Downtown Saratoga

Drawing in downtown Saratoga with Nina was an exercise in sitting where we could and then figuring what to draw from that viewpoint. It’s interesting to see how different cities have handled the need for outdoor seating . Saratoga’s charm lies in its pretty shopfronts and flower beds along Main Street. But their choice of solid (and downright ugly) grey barriers to set up street-side cafe space is really surprising given their usual aesthetic. So I drew these narrow views looking down the sidewalk and away from the charmless grey.

For this next sketch I decided to get super-literal with the idea of continuous line, never taking my black pen off the page until I was done with drawing. I’m not always literal like it, I find it silly to draw across an area where you want to lift up the pen line. But there are advantages to thinking in continuous line. In this piece it made me see a really important connection across the left and right side of the composition, the big shadow in this alleyway.

One last sketch before I left. Over coffee at Big Basin Cafe, catching a few other people who were enjoying the sun.