Vocabulary Homework

10/27/17

Last week Suzanne gave us a graphite class homework assignment that I was especially eager to do: sketches of different types of foliage – from life! Yes! After seven weeks of drawing only from photo references, we were finally instructed to look at actual trees and make small samples showing how the foliage differs among them. This assignment is intended to help us develop a wider “vocabulary” of marks that we can refer to when we need them. The purpose of having a broad vocabulary is to avoid resorting to drawing generic trees.

Of course, the best way to avoid drawing generic trees is to have as much knowledge as possible about specific types. Suzanne herself has an admirably vast arboreal knowledge, and just learning from her has helped me a bit in that regard. While I’m not interested in trees enough to study them in general, I do want to be able to identify at least the ones I encounter in my neighborhood, especially ones I’ve sketched, so that’s my goal now.

10/27/17

When I was at Swansons with USk, I was tempted by all the festive autumn décor, but I still hadn’t started the vocabulary assignment, and I knew the cloudless sky and sunshine would make the homework easier. I wandered around Swansons’ large property to the back lot where the nursery’s trucks and equipment are stored. A variety of trees grew right behind the lot. With only a 4B pencil, I tried to capture the essence of each tree by varying the marks and textures. As challenging as it is to draw trees by any means, compared to drawing them from photos, having live models felt like a piece of cake. (I was born to draw from life!)

At the bottom of the page is a photo I took. See if you can match my “vocabulary” sample with its model.

My Fountain Pen Best Friends

My fountain pen BFFs.

Pencils – both graphite and colored – have been getting most of my drawing love the past year or so. But in the second week of InkTober when I decided to switch from ballpoint to fountain pen, I was reminded (yet again – I had a similar InkTober revelation two years ago) of how much I love sketching with the latter. It’s not that I forget, exactly, but since the fountain pen was one of the first tools I started drawing with, I sometimes take it for granted. While pencils, colored pencils and brush pens all have unique qualities that I love, a fountain pen delivers an unequivocal line matched by none (at least in my hand). Unlike any other drawing instrument, it seems to express my hand’s movement and direction most closely – like it or not. There’s no erasing, covering up or backing out. I don’t always love what it reveals, but like a brutally honest friend, it never falsely flatters me, and it can still surprise me with its elegance. So today’s Fountain Pen Day post is dedicated to my BFF pens:

Nos. 1 and 2: Sailor Naginata Fude de Mannen. My epic search nearly three years ago led me to No. 2 (1911 full size in matte black), and when I sourced a second one (1911 full size in standard black), grabbed it, too. ‘Nuff said.

No. 3: Franklin-Christoph Fude. My newest fountain pen, it is the most surprising in that I did not have high expectations when I bought it. Besides my beloved Sailors, the F-C fude has proven to be the only acceptable fude I will use.

No. 4: Pilot Posting. I don’t often have need for an ultra-fine or even fine fountain pen when drawing because when I have one in my hand, I find myself getting too fiddly with details in a way that is not flattering to my sketches. But every now and then I need a line finer than what my fudes can produce, especially if I have the urge for line work that mimics traditional pen-and-ink hatching. Pilot’s under-rated posting nib does the job.

No. 5: Sailor Cross Point. Although it doesn’t have quite the same range of line widths as my fudes, the Sailor Cross Point is even smoother (which I thought was hardly possible). Because of its more limited range, it doesn’t get as much sketching mileage, but I still take it out now and then to remind me of what a joy it is to use. Most of the time it stays inked up on my desk as my favorite journal-writing pen. I also love it for sentimental reasons: It’s the only high-end fountain pen I purchased in Tokyo. 

More Leaves to Peep

10/28/17 Maples ablaze on 5th Ave. NE at Northgate Way

Everyone I talk to agrees: We are having one of the best autumns ever for color! 

On my way to the pumpkin carving party last Friday, I missed my turn to the community center because I was so dazzled by the fiery maples near Northgate Mall. I don’t know enough about maples to identify their varieties, but unlike the ones I saw the other day at University Village, which were all bright yellow-orange, these displayed a full range of green, yellow, orange, red and magenta. By the time I left the party, the sun had dipped below the buildings, so the trees were no longer blazing. I returned the next day to catch them in the late afternoon sun, and those maples were once again afire.

10/30/17 Sourwood tree near Green Lake

A couple days later I followed a tip from a friend (thanks, Katie!) to a tree near Green Lake. Expecting to see a maple when I arrived at the intersection she gave me, I was surprised to find another type of tree: spectacularly red in the mid-afternoon sun and dripping strands of yellow-green pod-like buds. After doing my usual “research” (a social media call to my tree-knowledgeable friends), I learned that it’s a sourwood tree. (Actually, a pair of them stood right next to each other, but from the angle I sketched them, they looked like one.) Not only has this fall been a feast of eye candy; I’m also learning to identify trees new to me.

(By the way, you’ll be seeing this sourwood sketch again soon for a special purpose . . . stay tuned.)

#InkTober2017 Final Review: Lessons Learned

10/22/17

Happy Halloween and happy end of InkTober! Are you sad that it’s over – or relieved?

As I mentioned in my second trimester review, I began InkTober this year with a bit of trepidation about being able to keep up with daily ink sketches while also working on my time-consuming graphite class exercises. But on most days it was a relief to go out and do small, quick sketches from life for InkTober instead of labor-intensive graphite drawings from photos.

On some busy days, though, I admit that I wanted to skip it (and once I almost forgot until fairly late in the day) – but I didn’t. I have often told people who say they don’t have time to sketch that it doesn’t have to be a huge time commitment, so I decided I would simply practice what I preach. Except for one I did at the Funko sketch outing, none of my InkTober sketches took more than 15 minutes to make.

10/24/17

While it’s not part of Jake Parker’s original InkTober initiative, as long as I’m participating in the project, I like to give myself a personal goal. I didn’t stick with ballpoint pen for the whole month as I had originally planned, but I did stay with the second part of my goal: to practice my hatching skills. That, too, was tempting to skip. Without InkTober, I regularly make small brush pen sketches in Field Notes notebooks, so it would have been easy to fall back on a familiar tool and habit. But except for a couple of sketches, I managed to include at least some hatching. As the month went on, hatching became easier. I started to really appreciate how effective hatching can be in economically showing the direction of a curved surface.

The most surprising outcome of InkTober 2017 is that I unintentionally developed a bit of a theme: cars! Although they are no longer the sketching nemesis they used to be, and they appear frequently enough in my day-to-day urban sketches even without InkTober, cars and I have never been on friendly terms. On busy days, though, I often found myself squeezing in a quick sketch between errands or appointments, so it was easiest to draw whatever car was parked nearby. Interestingly, cars turned out to be ideal for hatching practice: They’re made of curving, hard surfaces with lots of challenging, irregular shadows! Since I typically would not choose to sketch ordinary cars on the street as primary sketching subjects, I got some much-needed practice. 

10/25/17

Overall, despite the challenges, I had a great InkTober (see all my sketches from the month in this Flickr album)! How about you?

10/23/17

10/31/17

10/26/17

10/21/17

10/27/17

10/29/17

10/28/17

10/30/17

Halloween in the ‘Hood

10/27/17 Pumpking carving party

It was a busy weekend for October festivities. After sketching with USk Seattle on Friday at Swansons, which was decked out for fall, I went to the Northgate Community Center for a pumpkin-carving party. My friend Alice is the primary coordinator for this annual neighborhood event, where families receive free pumpkins and refreshments while they decorate their pumpkins to the Thriller soundtrack. Last year was the first time I sketched this event, and it really scratched my itch for childhood nostalgia (without the mess of actually carving a pumpkin).

By the time I got there, the party was in full swing (Alice reported that more than 225 pumpkins were given out that day). I was impressed by how focused many of the children were by their tasks. Even young kids wielding plastic tools were busily scooping, digging, cutting and marking their pumpkins. Parents, too, were elbow-deep in pumpkin guts or just trying to manage kids who were less into carving and more into throwing seeds.

10/27/17

Then Sunday afternoon was the annual Maple Leaf Halloween Parade. Young kids, their parents and dogs, all in costumes, walked slowly and somewhat haphazardly from Fifth Northeast to Maple Leaf Park, where more festivities ensued. I followed along from across the street, quickly trying to grab a sketch when I could (it reminded me of the Women’s March in January when I got good practice sketching as I walked). 

I have been working so hard on landscapes lately and not going to life drawing sessions or even coffee shops that I felt very rusty sketching these kids. I like to think of myself as a well-rounded urban sketcher – I don’t ever want to say, “Oh, I don’t do _____” (fill in with challenging subject matter) as I sometimes hear other sketchers saying. As much as I dread winter weather, I am looking forward to being forced indoors so that I can practice drawing people again and regain balance.

10/29/17 Maple Leaf Halloween Parade

10/29/17

Bringing the Foliage Forward

10/25/17 complete

Here’s the same drawing you saw last week – a cluster of trees at Green Lake. With Suzanne’s helpful feedback and a few more hours of work, I made three significant changes: I made the shadow shapes behind and around the foliage darker and more cohesive to bring the foliage forward (my primary objective); I erased out most of the distracting small tree behind my subject trees in the lower right to push it into the background; I changed the shape of some of the branches and foliage to improve the composition. There’s probably more work I could still do (that’s the problem with a drawing based on a photo reference – you can keep tweaking it for the rest of your life!), but I’m calling it done. (Below it is the version I showed last week so you can see the changes.) 

10/21/17 in progress

Halloween at Swansons

10/27/17 Swansons Nursery

Urban Sketchers Seattle made one of our semi-annual treks to Swansons Nursery yesterday – this one for Halloween (Christmas is coming up). The dinosaur topiary I sketched last year wasn’t ready, but several reindeer topiary pranced around instead. When I looked around for a good angle, I spotted Sage sketching a large display next to the children’s playhouse, and I decided I liked that view, too. 

Huge piles of pumpkins and other gourds, a hay bale maze, some young goats like the ones I sketched last year, scarecrows, a tractor. . . Swansons was full of fun things to sketch. But I had homework to do, so I took advantage of the beautiful sunshine to wander out to the back end of Swansons lot, which was full of many types of trees. . . (stay tuned).