Missing Child

6/10/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook

Foreground, middle ground, distance: A composition should include all three to give a sketch depth and context. That’s what we learned from Frank and Gail last month in their Urban Sketchers workshop, “Line to Color.”

 

Today at the Green Lake playground, I thought I had a good idea for a composition that would include a swing set in the middle ground and picnic tables and trees in the distance, but I would need to find something for the foreground. Just as I was thinking about this, a toddler appeared close to a nearby bench, but I wasn’t quick enough, so I put the bench in as a placeholder for the foreground. I figured the next time a toddler toddled past the bench, I could try to at least get the child’s scale right, and then I could fake in the details later. I left a nice open space near the bench to put in the kid, but in the hour that I waited, none appeared again.

 

That’s the trouble with urban sketching: People are either in your way or not there when you need them.