To the Airport
We are headed on to Kauai for the rest of our trip and got great seats on the airport bus for some quick sketches.
This is a pencil and watercolor sketch.
Along the North Shore of Oahu
Surfing on the North Shore of Oahu
Morning at Kapi’olani Beach
Although I did not have much time for sketching yesterday, I did get this fast sketch of early sunbathers at Kapi’olani Beach before we took off for the day at the Pearl Harbor Memorial. I think it works better than the sketch I posted yesterday because the shapes are simplified and the pen marks show through the watercolor.
This is a pen and watercolor sketch.
Waikiki Sunrise From a Hotel Window
This is a gouache sketch on black paper.
Here are two more sketches of the same intersection as yesterday’s sketch in Old Town at Twiggs and San Diego Avenue that I dew in this past week. In each sketch I stood where a line (the double yellow line in the street or the crack in the sidewalk) recedes back to the vanishing point on the horizon. Although the line acts as a reference and helps me think about how to draw each scene, in retrospect I see that I still have inaccurately drawn objects in each sketch. I think my intuition about how to draw cityscapes leads me astray. I should probably draw many similar scenes and take the time to measure how the parts fit together.
Both sketches are gouache and pastel, one on white paper and one on black.
San Diego’s Old Town
The landscape painting class met in San Diego’s Old Town today and it was a perfect opportunity to think again about perspective. I stood in the park at Twiggs Street, looking down San Diego Avenue, where the double yellow line pointed directly at an ideal vanishing point and the sidewalks, cars, and buildings formed perfect rays leading to it. Of course if you start thinking about it, you can see where I got away from the perspective. Nevertheless, I like the way the wedges of the street, buildings, and hillside come together. I hope I have time in the next few days to paint some variations of this sketch.
This is a gouache and pastel sketch on black gouache paper.
Simplifying the Shape
It is so worthwhile to go to art class and work on projects alongside my fellow students. Not only do I have the chance to learn from the wisdom of an amazing teacher, I also see how other artists interpret the same directions using the same model.
Today we simplified our subject down to a few strong shapes and then painted each shape with strong pigment. This was such a perfect exercise for me, given my deliberate sketch focus of, how do I use flat gouache color, big shapes, and black paper to convey what I am thinking. Because I was influenced by the work of the other students, I let more of my brush strokes show and I think this adds interest to the composition.
This is a pastel and gouache sketch on black paper.
