I am taking Oliver Hoeller’s online workshop, “Design on the Fly”. We are learning various design elements to tell stories in our sketches. The first tip we are learning about is “overlapping” elements– sketching one thing, then turning our head and choosing another thing to sketch and overlapping the two. I drove to Stillwater the other day, a quaint and picturesque Minnesota town (MN birthplace). I sat in my car and sketched first a few couple buildings, then turned to the right and an open door of a boutique was showcasing a hanging pink outfit, so I sketched that. Later, I still had white space on the page, so I drove down by the waterfront and sketched a boat in the river, and looked right to the gazebo, so combined those elements as well.
I also attended my church’s first parking-lot service. We drove up in our cars, parked in rows, they gave out little bags with communion wafers/wine and a bulletin, and we tuned in to an AM station to hear the service. I sketched feverishly to get done in time…
Later at home, I used watercolors and white pen to add color to the sketch. Pretty fun!
My pastor loved the sketch and it is going into the church newsletter. I am starting reportage! So exciting….
Finally, I sketched at a Trader Joe’s parking lot not far from my home. I saw the red crane and purple-papered building and construction, so I just had to sketch it. I then decided to overlap more elements, so I drove down the road and parked behind the purple-sided building and sketched a storage trailer and moved the car and settled on a yellow loader behind the Barnes and Noble building. Then I wanted one more thing in the sketch, so parked a few feet in the other direction to sketch the brown and bright teal Porta-Potties. I think the sketch reads pretty well, and I had a lot of fun getting out and about!
