travel sketching – Jamie's Sketchbook

Montezuma’s Castle and Well

A sketch here, and a sketch there, I’ve finally finished the pages for Montezuma’s Well, and Montezuma’s Castle.

I did this primarily paint only, direct watercolor, but then added ink at the end to make the dwellings on the cliff face stand out.

Here is the sketch of the same dwelling that I did a few weeks ago.

For this one I used the Earth Desert to Mountain palette, direct watercolor.

An ink only attempt with water soluble sink in a fude pen. The ink started to run wild so I just stopped where it was, and let it dry.

The full page layouts with sketches and stickers from the gift store. It feels really good to finally finish these two pages for the trip in April.

Travel Sketching Class Takeaways

What a great class this has been, and I’ve learned so much!

The final demos I did a crazed, loose sketch-along for these locations in Melbourne.

My takeaways from the class are many. I vastly enjoyed this class and learned so much. I feel I significantly leveled up in my understanding of practical applications, as well as in how to manage my overwhelm in the moment. So helpful! Here are my takeaways:

The fastest, loosest sketch will still capture the memory and scene.

Start with 7 lines, 5 shapes, or 3 layers when overwhelmed by a scene. It will still be clear enough to know.

I really like shapes and do better with them—that’s my personal go to beginning a sketch.

Onward! Though the group run through of Sketchbook Design is no longer happening, I intend to do the class myself. It aligns nicely with my desire to get back to a daily sketchbook habit.

Three Layers

A simple approach of thinking of foreground, middle ground, and background while using watercolor pencils to color shapes, ink to add lines for definition, and a final layer of water or watercolor paint to finish the sketch. I’m quite happy with my results.

These are the sketches I’ve done for my assignments, famous locations. The first layer is indeed done with watercolor pencil, then some ink lines for definition. Then watercolor paint and water to add the finishing touches. I’d be very happy if my sketches when traveling looked so good. Most of these took me about 15 minutes to quick sketch, from photos. I was trying to work super fast, working along with the instruction video.

My three scenes, same ones I’ve done for the lines, and shapes exercises. Really happy with these. The ink lines are done with my Pentel Brush pen, and I really like it.

5 Shapes

Sketching with just five shapes, using dry color media like watercolor pencils.

I always like starting with shapes in a drawing. I find it easier, and more forgiving. I chose the same three scenes for my assignment: my backyard, Tumacacori, and Bartlett Lake. I like all three better in shapes than I do in lines. I will confess I had a powerful desire to add water to these color blocks. I generally prefer water, but this class is to test out different methods and media that can make travel sketching faster and easier. I left them alone to get the full effect.

My Takeaways from the Shapes exercise: I really do have a much easier time using shapes than I do with line drawings. Just ten minutes with a very limited set of watercolor pencils really did a good job capturing these scenes, which surprised me.

Seven Lines

My Three Scenes:

First, my backyard. Using a continuous line for each of the objects worked well for this scene. In just ten minutes, I think it is a decent depiction.

Second: Tumacacori, in southern Arizona. This building, when I traveled there and tried to sketch it, felt like a huge struggle, and a failure, so it now represents my target. To be able to confidently sketch a building like this, when under the time pressure I was under that day. I did not feel seven lines captured it, so I added more detail in this sketch. Perhaps I chose the wrong lines? Still, this sketch took ten minutes, and it does look like the scene!

Third: Bartlett Lake. Just seven lines and this is a wonderful capture of the lake. I’m quite surprised how effective just seven lines are here. I did use continuous lines for the mountain line and the bushes. I absolutely had to use a line for the buzzard. There were many buzzards that day, and it was a highlight of the trip!

Takeaways:

Seven lines approach feels like a game changer! It dramatically helps calm the overwhelm and targets HOW to begin to simplify. My big takeaways have been:

Even the simplest, seven lines only sketch can capture the scene and the memories.
Different tools do create a different feeling in the sketch, and in the lines.
Thicker lines look more intentional and complete when there are only 7 of them, reducing the urge to fill in.
It is perfectly acceptable to have a simple sketch. Variety in the sketchbook looks good