Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines…

Ever happen to you? The day you have a bunch of deadlines looming is exactly the day you most want (need?) to sketch. That was today. My solution?: I worked at a corner table at my local Starbucks, and for every couple of hours of work, I took a short sketch break. 3 little sketches is what I got done.

Here’s #1, photographed in stages, so you can see how it progressed :no planning, I just started at the center with a bunch of people that interested me and kept going from there.Usually, planning and thumbnailing a composition is a better idea than working this way. But with sketches that are filled with people, I have a general idea of how wide a view I want to capture. Improvising as I go along lets me add interesting figures and groups as they come and go: All these people weren’t right where they are in my sketch at one time: Jumping around my page as people appeared (and quickly moved on) helped me pick and choose what I wanted on the page.

And here’s another couple of sketches from today, all sketched from the same corner.

 

It helped a lot that I was working in much smaller books than I normally do: my new softcover Stillman & Birn sketchbooks are the perfect size for take-a-break sketches.

Smaller books.
Selective color.
Compositions that don’t fill the entire page.
That was today’s recipe for quick sketches