And Then There's The Sketching

Back side of concertina sketchbook with pencil sketch inked in. The messenger bag holds all my sketching supplies including a folding chair. Click for a larger view.

I've kept a wary eye on the weather forecast and the skies since early August, thinking about those outdoor activities I hoped to get in before summer fled or smoke arrived. Granted, September can still be a lovely month for being outside, even October some years, but I must admit, I've felt like I've been in a race to get things checked off my list before I lost the chance. Besides getting out on the trails, I wanted to get out with my sketchbooks. I started working in this concertina sketchbook about this same time in 2017. If you scroll to the bottom of this post, you can see how far I got before putting it aside as the weather changed, and read why I chose my subject matter. By September  2018, I was back at the beach, continuing my pencil sketch and having to flip to the back side to complete the jetty and stop once again (scroll down to the bottom of this post). It was getting clear that I would run out of sketchbook before running out of beach. Now it was almost September again, and I'd read that the hotel partially showing at the beginning of my sketch would be coming down early next year to make way for a taller, updated one. The rest of the beach might remain unchanged, but time was running out for me to have that building "posing" for me. I picked a sunny day the last week of August to complete the pencil undersketch and ink in a lot of it.

So often our weather falls off Labor Day weekend, but the weather forecast assured the 80 degree weather would hold until the following Thursday. I packed up my sketching bag on Wednesday and headed for the beach. Working around the cars parked across the road is always an issue. I hadn't planned to sit in the sun, but the spot on the other side of the rock turned out to be the best viewing spot for this first section of my sketch. Even though I used a waterbrush, I still found balancing the sketchbook and travel paintbox and mixing up colors in its lid tricky. I'd brought water in vials and a regular brush just in case but couldn't imagine using them once I got seated. A bench or a table would have been nice!

But I did get the part of the sketch that will disappear done, after completing the inking, and got a start on the rest. (And realized I should have put on some sunscreen!) I kept thinking that I hoped no one came up and asked me what I was doing. "Oh, just practicing," or "Learning how to use my paints," which actually is pretty much the truth. I'm such a novice at watercolors but love the effect urban sketchers get with them so am motivated to keep working at it. 

I was concerned about how well the paper in this sketchbook, which is smooth and stiff like cardstock, would hold up to watercolors but it did just fine. Paint doesn't flow on it like on watercolor or even multimedia paper though and in that way it can be pretty unforgiving. I really did think I'd get farther than this in the hour and a half I worked on it. I have a long way to go, a lot more trees, the mountains behind them and of course, the lake and sky. Towards the end, I was mostly using up paint mixed on my lid palette, and I had a lot of that brown paint so got a lot of pilings painted.

Also on my mind has been a couple of buildings I've "bookmarked" in my brain as ones to add to my architecture sketchbook. (I still haven't made peace with the tan toned paper and am eager to get this one filled up.) This row of houses is just beyond the park on my walking route. I just happened to notice the angles and symmetry of the roof lines one day and that is just the sort of thing I like to capture in a sketch. As with many of my sketches, this was a two day affair, the first to pencil in the lines and get the angles right, and a return trip to add pen, and in this case, some white gel pen, done while so many were out enjoying the holiday weekend with camping or visiting area lakes. I prefer staying off the roads and trails over holidays now that I can go any day of the week.

And while getting in my daily walk at this same park, I realized I was looking at the backside of a house I started sketching back in June and have yet to finish up. The back side has fewer details so I was able to do this in one go, and while sitting at a picnic table to boot! Again, it was the angles of the house's roof lines that made me want to sketch it and you can see some of that on this side of the house as well. This one is done in just graphite and colored pencil, and you can see how difficult it is to get colors to really show up well on that tan paper. Bold black and white pens really work the best. But I enjoyed sitting in the waning cool afternoon, experimenting with different ways to portray the trees and bushes.