grayscale – Sketching It Out

urban sketch drawing lake eola orlando fountain — Lake Eola

I was still on “holiday” right after Independence Day, so it was a rare opportunity for me to ride SunRail. I lived in Japan for three years, and I miss the JR and riding trains daily. I still don’t understand why SunRail can’t have more evening or weekend hours. I’d love to use it on weekends to spend a day downtown and avoid having to take I-4 (a hot mess) and find parking (also a nightmare). I also don’t understand why they only built a North-South line and no other lines, but I digress.

The first place I stopped to draw was Lake Eola. It’s not my strongest composition since I was too focused on getting everything to look exactly how I saw it…so I didn’t really think about how awkward the cut-off tree would look or how the fountain should be closer to the center. Which is a pity, because I think I did a great job painting the fountain.

Date: 7/5/18
Time spent: 2 hours

urban sketch drawing orlando city hall — Street view near City Hall

As I was walking down S. Orange Ave, I found a little table outside a Dunkin Donuts. I figured this was as good a place as any to sketch. However, I learned pretty quickly that busy street views were a bit too challenging for me at this time. There was so much to squeeze into one drawing, and once I was an hour into the sketch and no where near being ready to ink or paint, I decided to try something different. I kept the pencil sketch and used my Tombow brush pens to create some much needed value contrast and definition. I rather like the look I achieved with this one, and it’s easily my favorite sketch from the day. This sketch looks energetic and full of motion.

Time spent: 1.5 hours

urban sketch church street orlando — Quick sketch on Church Street

Once I arrived at the Church Street Sunrail station, I had an extra 40 minutes to kill before boarding my train, so I found something quick and easy to sketch. Well, relatively quick and easy; still not a fan of drawing stairs. As I inked the sketch and prepared it for watercolor, I used Tombow brush pens to draw in the railing. This was a mistake. I had forgotten that the brush pen ink was water soluble, so when I began adding the watercolor wash, the brush pen ink bled everywhere.

Since then, I’ve been a LOT more careful about waiting until the very end to use the brush pens. Give me another few months, and I’m sure I’ll make the same mistake again. Feel free to make bets on when that will be.

Time spent: 35 min.

This summer, I decided to try something new artistically and signed up for Urban Sketching classes at Crealde School of Art (taught by Thomas Thorspecken). Drawing backgrounds and perspective have always been a struggle of mine as an artist, as well as drawing quickly and not being afraid to make mistakes. I had hoped that the class would help me improve in these areas and learn new techniques, but a part of me was afraid that the class would frustrate me and cause me to give up entirely. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case, and I enjoyed Urban Sketching from the start.

After the first couple lessons, I wanted to make the most of what I was learning, so I decided to spend my 4th of July vacation visiting a different city each day (St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Tampa, Orlando, and Mt. Dora) and complete at least one Urban Sketch per location. My first trip was to St. Petersburg. Naturally, I had to visit the Salvador Dali Museum.

I thought an art museum would be a great choice for sketching since no one would be bothered by or surprised to see an artist drawing in an art museum, but it proved to be a bit more of a challenge than I expected. There weren’t many benches or places to sit in the main exhibit, and when I finally found one with an open seat facing some paintings, I took it immediately. However, due to the shortage of seating in the exhibit, I decided to render my sketch in a quick grayscale instead of watercolor so that I wouldn’t hog the seat for too long.

The two women in the center of the sketch are looking at a painting titled “Galacidalacidesoxiribunucleicacid” (no idea how to pronounce a portmanteau that portentous). This painting is immense in size, and my sketch barely included a fourth of it. The museum provides an audio guide to explain the background and meaning behind the surreal imagery in Dali’s paintings, and all of the visitors in my sketch are using the audio guides. I had one as well, but the device was not working very well and the audio would cut in and out unless I held the audio jack tightly in place. The third woman on the right of the sketch is viewing “The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory.” I cannot recall which painting was in the frame on the lefthand side of my sketch. Sorry, Dali.

Date: 7/2/2018
Time spent: 1 hour