Sunday Painters. Line Up

Okay, guys. Here's an assignment for you Sunday painters:
Speed sketching with an overhead viewpoint. Compose within a small format. Zoom in or zoom out?

1. Choose a spot outdoors or in the house with lots of natural light.
2. Use the sidewalk, if outdoors, or spread out a white pillowcase or sheet on the ground. If indoors, use the white pillowcase or sheet of watercolor paper on the floor for your background.
3. Lay out a row of similar objects. Uneven numbers are best.
4. Trace the outline of a business card or credit card several times on your sketchbook page or watercolor paper to create frames for your sketches. Orient some of them vertically and some horizontally.
5. Now, with your subject viewed from above, sketch one group at a time within it's own frame using graphite, ink, markers or line and wash.
6. Include the cast shadows and highlights.
7. Give yourself a 5 minute time limit per sketch.
8. See how many you can do in 30 to 45 minutes. Ready, set, go!

Here are a few ideas to get you started, but please try to work from life instead of photos. What do all these objects have in common? Answer: roundness.

 

Tips:

• For the best shadows, make it early in the morning or late in the afternoon.
• If you finish before the timer, reset and start another sketch. Don't fiddle.
• If the timer goes off before you're finished, stop. Go on to the next one.
• Look for variation in your line of objects. Don't assume they are all alike. Embrace the differences!
•  Repetition with variation is the principle to keep in mind

Challenge: Make a composition of even-numbered objects. As Tim Gunn would say, "Make it work!"

Golden Beet Line and Wash

"Golden Beet"
Original Watercolor Line & Wash
by Michele Cooper
Size: 8x10   Price: $125

So much fun to draw!

Man on a bicycle

From the sketchbook
This is a combination of ink scribble and contour drawing with line and wash.
I used a Micron pen without any preliminary drawing and artist's quality watercolor on an Aquabee sketch pad.


It's a process of elimination. Here's the board I used for my students. It shows that the more you eliminate, the stronger your statement is. Choose what you really like and paint that.

Plein Air Workshop - Day Three

My Demonstration

Ben settles in to paint the tidal marsh.

We're on location on Camano Island. We spent all day here, painting, sketching; a picnic lunch and ice cold watermelon at the end of the workshop day.

It's not often that a location provides clean facilities, picnic tables, shade,  an inspirational subject, AND a comfortable bench. My intimate knowledge of the location and several scouting forays paid off!

Jeanne working in the shade.

Plein Air Workshop - Day Two

 "It's all downhill from here"
Original Line and Wash Watercolor
by Michele Cooper

One of the two quick sketch methods covered in our 3 day workshop...Line and Wash. If your time is limited, or you just want a way to quickly get the essential character of your subject, line and wash is one method that works.

These scenes are all over the territory we covered today in our plein air workshop.

Sketchbook page with Value Study and Ink Sketch

Here's a page out of one of my sketchbooks. I have two sketches, room for one more and a haiku that I wrote about the experience of being in the high mountain atmosphere of Colorado.

The value study is done with 3 pens, a 30% warm grey, a 60% cool grey and a black Micron pen. The same Micron pen was used for the ink sketch.

There was no opportunity to do this on location as I took this photo from the bus on the way to Silverton. We rode the old mining train back.