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| 12/11/17 Our Lady of the Lake Church, Wedgwood |
I drive through the Wedgwood neighborhood frequently
because I run a lot of errands in that direction, so not much is new to me
there. That’s why I was delightfully surprised to turn a corner and spot an
unusual steeple I’d never seen before. Contemporary in design, it houses three
bells that are exposed on four sides and all the way through. I pulled over for
a sketch of Our Lady of the Lake Church.
Drawing the steeple was challenging but fun, and the
utility pole and traffic signs in the foreground were straightforward. So far,
so good. I wanted to show that you could see all the way through the steeple, so
painting the sky in the background would be important (and I always like to
show when the sky is bright blue, since it so often isn’t).
That’s when everything started going downhill. As I usually
do, I first spritzed the upper half of the page with water – except that I hadn’t
given the Platinum Carbon Black ink enough time to dry. I moved quickly into
damage-control mode, trying to dab up the ink where it had bled. Meanwhile, I didn’t
think about spraying the area inside the steeple that I had wanted to emphasize,
so when I hit it with blue water-soluble colored pencil, the color was more
intense than the rest of the sky, and I lost the see-through look I was going
for.
Annoyed with all of that, I moved on to the utility pole
in the foreground. It was almost completely in the shade but had some
interesting spots of light on it that I hadn’t finished deciding whether to
show or not. The light spots weren’t important to my composition, and might
even be distracting . . . while I continued to think about that, I decided that
the sky was dry, so I went in with my fountain pen again to draw the power
lines – only to find that the paper, in fact, wasn’t quite dry. The nib scudded
and skipped across the page.
More and more dismayed, I half-heartedly scribbled in
some foliage, lost motivation to work on the utility pole (and forgot that I
hadn’t made up my mind about the shading, either), and called it good. Or bad.
In any case, I still think Our Lady of the Lake’s steeple
is worthy of a better sketch, so I’ll go back again sometime.
I found your sketch very pleasing to look at with the light’s and shadows. I didn’t even see the ink bleed until I read further on, so my overall impression at first was “great light and shadow”!
ReplyDeleteAww, thanks, Cathy! We all see our own messes more than others do!
DeleteI didn't notice the bleeding either until you mentioned it. I think we tend to focus too much on our own mistakes which nobody else even notices. lol I like the sketch.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joan!
DeleteI didn't notice the ink bleed until I specifically looked for it. The steeple grabbed my eye. If you hadn't seen it before, is it new? Or just hiding behind summer foliage?
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's new -- I think it was just on a street that I didn't happen to drive on before.
DeleteIt still looks great but now it's even better because we can all learn from it. I see what you mean about the too bright blue in the spire - I assumed it was windows not see through. Many thanks.
ReplyDeleteI would rather hide the sketches I'm not happy with ;-) , but that's the main reason I post them -- so that they might be learning opportunities for all of us. Thanks for noting that, Jan!
DeleteAh, the ink thing has occurred to me too often. I never thought about writing it down though. I think you have done something valuable for your own learning.
ReplyDeleteAs for the composition: You have something that gives power and light in dark times, and something to provide guidance to those who may be wandering. And, in the background, a church. I say it's a brilliant picture.
ReplyDelete