Car Sketching as Urban Sketching

If you’ve spent too long a time indoors this past year and getting out to be an urban sketcher again seems intimidating, drawing from the car can be a good baby-step to getting there. Here are two recent car sketches.

Henry’s Hi-Life is on a little street near the freeway. I pull up for a sketch before driving back home. The woodblock-style lettering painted all over the wooden structure made for an interesting sketching challenge. I like getting the characteristics of the font but don’t feel I have to capture every line, color and drop shadow.
And of course i was thrilled these guys were unloading boxes of potatoes at the back door when I stopped by. Tat made for an interesting sketch.

This next sketch is a more typical example of car sketching for me. Sometimes I need to wait. For an appointment. For a take-out order. For something. Pre-covid, I’d step in and draw people while I waited. Now I wait in my car and draw the view. It might not be a view I chose, but drawing it makes it interesting, always.

Here is what I wrote under the sketch:

If you’ve been wanting to sketch outside but haven’t tried it yet, or if you’ve gotten rusty with doing it in the last year, Car Sketching might help jumpstart your practice.