Our morning in Mazatlan begins with a competition between reading up on the morning news and seeing the morning view of the beach. This morning the news readers were plentiful which made me happy because they sit still and are much easier to draw than the people who dart about looking at the view from the many vantage points of our Airbnb’s long balcony.
Today’s sketch combines techniques from two sketches that I worked on earlier this week. On 1/16 I used white gestural lines to draw a group of people. I liked the way it suggested mood and attitude so today I used gestural line more intentionally and included detail such as bare feet. And on 1/15, I sketched the view through a partially open glass door and made the view through the open portion crisper than the view through the glass. I really liked the effect but wished I had thought to open the window wider. Today I made sure the window was open wide and had fun working on showing the slight difference in clarity.
This is a 12 X 17-inch gouache and pastel sketch on black paper.
When I got up on this seventh day of vacationing with family and friends in Mexico, my sister Teresa Prevey, a digital artist and blogger, was already working on her photographs. She uses various apps on her iPad and transforms photos into works of art. (Click to check out her gorgeous blog, 
Mazatlan’s historic district is full of grand old buildings painted with fresh lovely color. This is a detail of a balcony from one of these at Machada Plaza. I plan to go back with a larger sketchbook soon. This is a 9 X 9-inch gouache and watercolor pencil sketch.
Deliberate Sketching 