My urban sketching journey began August 19, 2014. I used a black pen of some sort and colored pencils in a small sketchbook from India that had bad-smelling paper. It was actually a horizontal format, but I cut it to fit in a newer sketchbook. You can see the roughness and hesitancy of the technique but I was hooked! There was something so fun about sketching on location…
An entry in my sketchbook just two days later (August 21) wondered the following questions:
“What if….
I sketched from life every day?
I loved drawing so much I quit painting?
I do drawing just for fun and no other reason?
I draw and draw. Where will I be? What if? What if?”
At the time I was into serious painting and pastels. Sketching was just something I did as a step in a process, a start of a painting. This new way of working, where the SKETCH becomes the work of art… now this was something different for my mind to wrap around.
The year of 2019 has been a pivotal year for me as an artist. I have been in galleries, shows, sold artwork, made note cards, and hung out with artists over the years and developed my craft. But I revisited the questions from August 21, 2014 a couple years ago, and they nagged at me. I so enjoyed urban sketching, but I was afraid to let my other “art life” go. Finally a year ago, I decided to follow my passion. In March of this year I left my two galleries, quit making frame-able art, and decided to trade shows and sales in for a sketchbook and pens and watercolors. And I haven’t regretted a moment of it!
I selected a few of my favorite sketches for 2019. These show me how far my work has gone, how I have improved, and skills I still need to develop. Whether they were done in a fish market, on a plane, in a cold car, on a beach, under a tree, or in a myriad of other places, they are my experiences. I want to show beginner sketchers that there is hope. That you will improve. My first sketch over five years ago is very different than the ones I am able to do today. But it has taken hundreds of sketches to get there. So I offer encouragement, and if I can do it, so can you! Thank you so much for all the comments you have posted and all the entries you have read on my blog. May 2020 be a new year to try new things, to push ourselves in our sketching, to try the things that scare us, and to follow our passions wherever they lead us!
Very worthy drawings!