Snow Strategies

2/6/17 ink, colored pencil, brush pen, graphite,
gel pen, toned paper

Under almost any daylight circumstance, the sky is the lightest part of an outdoor scene. Even if it’s overcast, the ground, rooftops and trees are darker. The one exception is when it’s snowing (at least here in Seattle): the sky is slate gray while the landscape is white.

As I watched the snow come down yesterday morning, I contemplated the dilemma of sketching all that white against a gray sky. Unlike Shari Blaukopf, Marc Holmes, Nina Johansson and other sketchers who have plenty of long, white winters to practice snow sketching, I don’t get many opportunities in Seattle. In fact, the last time it snowed enough during daylight hours to attempt a sketch was almost exactly three years ago. What would my strategy be?

Looking through the livingroom window, I used an orange Field Notes notebook to warm up with a sketch of our neighbor’s tiny palm tree across the street. (It’s funny to think of a palm covered with snow!) The white colored pencil really popped against the red paper – and that gave me an idea.

After lunch the temperature climbed above 32. If I hesitated, it might melt away, so I knew it was now or never. I pulled on my boots and down jacket, of course, but I was also prepared in one other way: I brought along a sheet of gray toned paper.

2/6/17 brush pen, white colored pencil

I didn’t have to walk far from my door to see a scene I wanted to capture. Fir trees are such a common sight in these parts – especially these two that I pass literally every day – yet when they’re covered in snow, they magically transform. The snow was still coming down on me and my gray paper, so I had to work fast. Nothing I tried – fountain pen, brush pen, graphite, colored pencil, gel pen – seemed to be working well on wet paper, but I did my best. After the paper dried, I went back over the snowy parts with a white colored pencil, and that helped a bit. If I have another opportunity to sketch snow this season, I’m going to wait until it stops snowing before I head out!

How about you? What kinds of strategies do you use to sketch snow?

The scene from our upstairs deck: gray sky, white landscape

It’s Selfie Season Again

2/5/17 rainbow pencils

The dead of winter seems to be my time for self-portraits. The weather keeps me indoors, of course, and the dark, dreary days seem to invite introspection. If I have been feeling cocky for any reason, self-portraiture is an excellent way to take myself down a notch or two. Nothing is quite as humbling.

Greg said I look too serious (and therefore not myself) in the ones I did on Saturday (below), so yesterday I tried to look less serious when I made the one in blue and orange rainbow pencils. I started out smiling in the mirror, but as soon as I focused on drawing, my smile faded. I don’t mean to look so somber, but it’s difficult to be both model and sketcher simultaneously!

My urban sketcher friend Ed Harker (who showed us a delightful time when we visited him in Bath last summer) does selfies frequently, capturing himself in a variety of expressions. 

2/4/17 brush pen

2/4/17 graphite, colored pencil

Tasting Flight at Thirsty Hop

2/3/17 brush pen, colored pencils

Greg had read about a craft beer bar and bottle shop in Kirkland called Thirsty Hop that he wanted to try. Yesterday was so cold, wet and blah that it was a good time to check it out.

In addition to a bar, tables and sofas around a fireplace, the Thirsty Hop houses one entire wall of refrigerator cases filled with hundreds of types of “artisanal” beers mostly made in the Pacific Northwest. You can also choose from a couple dozen beers on tap.

Since we both like stouts, we chose five from the tap list to try as a tasting flight – 5-ounce glasses that come in a cool carrier. While he took detailed notes on the various beers, I sketched the bar and our flight carrier. My favorite was the Correspondent Foreign Extra Stout by the Wander brewery. Neither of us cared for Loowit’s Snow’s Ghost Golden Stout.

2/3/17 brush pen, white gel pen

I was a bit astounded by the prices of some of the limited-edition specialty beers that cost almost as much as champagne! It was fun comparing different stouts, though, and I especially enjoyed looking at all the beautiful labels on the bottled beers. Just like some wine labels, they are works of art. (I suppose that’s one reason for their cost!) Here are the labels from a couple of bottles we brought home.

Cool brew labels

Stopping Just Short of Too Late

Done. As I had pondered yesterday, I deepened the foreground grass just a bit, and also tried to add a little more contrast between the clouds and sky. The addition is subtle (yesterday’s phase is shown at left so you can compare), and I probably could have kept going (although the paper is limited in terms of how much pigment the surface can hold), but I was afraid I would get carried away, and then there’s no turning back. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from sketching, it’s that it’s almost always better to stop a bit too soon than to go too far and regret it.

2/2/17 work in progress

2/3/17 completed

Are We There Yet?

2/2/17 colored pencil, Bristol (work still in progress, maybe)

I’m not sure if this is done. If you’ll recall from yesterday’s post, the assignment is exploring composition and atmospheric perspective. I thought the reference photo I chose (see below) was relatively blah and lacking in visual focus, so it forced me to create a path for the eye. I think that part’s done.

In the photo, the middle-value foreground is not much lighter than the dark line of trees in the background, so I might still have some work to do in making the foreground darker. But I have to be careful not to get too dark, or the line of trees will lose their contrast. I’d like the clouds to stand out more against the pale blue sky, but if I get carried away, it would be easy to let the sky become as dark as the grass.

I’ll look at it again tomorrow and see what I think. What do you think?

photo reference

Composition and Atmospheric Perspective

2/1/17 colored pencils, smooth Bristol paper (work in progress)

When I signed up for the colored pencil class I’m taking, I knew it would help me improve my skill in using this particular medium. And since the class is offered by Gage, I knew that I would also get a strong base in the fundamentals of drawing. Today’s class further reinforced that I can apply everything I’m learning to just about any other medium and any situation, including urban sketching.

One focus was on composition – arranging the elements in a picture to help the viewer’s eye move through the work. Since our class exercises are based on source photos taken by the instructor, at first it seemed that I would be doing nothing but copying the composition Suzanne had already created when she took the photo. But she reminded us that we, as the artists, get to decide what stays in the drawing, is emphasized or is omitted – and how many times have I heard that advice as it relates to urban sketching? Many times! Just because there are three trees and a light pole in my view, I do not have to put all three trees and the light pole in my sketch. It seems “duh,” yet I still sometimes forget.

Here's my source photo. Kind of boring,
eh? I hope my drawing will be more
interesting.

A second lesson today was on atmospheric perspective – showing spatial relationships among objects in a drawing through the use of color, degree of detail and other methods. This is probably one of the most useful things to learn, practice and then apply to sketching on location, where I often struggle with showing how far away one thing is compared to another.

Shown above is my work in progress at the point when I left class. I picked a particularly boring source photo (at left) with nothing much of interest in it because I knew it would force me to make more compositional decisions myself and be challenged by showing the difference between the foreground, middle ground and background. Yikes – did I bite off more than I can chew? Stay tuned.

More Mail

1/30/17 brush pen, water-soluble colored pencils, ink

If you think you’re having déjà vu from a recent mail truck sketch, I wouldn’t blame you. But this one is a different type of truck – larger and full of parcels. Luckily for me, the carrier took her time making deliveries, because I had more than a few minutes to finish the sketch. (By the end of winter, I should become an expert on mail trucks, recycle bins and trees that grow near curbs.)