A New Year
Posted: January 24, 2015 Filed under: USkO | Tags: crayon, pen, San Francisco Leave a commentFor New Year’s Eve and early January, I was in California. While there, I was able to meet up with San Francisco Bay Area Urban Sketchers for their monthly Sketch Night which was held at Whole Foods in Berkeley.
Flowers, fruit, and vegetables are three products many stores place near their entrance to entice consumers. The variety of colors and textures at Whole Foods was very appealing, and I could not resist sketching a shelf of vegetables.
After finishing the first sketch I realized something could be improved. I was using a pen and pack of crayons – outlining basic shapes with my pen and filling in those shapes with bright waxy crayons, thinking that the crayons would nicely accentuate the produce. Instead of limiting the use of crayon to the vegetables though, I got carried away and started filling in the shelves. This counteracted my original intention of making the vegetables stand out. I decided to do two additional close-ups with the refined method – using crayons for the vegetables and crosshatching the shelves with pen. This created the distinction I was looking for.
Encountering this problem drove me to think about using more than one medium per sketch. Does one medium communicate the character of an object or scene better than another? What combinations are possible? Could you combine crayon and watercolor; pastel and ink; charcoal, pastel, and watercolor? A mixed media sketch is something I have not tried yet.
A big thank you to Cathy and the SF Bay Area Urban Sketchers for their warm welcome and for an enjoyable evening sharing sketchbooks, approaches to sketching, and interesting Bay Area sites!
Happy New Year to all!
Night Sketch
Posted: January 20, 2015 Filed under: USkO | Tags: night, pen, watercolor Leave a commentUsually, I sketch during daylight hours and stop when it gets dark. However, there are also great scenes at night. This was my first attempt at a night sketch. I found it challenging to capture the intensity of the darkness in the valley, the contrasting bright streetlights, and the subtle colors of the surrounding residences with my watercolor set. Although the watercolors allowed me to meld scenes and colors together to create a somewhat abstract atmosphere, I would like to try a different medium too – perhaps pastels – to express a different quality of these nighttime scenes. A series of night sketches using different media would be interesting. How would a different medium communicate the mood or subjects in the same scene?
Winter
Posted: December 23, 2014 Filed under: USkO | Tags: pen, watercolor, winter 3 CommentsWinter solstice was last Sunday. The temperatures have dropped into the high 70’s during the day and high 60’s at night, and strong winds and rains are hitting us; it is winter.
Harald and I tried to sketch through the torrential downpours in Manoa yesterday from a sheltered spot. We had a nice vantage point from which we could see (or not see) the valley and downtown Honolulu. At times, the rain was so heavy it would almost have been more accurate to leave the page blank.
Harald: Being stubborn, I stuck to pen, although this might not be the best choice if the task is to capture a scene that is barely visible through layers of mist, clouds, and rain. I tried to convey the limited and variable depth of the view by adding detail and value solely to foreground objects, while trying to only hint at the expanse of houses along the bottom of the valley and the hills in the distance. I think it worked partly, but I am again unhappy with my inability to reduce a scene to the utterly essential. Not that this was crucial, but it is something I would like to be able to do. Resolution: sketch more!
Sebastian: I started off with a geometric pen sketch, using different crosshatching techniques and line consistencies, hoping it would impart depth and a feel for the weather. After recently trying crosshatching with watercolor pencils, I wanted to continue exploring the same technique with a traditional medium – pen. However, I found that watercolor depicted this windy and rainy scene best.
Challenges Embraced
Posted: December 10, 2014 Filed under: USkO | Tags: pen, pencil, residential house, watercolor, watercolor pencils Leave a comment
A Curiously Small DIY Sketch Kit
Posted: December 6, 2014 Filed under: USkO 4 CommentsThis post is related to art supplies rather than a sketching excursion. One of the artists who attended our event on 11/15 mentioned a DIY (do it yourself) miniature art kit which was very intriguing to me. I want to sketch when traveling but don’t like to carry a lot of weight or bulky items. The DIY aspect seemed like a particularly appealing challenge especially for creative people – how to put together a customized and relatively inexpensive kit?
After browsing a variety of websites for ideas, I decided to start with the basics … an Altoids case. I purchased the mints at a local market and emptied the contents for future disposition (I’m not so keen on bathing my teeth in sugar!). After taking some measurements of the case I thought about my personal art habits and started to research whether the appropriate supplies are available for purchase in small sizes or able to be modified to a smaller presentation. I was quite surprised as to what is available “off the rack” … for example: crayons, watercolour pencils, pens, water vials, and watercolour paint sets.
After acquiring a sample of several items, I played with their fit into the Altoids case. With thought, quite a few items can be positioned in such a small space! At this time, I’m not sure what I want to include in my kit as I am a novice artist and haven’t developed strong preferences yet. But, the beauty of this arrangement is that it can be customized as tastes change. I included some photos of several arrangements in this post. It might not be clear, but some space was left for missing items I have not yet trimmed to size (chamois cloth, sponge, eraser, graphite pencil, etc.). I’ll publish a follow-up post when I have had some time to play with this setup a bit more. In the meantime, please share your ideas if you would like!
Manoa Valley Neighborhood Sketch
Posted: November 29, 2014 Filed under: USkO | Tags: pen, pencil, watercolor 2 CommentsThe three of us – AJ, Harald, and Sebastian – went out for a short sketch on Wednesday afternoon. We geared up and headed out to find a neat spot in Manoa Valley. We did not have to walk far before one of us pointed out a house, view, tree, or – even – bush of interest.
AJ: I chose to sketch the curbside area of a residential property that presented many different shapes to draw as well as a mixture of natural and man-made elements. In addition to the challenge of making the objects recognizable, e.g., the trash bags, I tried to preserve the lighting as accurately as my skills would allow. We were out on a windy afternoon so oftentimes the shadows would change quite dramatically.
Harald: I made a point of not looking for a particular scene. After all, rewarding sights to sketch are literally everywhere! So I took up position on a curbside bench and sketched what lay straight ahead: a hedge and bits of palm trees projected onto the outline of the mountains on the other side of the valley. Being frustrated by my recent attempts at using watercolor pencils, I kept it basic: 2B pencil. I managed to still be under-equipped though because I had not brought a sharpener. The depth of the scene, light and shadow, and the complexity and detail of the vegetation proved hard to capture. I think I shall try a different approach next time: less naturalistic and more abstract, perhaps even geometric?
Sebastian: I set up on a curb and started sketching an enormous tree arcing over the street. It provided an interesting pairing of shadows and lights – a challenge. My sketch did not capture the depth and contrasting values of the scene the way I wanted, so I am interested in returning to this spot to experiment with different media.
November Outing
Posted: November 18, 2014 Filed under: USkO | Tags: pen, watercolor, watercolor pencils Leave a commentOur chapter had its second event on Saturday afternoon at Iolani Palace. Although the night before and morning of the event were rainy, the weather was beautiful for our outing. It was great to see returning and new sketchers.
We had planned to do a sketch crawl to capture several historic and architecturally interesting buildings in the surrounding area of downtown, however Iolani Palace proved to be enough of a challenge and captured our full attention for the afternoon.
After sketching we shared ideas on how to use and make portable watercolor sets. Anita showed us her clever use of an empty gum dispenser inside an Altoids tin to create a very portable setup.
Kick-Off Event
Posted: September 21, 2014 Filed under: USkO | Tags: kick-off event, outing, pen, tablet, watercolor, watercolor pencils 2 Comments
Sketching Supplies
Posted: September 8, 2014 Filed under: USkO | Tags: pen, supplies, watercolor Leave a commentI am currently experimenting with many different media and am never sure what I want to use on any particular occasion. This is a sketch of most of the art supplies I bring when I go out sketching. I have a watercolor set in addition to watercolor pencils (which I’m still figuring out how to use), four different pens (a red, blue, and black needle-point pen and one brush-like ink pen), a small set of oil pastels (which I have recently discovered to be good fun – as are crayons), vine and stick charcoal, a set of graphite pencils, and at least one sketchbook (preferably one for dry and another for wet media). A goal of mine at the moment is to challenge myself more with charcoal and graphite, which are media that I do not use often.
AJ Tauber
Harald Ebeling
Terri Dux
noah kutaka
Susan Li
Sebastian
uskoadmin
Urban Sketchers O‘ahu 