Al Fresco Sketching with my Sunday Art Club

This sketch took about 45 minutes. I spent most of the time on the flagstones at the bottom of the picture. When I think about these sketches I wonder what they would look like if I could bring myself to take the time to get the values right, especially getting the darks darker. The fact is, after spending 45 minutes on this picture, I was mentally exhausted, which, in my mind, translates to “finished!” I’m aware that I’m an impatient artist when I’m learning something hard. Sketching, for me, is hard work.

I’m working on making every stroke be a mindful stroke. Let’s just say that I’m at the beginning of my journey.

I intentionally don’t remove the three dandelion plants growing in the pathway. They give the place a lived in look.

Sunday al fresco sketching

I didn’t want to go outside and draw today. I spent all morning and most of the afternoon trying to bend one of my children’s book pictures into acceptable shape. When I looked at the picture this morning I discovered that my “finished” line work was only 75 dpi instead of 300. How did this happen? Well, this was one of those images that I edited and exported, and then failed to save my edits. I dreaded having to re-ink the most detailed image in the book, but I dove in head first.

Time flew by. It was 4:30 PM when I looked up from my unfinished drawing. I knew I had to keep my promise to myself to sketch al fresco at least once a week. I reluctantly shut down my iPad, and got my sketch kit. I’m glad I did.

This is my back yard. It’s really hard to grow anything here. There’s only 4 hours of sunshine a day. The sequoia tree blocks the sun in the morning that the four giant cedars block the sun in the afternoon.

The actual peonies and path with round flagstones

Picture #11, Jimmy and Buddy having lunch in the poppy patch

Today I started my new crusade to draw from life at least one hour, once a week. For the last 6 months I’ve been drawing from imagination — cartoon birds and butterflies for my children’s picture book. At the same time I’ve been simultaneously reading about Vincent van Gogh and Michelangelo. The more I learn about them, the more I understand the importance of drawing from life. I want to improve my draftsmanship, so I’ll be spending time every Sunday sketching living things.

My first goal is to overcome my fear of drawing foliage. I decided I should start my new regiment by sketching the garden shed. It’s half covered by a lush grapevine. An overgrown rosemary bush sits in front of the grapevine and the shed. I’m confronted with thousands of leaves. After a few minutes eye to eye with the grapevine, I realized that I should not try to draw every leaf. Instead, I decided to draw only a few of the tendrils and leaves. Here’s the result of one hour of sketching.

An HB pencil gave a low contrast result, so I cracked the Photoshop Linear Burn whip to adjust the values to equivalent of a 4B pencil.

On the other end of the art spectrum, here’s today’s digitally colored picture for page #11, in which Jimmy and Buddy are having lunch in the poppy patch. I suppose Buddy is looking for nectar, and Jimmy is might be looking for some disgusting bugs to eat. However, in the world of children’s books, bugs, like birds and butterflies, are really people, so you can’t them. I’d better put a burrito in Jimmy’s hand.