colleagues and a sketcher about the time taken in completing a drawing.

The quickest is sketching I have ever done is as I walk behind someone  – it is done  real time.

Drawing is usually more studied –  at home , can be in one sitting or over several evenings.

(I have my own mental distinction between sketching and drawing which is highly subjective and changeable.)

Sketching while walking to work through Fitzroy Gardens. I’ve talked about sketchwalking  on my blog

The other quick sketching that comes to mind occurred in Barcelona at the Urban Sketching Symposium in 2013 in Richard Alomar’s workshop on Sketching Urban Place: People, Space and Street   You can read more about it on my blog at the time .  

 

Here are some of my notes at the time:

                quick!  quick! quick ! ” (it was a fast paced workshop)

                   “1 pencil , 1 sketch book – what‘s that in your hand ?–a second pencil – put it away!” 

                   We walked along the street  and told to stop, draw a Thumbnail square in sketchbook                  then have 30 seconds to draw the streetscene  we are looking down

                wow !  But after a few of these, my mind started to get into thinking  and seeing in that                 mode. So instead of spending the first precious 15 of the 30 seconds in a “mind freeze”                 when we stopped, I could look up and see the street scenes as major shapes and lines                 and shadows. I started to learn to see what is important. We also added notes around                      the thumbnail sketch – street names, feelings, colours of buildings etc

                  We repeated this with two minute sketches 

                 We then looked at the difference between two  sketches how much difference                              between the 30 sec and the two minute sketch?

                 how much more or less was capture the second time ?  

 

DRAWING 

The longest drawing was done over a long time. It was actually on my table for months as a still life as I  attempted to figure out how to draw light lines over dark back grounds with my watercolour pencils. It involved experimenting with masking fluids, Click on the photo to read the process’

From still life – drawing a hat with some eggs in it in watercolour pencil on an 40cm x 55cm watercolour paper.

Creation of a birds nest hat

In everyday life my sketches take from five minutes to one hour.

I do drawings at home over a few evenings.  As they are in my journal, my sketches are part of my journalling process.

For example, here is this morning’s coffee drawn in about 20 minutes, with details added as I chatted to friends. I will not be going back to ‘finish’ the plate, teaspoon, background or any other details. I usually decide which part of the image is going to be the feature (in case time does become an issue).

 

One thought on “quick sketching and slow drawing

  1. Tina M Koyama

    I always enjoy reading about your process. I have been trying to do a small, simple still life (one piece of fruit or veg, for example) almost daily in colored pencils. I like your idea of deciding which part to feature in case you run out of time. I should do that too, because I have a bad habit of simply rushing at the end if it starts to take longer than I expected.

    – Tina

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *