Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music

5/7/16 ink, colored pencil

Two local choral groups, the Phinney Ridge Gospel Choir and the City Cantabile Choir, gave a joint performance last night called “Duke and the Divine,” a celebration of Duke Ellington’s sacred music. It was a lively evening of not only spirited music but tap dancing and singalong, too. There’s something about sketching while listening to live music that enhances both experiences!

After filling several pages of my sketchbook with small sketches, I suddenly realized I was on the last page – but I wasn’t done sketching! Luckily, I had my red Field Notes with me. It serves its own purposes, but it’s also a good backup book.

5/7/16 ink

5/7/16 brush pen

5/7/16 brush pen

5/7/16 brush pen, white gel pen

5/7/16 brush pen

5/7/16 brush pen, colored pencil

Farewell, Flaf

5/7/16 inks, colored pencils

On my walk through the neighborhood this morning, I was still thinking about Florian Afflerbach, the German urban sketcher and architect who was killed in a motorcycle accident Thursday at the age of 35. Using the name Flaf on Flickr, he was well-known for his fabulous sketches of cars and motorcycles. Even though I never met him, I felt his enthusiasm for urban sketching and especially his passion for motor vehicles in every drawing he made.

A few blocks from home, a pale blue Vespa was parked in a driveway. Thanking Flaf for inspiration, I sketched it in the summer-like sunshine. On a day like this, just breathing the floral-scented air makes me feel lucky to be alive. 

Clicking “Like” Doesn't Count

I just heard the news that urban sketcher Florian Afflerbach died suddenly. I did not know him personally, but I followed his sketches on Flickr every day, marveling at his work. As others have expressed recently upon hearing the news of the deaths of celebrities, I am thinking now about how creative people touch many lives in ways they might not even know. I regret that I never had the opportunity to tell him in person how much he inspired me (clicking “like” regularly and occasionally commenting don’t count), and now I never will. He just posted his last sketch yesterday, and now there will be no more.

Changing Gears Quickly

5/5/16 non-hairy brush pen, Zig marker, colored pencil

Walking through Maple Leaf Park, I was delighted to find my favorite kind of excavator – bright yellow and idle. I circled it slowly to find the composition I wanted: a side angle with our iconic neighborhood water tower in the background. I thought it would make a nice companion piece to the red and white excavator I sketched in the same park last month.

With a light breeze and the sun darting in and out of clouds, I felt like I had all the time in the world to sketch it on this lovely afternoon. I put in small marks to set up the composition and had just made some preliminary lines, when suddenly break time was over. An operator appeared, drove the excavator away, and a crew of other workers started pushing dirt around. I thought I had lost my chance to sketch the excavator, so I settled for a few stick action figures.

5/5/16 hairy brush pen

5/5/16 hairy brush pen

But then things changed: Returning from the other side of the park, the excavator began to dump a load of dirt. It was moving fast, so I knew I had to, too. Changing gears, I put away my fountain pen and got out a non-hairy brush pen, which is just right for making broad strokes quickly. During the next dump of dirt, I added a few details, gave it a swipe with my trusty “construction yellow” Zig marker, and called it good.

Here’s the best part: Making the initial setup marks for the incomplete sketch (below) had taught me a bit about the excavator’s proportions and general shape. The second sketch, made very quickly while the equipment was on the move, was much easier than it would have been if I hadn’t learned from the interrupted sketch. It’s one of the many lessons you can learn while drawing on location because conditions are always changing.

The sun kept darting behind clouds, so when it popped out, I quickly put a shadow in. 

The Single Line

5/4/16 ballpoint pen

Today in Bill Evans’ “Quick Sketch” class, we did several very interesting assignments. The first was the single-line exercise that I’ve seen in drawing books (and examples online). While I’ve tried it before, I’ve never enjoyed it as much as I did today. In the past, I think I’ve always felt compelled to make a “complete” drawing (the whole contour of the chosen subject or the whole scene), and I’d waste a lot of time trying to figure out ways to minimize backtracking (the Etch A Sketch look). I think I was missing the point. It’s not about making a complete drawing; it’s about being loose, spontaneous and fast while capturing the essence of the subject (in this case, our classmates). Bill said this exercise is particularly effective in helping us avoid “sketchy” (brief, tentative, continually restated) lines. Today I finally “got it” and had so much fun with nothing more than a four-color ballpoint pen (at right)!

The second exercise had the same goal of loose spontaneity using any medium. Although this time we weren’t limited to a single line, we were to use as few lines as possible and be confident (not “sketchy”) in making those lines, again capturing the subject’s essence and without necessarily completing a form. I chose a brush pen, which felt ideally suited to the exercise (below).

5/4/16 brush pen

After several demos by Bill using watercolor or charcoal on wet paper, we had an opportunity to use the latter ourselves. On water-saturated newsprint, we used compressed charcoal sticks to draw, and then used wide brushes to smear the charcoal, creating dense, textured shading (bottom of page). Since it requires a lot of wet messiness (good thing I still had my nitrile gloves with me), it’s not something I would do at home, and certainly not on location, but I thoroughly enjoyed the process today. 

5/4/16 compressed charcoal

Still Seeing Red

5/3/16 non-hairy brush pen, gel pen

One of many reasons why I enjoy Liz Steel’s blog is that she is as interested in the creative process as I am. Much of what she says about her sketching process resonates with me about my own, and she often prompts me to explore my thoughts more thoroughly. Just as I had been thinking about how a chosen sketchbook format heavily influences the sketches in them, Liz blogged about this very issue.

Like Liz, I’ve tried many different sizes and formats of sketchbooks since I began sketching, and each one had its benefits and drawbacks. Size (portability, spontaneity, discretion), paper type (media), format, binding, cover stability – all have a significant impact on the subject matter and compositions I choose and whether I’m encouraged to or hindered from sketching. I spend a lot of time and energy thinking about pens, inks and colored pencils, but I’d venture to say that my choice of sketchbook is the single-most influential part of my sketch kit.

If you’ve kept up with me for a while, you know that after trying all those commercial sketchbooks, I eventually settled on binding my own, because it was the only way to get as many as possible of the qualities I want and need in a sketchbook. It’s still not the ideal sketchbook, but it’s as close as I’ll probably ever come, and I’m happy.

That’s why I’ve been so surprised by how my little red Field Notes notebook has influenced my attitude toward the sketches I put in it. As of today, I’ve filled two 48-page booklets in a little more than a month while also filling my regular sketchbook at the normal rate, so the red books are not replacing those pages. They’re filling a different need.

5/3/16 hairy brush pen, white colored pencil

At first I thought the brightly colored Field Notes would be nothing more than a novelty; after all, how versatile can red paper be? I didn’t see it fulfilling the role of my pocket-size, catch-all sketchbooklet (which is more of a smaller-sized extension of my usual sketchbook) because I wouldn’t be able to use ink wash, colored pencils, watercolor or other favorite media.

But always having a little red booklet in my bag has done something that I wasn’t expecting at all. Since I can’t use color, I don’t even think about it – all I use is a black brush pen and add highlights with a white pencil or gel pen. The page is so small that I can’t bite off more of a composition than I can chew. It takes only a couple of minutes to fill a page, especially with broad brush pens, so I always have time for a sketch. I don’t even scan those red pages; taking a “trophy” photo with my phone matches the spontaneity and ease with which the sketch was made.

5/3/16 hairy brush pen, gel pen

While using my main sketchbook for all my “normal” sketches, I find myself looking for different types of subject matter just to put in the Field Notes. My main sketchbook records the visual stories of my daily life; my red notebook shows the mundanity that happens in between. These are often my most uninspired, unambitious sketches, and I’m pleased as punch to have a place to put them. Even the pages themselves, which are perforated for easy removal, seem to confirm the sketches’ ephemeral nature. In short, a red Field Notes notebook liberates me from expectations and lowers my standards to nothing. Previously I had always tried different sketchbook formats to meet various needs; this may be the first time that a sketchbook has shown me what I need.

The big question is whether a little notebook containing white paper would serve the same need. Now that my mind has been opened, perhaps the paper doesn’t have to be red. It’s an experiment worth doing for a process-oriented sketcher like me. But maybe not for a while – I’m having too much fun seeing red.

P.S. Many of my Field Notes sketches have not appeared on my blog, but you can see them all in this Flickr album.

A Slice of Sky

5/1/16 ink, watercolor

This May Day is amazingly gorgeous: 73 degrees, according to my weather app, and not a cloud to be seen. Walking through my neighborhood, I turned the corner onto busy Roosevelt Way Northeast and looked up at a slice of sky. It was as good a celebration of this day as any.