The Value and Pleasure in Small Quick Sketches

Two minute sketch of the village of Gordes in Provence (Tombo marker)

Sketching quickly is both fun and skill building. If I don't have time to paint, sketching is the best way to keep my painting skills from getting rusty, since it's used at the beginning of the process. I did the sketch above while my companions in the car were taking photos.

You might ask what's a sketch? To me, it's a very quick drawing, using a single drawing tool, where mistakes are left in, there's no erasing. The purpose is to catch the essence of something in minimal time, especially if that something is moving.

Quick sketch of two women knitting (Tombo marker)

There are so many fun things to sketch. I particularly like to sketch people. It's more enjoyable to sketch them live than from a photo. But you have to either have their permission, or do it surreptitiously. I do the later a lot in airports or on a beach where people are absorbed in a book or sunbathing. In the above page from my small sketchbook, I got a chance to sketch my friends at Knit Night. We talked, they knitted, and I sketched. My sketching is much better than my knitting.

Less than Minute sketches of a sailboat swinging on it's mooring (Micron pen)

If we've met, you probably know that I love boats. They're right up there with people on my fun to sketch list. And I don't need their permission. When they're moored they tend to move around, which is a challenge but also a good learning experience. Drawing and painting boats from photos has the problem of foreshortening. The end of the boat that is farthest away tends to appear even smaller in a photo (especially from a phone camera) than it is in real life. So being able to get a quick sketch in to use with a photo for detail is very helpful when creating a painting.

30 second pen sketch of a flying pelican

Birds are also fun and you have to be very quick to capture them in a sketch. I particularly like pelicans because they are so angular. And cormorants drying their wings sitting on a buoy are interesting to draw. I'll look out for one when we're next on our boat.

Trees are great to sketch in winter, when all the branches are showing. And they don't move very fast if the wind isn't blowing. This post on my old blog called Drawing Trees has long been the most popular, and I'm not sure why. I would call this more of a drawing than a sketch. It probably took 10 minutes.