In my last post I mentioned that I was going to do a lot more sketching. Sketching means many things to many people, it can be a quick thumb sketch to serve as a record of something you have seen or thought, it can be a way of keeping a record or a reminder of something you may want to use or do at a later date.
These are some quick workings out for a set of canvases most of you have seen before, for those who haven't or if you want to see them again you can see the pictures
here and
here
Most of us use this type of thumbnail sketch, usually on any old scrap of paper, notebook or even an envelope, whatever is at hand at the time. It is a good way of working out composition and size. Most of these sketches have been done using pencil with a couple done in ink (el cheapo biro).
Some sketches can be more involved or more intricate and look like finished studies. There are no rules about sketching, there are as many styles as there are people.
You can sketch from books, photographs or real life and you can use any medium, most people use pencil as it is clean and readily available but you can use charcoal, pastels, watercolour or oil paint. Or how about mixed media, tissue paper, glue and even clay. There is no time restraint on a sketch, it can be a quick 2 minutes to a goodly few hours, there are no rules about detail, you can do as little or as much as you want. The only boundaries are those we put in place ourselves.
To me sketching is a good way of practising some subjects that challenge me and by golly, I need some practise. The beach sketches above were done from memory and imagination, these next lot are done from life. This week has been a bit on the cold side to say the least and I'm certainly not going to freeze my fingers off sitting out in the cold so I started doing a few bits just from looking out of my windows.
Here are some of the results....
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| Birds in the Garden |
There is no real detail in these sketches, I just wanted to capture the positions of the birds in the shrubs.
The Great Tit eating out of the coconut shell was the most difficult because it was fluttering it's wings continually, the 3 birds sitting together was the easiest to sketch as these little cuties didn't move for long periods, the other 2 are juvenile blackbirds and were not to bad because they repeat the same stance quite often.
These are 5 minute sketches done in pencil then afterwards I quickly went over the main lines with a pen.
I'm going to try and do a few sketches each week and possibly do a regularish post using both new and old sketches.
Wishing you all a good week-end
Jan x
