Back to small sketches

Now that the Symposium is over, it’s time to return to everyday sketching. Here’s a sampling of some little sketches from last week.

This was my first post-symposium little sketch. I’m liking carrying around a waterbrush filled with a diluted black ink for a midtone grey. Makes for quick sketches: you find the big shapes with grey ink, and add in details with a fountain pen in black ink.

A day spent at the zoo: You can see my walking-while-sketching kit in my hand: 2 pencils, 2 water brushes: one filled with ink, one with water and a couple of pencils: one regular and one extra-dark. Next time I’ll substitute the extra-dark with a water-soluble pencil.

Tree trimming. When you’re an urban sketcher, that’s an event worth stopping, watching and capturing.

And, speaking of safety jackets and traffic cones, see how they’re a dull orange in the sketch above? That was before I tested a new color. How did I not know about Schmincke Transparent Orange before now? So gorgeous, it’s going into my paint kit now.
There’s this little toy my son plays with that requires infinite patience. The packaging was in Japanese (and I threw it away), so I don’t know what it’s called. The aim is to get all the orange balls over on one side and the blue ones on the other. Sometimes you’re almost there and then you mess up, and it’s like starting over. Makes for good sketching because the game takes so long.

That’s last week in sketches. How’s your weekly sketching going?