Slow and Fast

8/31/18 Queen Anne cell tower

Yesterday morning’s sketch outing in the Queen Anne neighborhood was an interesting time management (or lack thereof) exercise for me. As I approached the area, which is especially rich in older buildings (many of which seem to be in the process of being converted to condos), a crazy cell tower on West McGraw had caught my eye. I decided to make that my first objective. Lacking color, it made a good exercise in graphite tones, and with all those strange shapes and angles, the tower was a fun challenge.

Completely losing track of time (in a good way) in that drawing, I realized I had only about 25 minutes left before the throwdown – and I hadn’t yet sketched any of the architecturally interesting buildings. I hoofed it over to the street where several stood and picked the Queen Anne United Methodist Church to sketch. After hastily putting in a few lines, I slammed down a Pitt brush marker for shading, scribbled in some color and power lines, and called it good.

8/31/18 Queen Anne United Methodist Church

I’m discovering that it generally takes longer to sketch with graphite than with other media, but I don’t yet have enough experience with it to know how to budget my time well. On the other hand, I’ve gotten pretty good at gauging how long it takes to use my usual methods and media. If I know I have only 20 minutes, I can usually finish a sketch in those 20 minutes by adjusting the size, scope, composition and level of detail to fit (I talk more about that in this post). I think with more graphite experience, I’ll become faster, and I’ll also get better at knowing how to make those same adjustments if I have a time restriction.