Sometimes, we do our best work when we are the least concerned with the outcome.
By showing you these images, I do not mean to imply they are examples of my best work but there is a fresh quality to my drawings either when I don’t have the time to overthink a drawing or when I am demonstrating an idea or approach as I am teaching.
Whenever I view one of my own drawings or see someone else’s work, my immediate, instinctive reaction is to ask: How could the drawing have been improved? Sometimes, the answer is better composition; at other times, it’s more context. But the more common response for me is increased contrast.
I’ve written about this before but it bears repeating that contrast is a critical part of both seeing and drawing. Without seeing contrast, we are not able to differentiate one thing from another. And without drawing contrast, we diminish the hierarchy that creates interest and focus in a sketch.
There are several kinds of contrast that we can use in a drawing. Perhaps the most obvious is distinguishing between heavy and light line work to enhance spatial depth—what is near versus what is further away.
Another is contrasting areas of greater detail with spaces of lesser detail, or areas of precision with those of ambiguity.
And in the case of watercolor sketches, it is definitely necessary to differentiate not hues but rather zones of tonal values.
For the monthly meeting of the Seattle Urban Sketchers group yesterday, we met in the International District of Seattle. I caught the bus downtown and as soon as I got off, I confronted this view of King Street Station with Century Link Field in the background and a maze of overhead wires in the foreground. I just had to draw it while standing under the awning in front of 308 4th Avenue South.
Thinking about what to sketch in the ID district, I was convinced I had to document Kau Kau, which, as the sign on its awning says, is home of the best BBQ (char siu) in Seattle. So tender and juicy. You can see the effect of raindrops on the page.
Finally, to get out the rain and damp cold, I joined a few others in the tea shop housed in the Panama Hotel. Designed by Japanese American architect Sabro Ozasa, who was a graduate of the University of Washington, the hotel opened in the summer of 1910 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006. In the basement is the best surviving example of an urban-style Japanese bathhouse in the U.S.
Here are two sketches done during our recent trip south to St. Augustine, Florida. The first is of Flagler College, formerly the Hotel Ponce de Leon, which was designed by John Carrere and Thomas Hastings and built by Henry Flagler in the late 1880s. The original hotel was the first in Florida to be supplied with electricity and contains beautiful Tiffany windows. The view was drawn from the front arcaded walkway that helps define the entrance courtyard.
This is the Plaza de Constitucion in St. Augustine, Florida, which was established by Spanish Royal Ordinances in 1573. After I began with the contours of the tree in the foreground, the drawing seemed to take on a life of its own, moving left toward the gazebo, and then to the right and ending with the 18th-century Cathedral Basilica in the background. It ended up as a two-dimensional graphic that relies more on overlap than linear perspective for depth.
After the workshops at the Savannah College of Art and Design, we drove south to Cumberland Island, Georgia’s largest barrier island, accessible only by ferry and now a designated National Seashore overseen by the National Park Service. At the southern tip of the island are the Dungeness Ruins, the remains of a mansion built by Thomas Carnegie, brother of Andrew Carnegie, and his wife Lucy in the 1880s as a winter retreat. This panoramic view of the site shows the open grounds, which looks southward over a vast saltwater marsh.
While waiting for the ferry that would take us back to the mainland, I popped into the Ice House Museum and was excited to see a photograph of the mansion as it was before it burned in 1959. I quickly drew this view to show a little of its character in its heyday.
We’ve spent the last few days in Savannah, Georgia, one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the U.S. Savannah’s founder James Oglethorpe developed the original town plan on a grid centered around a series of squares. It’s instructive to see how the grid and series of park-like squares reveal themselves even today after all these years.
The purpose for our visit was to give a presentation and a series of workshops at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I’ll try to post a few drawings from the trip after our we return to Seattle. In the meantime, here are a few photos.
I am happy to announce that I have been selected to be among those who will be teaching workshops at the 5th International Urban Sketching Symposium to be held August 27–30, 2014 in Paraty, a historic Portuguese colonial town situated on the lush coastline between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. To be able to meet and draw with urban sketchers from all over the world in such a beautiful setting is a rare privilege.
For more information and to keep up with the latest news, see <http://paraty2014.urbansketchers.org>.
The Seattle UrbanSketchers group met yesterday at the Seattle Bouldering Project, a climbing gym that offers a range of classes to introduce beginners to the sport as well as help more experienced climbers develop techniques for strong and skilled climbing. This view, which was drawn from the mezzanine level, began with blocking out the basic volume of the tall space. Then it was a matter of filling in with the climbing volumes and walls and pertinent details.
Here is another view from below. Trying to capture the climbers themselves was difficult because of their constant movement so all you might be able to see are their ghost images.
Much of my attention recently has been attuned to preparing the fourth edition of Architecture: Form, Space & Order. Working on this revision is giving me the opportunity to explore and attempt to understand the spate of irregular forms and compositions that dominate our consciousness.
Beginning a project is always enjoyable; thinking about all of the possible directions a work can take can be liberating. But beginnings can also be difficult when innumerable false starts interrupt the work flow and inhibit a sense of progress. I have come to realize, however, that these friction points are a necessary part of the creative process for they compel us to slow down, to pause, and to think ahead rather than simply charge forward into uncharted territory. One way I occupy these uncertain spaces is by roughing out ideas with a pen on paper and teasing out possibilities with a certain tactile rhythm. Here are a few examples.
This is another in a continuing series of places in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. The Indoor Sun Shoppe opened its doors in 1970 in the University District but moved to its present location at 160 North Canal Street in Fremont in 2003. The shop sells greenhouse and indoor gardening supplies as well as a range of tropical and exotic houseplants, including Venus fly traps and other carnivorous plants. For inhabitants of Seattle and the Puget Sound region who have Seasonal Affective Disorder and the related blues because the winter daylight lasts only around nine hours, the Indoor Sun Shoppe also offers light therapy boxes!
