Fall Concert at Pioneer High

It’s the start of the season of school concerts, and one of my kids plays with the school orchestra and the other is in the jazz band, so it’s concert-sketching time for me.

Sketching on location has its challenges, that’s for sure. At these concerts, I’m sketching in the near-dark, from whatever seat I get when I arrive, and I’m trying to be quiet and not take up too much space.

The stage is bright but my sketchbook is in the dark

This time, I precolored my pages.

A couple of pre-colored pages, with random colors.

I find that with this color as a base, I can use a relatively small set of tools, mostly dry media, and still get a near-full-color effect.

Here are the tools I worked with.

For all its complications, I wouldn’t exchange drawing on location for anything. There is just no more “alive” way to draw than to be responding in real time.

This little clip shows what I love about painting this way (turn the sound on when you watch it). The moment just called for finger painting to the beat:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj_BVmeD6eR/?hl=en

Here are my sketches from the evening. I like how they went from a pretty straightforward sketch to a more high energy one, to one that is almost abstract.