I met up this morning with the San Diego Urban Sketchers in San Diego’s Old Town. A lot was going on, and eventually, I settled in and focused on a few elements, the flag pole, a little girl playing, people sitting in the park, and the buildings and trees that edge the square. It was an excellent turnout with tons of sketchers and sketches.
Here is another sketch from Bonita Cove, a shallow swimming area off San Diego’s Mission Beach. Again, the focus is on expressing the movement of people, wind, and water, although this sketch is drawn less realistically.
There is nothing like a day at Mission Bay’s Bonita Cove for beating the August heat with small children. Although the morning felt serene, there was also a lot of action in the wading area. I wanted to convey this movement of people, wind, and water in this sketch.
We were hiking late in the afternoon near Molas Lake, Colorado, and noticed a large black and white bird soaring high over the lake. The sweep of the bird as it arched above us was mesmerizing, and we took several photos and videos before it flew away. Then, feeling incredibly lucky, I used a photo and watercolor crayons to draw the bird against the mountain top. Later, looking on the internet, we decided it was a bald eagle.
I climbed up Telluride’s Bear Creek Trail a few miles and rested in an alpine meadow. I had paper, pastel pencils, and gouache along, but there was so much to look at and so many different angles to choose from that I ended up cramming the sheet full of the mountain’s abundance.
Telluride, a small town in western Colorado, is known for its ski slopes and summer festivities. Quiet Telluride evenings are a rarity in the summer, but I snapped a photo of one yesterday and then painted this later. Quiet or not, I did not want to paint in the middle of the road.
Following up on yesterday’s post, I went to another grove of aspen today, this one along the Telluride River Trail. In today’s sketch, some of the aspen trees are much closer to the viewer, giving a stronger sense of being in an aspen grove.
Deliberate Sketching 