Mailvan

Over so many months of being home, I know exactly where the USPS mail van parks and for how long. So a little bit of planning (especially if I want to record a time lapse of my sketch) means I know where to be and how long I have for a sketch.

If I have a super-short time, I’ll just do a line drawing and not worry about color. But with a bit more time, I like to attempt a mix of line and color. With big, simple shapes like this, I’ll put down a little bit of pencil line, but then I’ll go to watercolor first and paint in big shapes, reserving my pen line for the end, just enough line to bring some definition and detail to the shapes.

I recorded this as a little stop-motion piece to demonstrate techniques we will use in an online workshop starting next week titled “The Art of Capturing People, Places, and Objects“. I’m sharing the video and sketch here not only because the workshop starts next week, but also because I want to say that small businesses like my online Etsy store depend on the USPS to be able to ship to you at an affordable rate. No other service come close in price.

We need the USPS. To keep us connected. To allow us to vote by mail, especially in the time of Covid. To keep our small businesses afloat.