We are on a weekend trip with our Guatemalan language school to Lake Atitlan and Chichicastenango. Although we do not have much downtime, I did get in a fast sketch. It shows the small boat we crossed the lake in, and the view back across the lake looking towards Panajachel. The blues in the lake and mountains were incredible and I wanted to catch a bit of it in this sketch.
We climbed up to the Cerro de la Cruz in Antigua to get a view of the city and surrounding mountains shortly before sunset. I did not bring any paper but after chatting with a sketcher from Brazil, I was invited to add a quick sketch into her book.
I liked the way the people on the hill were mesmerized by the setting sun and felt so lucky to have been given the chance to capture it.
I have been so busy studying Spanish, which of course is good, but it was even better to dash off a quick sketch.
Antigua, where we are staying for a few weeks, is fairly flat with mostly one or two stories and some taller churches and trees. In contrast, the giant volcano, the Volcán de Fuego, totally captures my eyes and fills me with incredulity as I look out over the city and see the volcano rising above the clouds. I wanted to capture some of this feeling in this sketch.
I arrived in Antigua Guatemala late yesterday for a two-week trip with four of my sisters and a brother-in-law. We spent the morning out and about and then this afternoon we chatted and sketched. This piece shows two of my sisters on the patio where we are staying.
This one is a little different for me. I have been experimenting with tissue paper and tracing paper collage, it is a different way to show what I see. And I like the feel of making shapes by ripping paper. So far I have used tracing paper and tissue paper on black watercolor paper with gouache. The tissue paper can dissolve into the gouache, giving more texture than either alone.
Our model today was lovely and expressive. I liked the way she was able to curl her long body up into a round shape. I also like the way her hair hung in stripes, perpendicular to the stripes of her outfit.
We painted this morning from the top of Mount Helix Park, a lookout just east of the city of San Diego. I stood looking north across the industrial part of El Cajon. The patterns the warehouses made complimented the patterns of the hills rising to the mountains. And in turn, the verticalness of the residential area just below contrasted nicely with the horizontal movement of the hills and buildings.
I wanted to capture it all but had to simplify the scene to capture the overall feeling I had as I looked down on the city.
Deliberate Sketching 