Thinking Like an Urban Sketcher

 

5/7/22 Wedgwood neighborhood

Yesterday I talked about how studying Ian Roberts’ principles of composition was making me think like a painter. Since my intention with this study is to improve my urban sketches, not to make paintings, I’ve also been thinking about the difference between making paintings and urban sketching.

Although he uses photo references for most of his YouTube demos, Roberts has spent much of his life-long art career creating and teaching plein air painting. He certainly knows how to capture a moment on location – that magical light that will be gone in a few minutes or a dynamic pattern of shadows. From that perspective, he is similar to an urban sketcher.

Where he differs in viewpoint and approach relates to subject matter, which he believes is secondary to the overall “design” of the painting. In his demos, I’ve seen him crop out some of the more interesting parts of a potential view (interesting in terms of being subject matter) because they didn’t serve the compositional design of the overall painting.

Of course, the subject matter is what attracts the artist, and it must likewise engage the viewer. But “if you let the subject matter rather than the large value masses carry the painting, you’ll lack drama and probably get buried in details. When you think in masses, you see the big light and dark shapes as the real subject of the painting, and the objects in front of you are just the inspiration for the painting.”

When I heard him describe this concept in his videos and read those words in his book, Mastering Composition: Techniques and Principles to Dramatically Improve Your Painting, I began to understand how urban sketching is different from making a painting. From his design perspective, the story of a strong painting is about those masses of light and dark and how they engage the viewer. The viewer may think they are responding to the Provence landscape that is the subject of a painting, but it’s really the painting’s design and composition that are attracting and holding their attention long enough for them to appreciate that landscape.

3/5/22 Maple Leaf neighborhood (not much composition here)

As an urban sketcher, I also want to attract and engage my viewer to whatever I’ve put on my sketchbook page, but the story belongs to the subject – not whatever composition and value masses I may have created.

Driving through Wedgwood one morning, I was thinking about Roberts’ composition principles, hoping to find a view that would include some elements that would form a strong composition. Two large ornamental plum trees, pruned through the middle to accommodate utility wires, stopped me in my tracks (top of page). I did my best to compose the sketch in an engaging way, and I certainly paid attention to value masses. But to my mind, there’s no doubt what the “story” of this sketch is (Hint: It’s not the compositional design).

3/19/22 Maple Leaf neighborhood (not much composition
here either, just some blazing forsythia)

Shown at left and above are two sketches I made a couple of months ago during my fitness walks that are clearly “stories” of subject matter. I wasn’t thinking about composition much then, and I don’t think it would have mattered if I had been – I would have sketched them anyway. Looking at them now with a different perspective, I can see that they lack compositional strength – but I would still sketch them now.

At the bottom of this post is another fitness-walk sketch, but this one was made after I began studying Roberts. I paid attention to value masses, and I “designed” the composition to the extent that I stood where I could see that magnificent tree reaching into the street. I think it’s a stronger composition than the other two, but it’s still all about the subject.

I may be studying to think like a painter in ways that will improve my sketches, but thinking like an urban sketcher is what I do.

5/3/22 Maple Leaf neighborhood (some composition, but mostly a grand old tree)