Two Thoughts at Cloud City

5/10/16 ink

In addition to the usual umbrella café tables, Cloud City Coffee’s patio has a tent with picnic tables under it, so you can choose to sit in either the sun or the shade. This morning I did both, moving around at will to vary the views.

I’m still thinking about some lessons from Liz Steel’s SketchingNow Edges. In this online course, Liz talks about “lost edges” – deliberately avoiding drawing some lines or “edges” in a composition so that the viewer has to fill in the part that’s undrawn, becoming a more active participant in the viewing. As I sketched the young man eating a sandwich with his back to the sun, I couldn’t really see much of the shoulder that was away from me. Typically I would just fudge what I can’t see and draw it anyway, but this seemed like an opportunity to let the unseen shoulder remain lost.

5/10/16 ink, colored pencil

That was one thought this mid-morning. The other was the fact that it was 65 degrees and sunny on May 10. When I sat in the shade it was cool enough that I was glad I had my sweatshirt; when I moved to a sunny table, I was happy in a T-shirt but didn’t break a sweat. I was wondering if there’s any place on earth where it’s like this all year round – the absolute perfectest weather for outdoor sketching – and if there is, how soon I could move there. 

5/10/16 ink, white gel pen

5/10/16 brush pen, white gel pen