Book Review: Sketching Techniques for Artists

 

In the past decade, I’ve read (and reviewed) quite a fewbooks on urban sketching. The vast majority seem to be aimed at beginning and early-intermediate sketchers. As someone who has been sketching long enough to put myself in the intermediate-to-early-advanced camp, I don’t read as many books on urban sketching as I used to. Of course, even books targeting beginners can have useful tips or approaches for sketchers at any level (Suhita Shirodkar’s Techniques for Beginners and Virginia Hein’s 5-Minute Sketching – Landscapes come to mind), but I rarely see books that seem to be targeted more toward someone at my level.

That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to come across Alex Hillkurtz’s Sketching Techniques for Artists: In-Studio and Plein-Air Methods for Drawing and Painting Still Lifes, Landscapes, Architecture, Faces and Figures, and More at the library recently. Although beginning basics like tools and materials are covered, my impression is that the intended audience might be a seasoned studio artist who already has basic drawing skills but hasn’t done much on-location sketching.

Many artists make on-location sketches only as preliminary work for more finished studio paintings later, and at first I thought the book was intended for those artists. But then I read this in the introduction: “A sketch is a memento. A quick jot to remember a place, listen to the birds, feel the breeze, let conversations wash over us in a language we may not yet know.” I thought, “That’s urban sketching; he gets it that sketches have a life of their own,” and I knew that the book was for me.

I found the lessons on composition especially useful and informative. With a background in storyboarding for the film industry, the author approaches sketching as a filmmaker might, showing how the angle or viewpoint of a scene can add drama and emotional impact to the story. As an example, he shows his sketch of a Paris building, indicates the various points of view he could have taken to make the sketch, and why he chose the one he did to create the mood he hoped to evoke.

Film storyboarding experience gives the author a filmmaker's perspective on sketching.

In a lesson on lighting, he showed the same building photographed at various times of day and shows how the story changes, depending on the direction of the light.

He covers many aspects of sketching on location, such as perspective, architecture, figures and faces, but there’s not much step-by-step “how to” here. This is why I think the book is aimed at sketchers who already have some years of experience under their belts and are looking for ways to bump their work up a level.

Living in Paris, he gives special attention to architectural details like doorways, balconies and café awnings, none of which I see much of in Seattle (but they help me dream of seeing Europe again someday).

The section on watercolor painting is so cursory that I wouldn’t want to depend on it to learn to use watercolors, but I enjoyed seeing his examples of using color to convey atmospheric perspective.

By the way, although it’s clear that he makes his sketches from life, he doesn’t claim to be an urban sketcher. He eliminates lots of garbage bins (what!?), cars and boring storefronts and cleans up other inconveniences that may result in sketches that are not completely “true to the scenes he witnesses.” His work is beautiful, however, so I forgive him. 

This book is a needed addition to the constantly growing field of books on urban sketching. In fact, the book market could use a few more titles that are a step up from the overflowing beginning level.