I wasn’t really happy with the color sketches I was making: it’s always hard to wrap my head around a new place, new landscape and a new color palette all at once. And while I was drawing the places I was seeing my sketches just weren’t capturing the feel of being there.
So I switched to smaller black and white studies for a bit. These below are watersoluble graphite pencil in a small Stillman & Birn Epsilon book
And then back to color, but on a smaller scale. Below are studies in color from my 9×12 Stillman and Birn Beta sketchbook. Normally I paint full-page but keeping it small helped me figure my way around this new landscape and color palette on a more manageable scale and as I worked some vitality back into my sketches…Because it’s not Hawaii if you can’t feel the trade winds blowing through the palm trees.
Still more Kauai sketches coming up soon, of course.
If you missed my very first Kauai post, it’s here.
Sketch Away: Travels with my sketchbook 
Nice! I liked your first sketches too. Love the swaying in the breeze palm trees! Nice job.
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Ah ha! Instructional, informative, and very energetic and fresh. I too, liked the black and white ones sketches a lot!
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The last two sketches prove the intelligence of your choice for a new approach. Beautiful.
Suhita, do you ever translate your sketched to larger, more detailed paintings?
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Sharon I’ve been working some of my sketches into larger watercolor pieces. I can’t say they’re more detailed, my main challenge in working off location is to keep the work fresh.
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