works of wanderlust

Category: sketch journal

  • urban sketch, one

    Crossposted on Notes for a Sketch

    It has been a few years since I plunked myself into the blank pages of a sketchbook for my reprisal into the plein air arts. It was an adventure that took me down a rabbit hole of watercolours and personal expression through ink and pigment that has been hard to quantify in the context of the last few years.

    I waned in my artistic efforts this past year or so for two reasons.

    One, simply, distraction and stress.  Bumbling between efforts of professional self-actualization is a chore, let me tell you.

    But two, performance pressure. I got too caught up in the gig-ification efforts of my sketchy self. I saw all these people documenting their personal artistic journey’s online and felt like I could, should, would do the same. But then art becomes performance almost instantly. My art becomes a posting frenzy to get stuff online and getting stuff online becomes the driver for art and trying to post things that are (a) good enough to post and (b) interesting to my nascent audience became this emotionally all-consuming feedback loop of anxiety about quantifying and artistic output and all that jazz. It was no longer about making art but rather about producing content. It is the sad story of our age, to be honest, and hardly unique to me.

    So I admit. I took a little break.

    But we’re leaving for Japan in a couple months, and I would be so regretful if I went there without a sketchbook and the intention to lock in some art on my travels. Bothering with the whole paints and brushes bit is a bit of hesitation, though, so what I’m left with is honing some simpler sketching efforts. 

    I just completed a running streak. I ran every day for sixteen days in a row. I admit this is hardly a record, even for myself, but there is value in locking in on a repetitive daily goal with the intention of building a practice and a foundation of skill or endurance. There is absolutely nothing saying that I can’t do the same thing with my sketching, right?  And with October just a few dozen hours away, looking towards the month as a daily sketching challenge I could easily see myself getting out into the plein airs of the city with such intention to match a running goal, but with a pen and paper.

    So, a new series on this blog. Urban Sketch.

    This is not put here with the intention of returning the world of artistic performance, no. Rather, to use words as  I often use them—for personal reflection, logging, and being mindful of the whys behind my whats. 

    I’m going to try and draw every day in October. I had intended to go to the art store today, and I still will because I do really need to refresh my watercolour paper for the winter season, but I’m going to go with the intention of getting back into that artists mindset, too. And I’ll write more about it here, of course, as the months wear on.

  • in a theme park.

    As it turns out, Disneyland is not a great place to sketch.

    Oh, sure, it might be a great inspiration for sketching. There are a few thousands of people worth sketching. There is colour and shape and light and shadow and trees and architecture and—deep breath.

    There are also about fifteen places to sit, total. You never really stop moving, and if you do it’s usually because the ride queue is jammed up, and all the best sight lines are meant to be snapped with a camera and moved out of the way for the next person.

    Sketching in Disney kinda sucks.

    But also, it was a bit of a challenge.

    In 2022 we went to Florida and checked out Disney World and I had it in my mind to do some sketching there. When we arrived I started carrying my sketchbook around but then between my unwillingness to be fast and loose and messy, I couldn’t afford (nor would my family tolerate) camping on a bench for thirty minutes to carefully draw a building or a ride or something. So, I started snapping reference photos and (being that we spent a lot of down time at the hotel) I did lots of painting in the evenings from my phone screen.

    loosy goosy

    where photography is about pixel-perfect capturing a scene, and yes, watercolour can be that too when the mood strikes, there is a dream-like element to the flow of water and pigment that can be embraced if one is willing to step away from the seeking of realism. I have been trying to relax my brain in this regard for years, always in a little lockstep with the photographic mindset. “how will people know what I’m painting if the colours/shapes/outlines don’t match??!!” I am trying now to embrace my loosy goosy period, that effort to evoke a vibe or a mood or a feeling from a painting while leaving the literal behind. A bit of shape. A lot of squiggles. A lot of water. A dab of this and a dob of that and just let physics take over. It takes some chill, but it can work out.

    In 2024, just a week ago as I write this, we went to California to check out Disneyland, and I decided, fresh small-format sketchbook in hand and some ripe thoughts about style, that I would experiment. Fast sketches were on the agenda. No sitting. No parking or camping somewhere to draw. Pull out the book and pen and with a maximum (literally MAX) of five minutes, get as much sense of a scene as I could onto paper and—

    Well, I snapped a pic, too, and did all my painting back at the hotel. I wasn’t exactly going to hold a sketchbook open on a rollercoaster while I waited for my washes to dry.

    I did the math and for about 28 sketches I clocked in about six hours total over the week, sketching & painting, and filled front to back an entire Moleskine “small” 3.5×5.5 watercolor folio. Every page, usually double wide.

    The paintings are messy. Some of them I was a little loose on the detail. Some I was a little heavy on the colours. A few got some leakage through the seams of the paper.

    Had I spent even an hour on each of those pics to, you know, make them neater or give them more detail then I would have spent twenty eight hours—two whole waking days—painting everything I painted. As it is, I got it all in between rides and during some hotel siestas. Isn’t that the best way to art, huh?

  • after a run day.

    I’ve been playing with a deliberately loose style, and I’m discovering that it’s a fine line between messy and interesting.

    My writing here does not usually mention that on some days of the week when I’m not trying to be an artist, I’m trying to be a runner. It also doesn’t really mention that I’ve been struggling with that latter goal for about seven months after a knee injury.

    On the other hand, things have been improving and today I went for a pleasant winter training run with my friends.

    I have also been recording some video for a little series that I’m putting together, and between shots another friend of mine nabbed my camera and suggested that she take some video of me “for a change.” Sadly, she didn’t quite figure it out and instead took a few still photos…. but photos of anything but stillness. She held the camera behind her back and snapped a couple seconds of failed-video but successful pictures.

    loose and fast

    Trying to capture motion is a tricky thing.  When I drew cartoons, I could easily emphasize motion by a few little woosh-lines behind the character. But when sketching, I've been playing with the idea of quick and simple drawings, fast squiggly sketches that ignore certainty in their lines and definition in their shape. I painted this simple drawing with a big brush and sloppy edges and a broad dynamic range of colour depth, trying to blur the edges in a way that a camera might, and in fact did in this photo, to suggest the subject was moving too fast to capture more accurately. I think it's a skill I need to keep working on.

    After I downloaded my camera I discovered her mistake (and my gain) in the form of a trio of blurry photos of myself running down a suburban street and another friend making faces to the camera beside me.

    Subject matter for a sketch journal should not be boring, static scenes, but instead capture the fluidity of everyday life. I plan to let this picture fully dry and then do some writing around the edges to fill out the page, just like have for a dozen pages before it.

    And I think the subject of being able to run again is very appropriate… and just like the painting, a little messy around the edges.