Notan sketches, St. Louis

Belleville Exchange Club sketch, 3" x 5". The sketch is post dated to coincide with a fund raising auction to benefit  the Belleville(IL) Historical Society.  I will not be able to attend the event but organizers requested all donated works bear the date of the auction. They are after all historians!

Recently I have been reading about what artists refer to as the art of Notan. It is the practice of establishing relationships of light and dark patterns used by master Japanese & Chinese brush artists. There is a great explanation of the method in a USK Singapore Symposium class hand-out by Urban Sketcher Virginia Hein just published and made available in the most recent edition of Drawing Attention. The USK newsletter also provided links to several several class handouts. They are all free and are a great resource for sketchers.

I have been attempting to use Notan sketching as a preliminary step in my plein air painting efforts and have found it to be a great help. The sketches here are done in a small Strathmore spiral bound sketch book of recycled paper with a set of 6 Pitt shades of grey artist pens by Faber Castell. The sketches are quickly composed layers of tones that are begun by laying down the lightest areas first followed by the darkest shapes in the scene. I keep the sketch book on my easel and refer to it like a road map of pattern and value throughout the painting process. I sometimes add the color relationships I am going for such as the triad of Red Orange/Blue Violet/Yellow Green or record the pigments I used in my palette.

Urban sketching is really an art & method unto itself to be sure but the same techniques practiced by sketch artists are useful in other fields including painting, design and architecture. The ability to sketch and the portability of a sketch book makes it possible to design anywhere at anytime.
                                                                     

Snapshots of my easel with sketch book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alsace and Bourgogne: A Sense of Place

“I’m not interested in the stereotype of a place, but in the essence of it as seen through one’s own experience.”

In my mind, one of the greatest of travel distractions is the snapshot. Please note that I didn’t say “camera,” but “snapshot.” Nothing lessens my enjoyment of a place faster and more surely than a carload of bedraggled tourists piling out, clicking away, chattering in frenzied excitement – yet paying almost no attention to the place at all, because they’ve made their snapshot. They’ve documentary proof of their visit to the place. And then they pile back into the vehicle, and it’s off again to the next place.

Snapshots aren’t inherently bad, but I prefer to experience a place slowly, which is why I have a tendency to do so on foot or by bicycle, unrushed. Exploring, sketchbook in hand, also tends to encourage a certain investigation of the essence of place rather than a more facile stereotype or caricature. My purpose is to communicate that essence as it is seen through my own experience, and in doing so to hopefully also communicate some overlooked truth. I will always leave out details or elements in my sketches that might divert attention; too much detail can, strangely enough, create a drawing that distorts or misrepresents the experience of one’s journey.

And yet, sometimes I find that by focusing on details rather than on the big picture, one can create a worthwhile visual conversation about a small, charming element.

Normally I will only use graphite to rough in quick gestural marks and then rely upon my Lamy Safari pen to lay down the important lines. But on occasion, as in the example above, I discover I’ve forgotten to refill the reservoir and I’m entirely without ink!

Personally, I find more satisfaction keeping the line work simple and gestural rather than going into great detail with rendering. I've heard this described as Zen-like. Perhaps. I rather enjoy the challenge of communicating a certain "believability" with a minimum of lines.

One nice thing about buildings in the French villages we visited is their distinctive architectural look and shape. Once one has identified the key forms, keeping the calligraphy of the lines simple and believable comes more naturally. It makes me happy to reach the state where the sketch isn’t “trying too hard” – it just is.

James Nutt - First Post!

Hello everyone, my name is James Nutt.  Cathy was kind enough to invite me to become one of the co-authors after getting involved with the Facebook page.  I am an architect living in Minneapolis.  I draw a lot. I draw at work, at home, and it is almost all that I did in high school.  (So much drawing didn't help my GPA, but that is what I get paid to do now).  I love this forum and I love seeing others people's work.

Most of my drawings are very small and about 35 minutes a piece.  Mostly pen and pencil, but lately a lot of IPad drawing and watercolor. Quite a few of my drawings and past drawings fit the Urban Sketchers rules. This year I gave myself a challenge to draw everyday and post. For the most part it happens and I have really enjoyed sharing and hearing the comments. I look forward to contributing on this blog seeing so much amazing work.

This sketch is from today at the Minneapolis downtown Barnes and Noble. I had the rare condition of having a couple of hours to kill between an eye appointment and the zoning board I sit on.  I did several attempts at drawing today’s farmer’s market with no success.  I decided I had broken my own cardinal rule of trying to start the day with too complex of a drawing. So I zoomed in one of the Macy’s building windows I have always loved and got a sketch I was happy with.  This drawing is approximately 5x7.

Mission Concepcion, San Antonio

Mission Concepcion, a photo by vickylw on Flickr.

This mission is the oldest un-restored stone church in the country. The original colorful frescoes, though faded and worn away, can still be seen in part. They used some of the same earth pigments that are still used today. The frescoes were painted using the same technique used by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Established in 1716, then moved to San Antonio in 1731, the church took 20 years to build and was dedicated in 1755.

I especially liked the view through the ruined cloisters looking towards the church, the roof of which could just barely be seen through the window. Both of the missions we visited are still active churches today. Amazing history.

more from San Antonio, TX

views from our hotel room, a photo by vickylw on Flickr.

Now that we are home from our trip, I'm slowly finishing up the sketches done in San Antonio, Austin, and Houston, Texas. This sketch above shows some of what we could see from our room's terrace. I debated a few days over whether to add full color or not --- the San Fernando Cathedral was so lovely to look at, I decided to leave the rest in ink only. At night this cathedral is beautifully lit up.

 (BTW, the remains of the fighters at the Alamo are purported to be buried in this church. Also, Santa Ana raised the "no quarter" flag from one of these towers before the battle.)



We explored two missions in the area (besides the Alamo). This first one was nearly fully restored in the 1930's, making it easy to envision life there in the 18th century. The Spanish converted virtually all the hunter-gatherer tribes of Native Americans in the Texas area to Christianity --- these missions were their communities, fields, herds, and protection from the warring tribes. But they used to drive the priests "nuts" because they slept on these hard stone floors instead of on the beds provided!

I am loading all sketches on my Flickr site (as I finish them) but only some on Blogger; if interested, you can see other sketches HERE. There will be more posted in the next few days.

A quick trip to Architectural Salvage...

I love this place!  Stained glass, lamps, windows, coffee pots, Buddhas, doors, latches, porch pillars, and more, all of it rich with history.

Joseph's been working on details on the house we're rehabbing, so while he looked for matching hinges, I sketched a few of the treasures there.  I fell in love with the owl gargoyle...could have been mine for a mere $500+...

You can see my other sketch, of one of Kansas City's many fountains on our parent blog, Urban Sketchers.

Hall of Waters...our Art Deco/Mayan City hall in the Midwest

I was dying for some outdoor sketching a week or so ago, and then my scanner went on strike...so I shot these with the camera instead.

This is an amazing building, which architects from all over the world have come to explore.  Hundreds of visitors and spa patients came here till the 1950s--it's one reason our town has such wide sidewalks, to accommodate the crowds!  Groundbreaking for the building took place in 1936, in the height of the Great Depression, and it's STILL a draw.  It houses our city offices and cultural museum, now.

You can see the Mayan influence everywhere you look...

Here are some of the interior details from a sketch I did several years ago...the bronze doors on the elevators pick up the motif at upper left. And yep, the statue is NOT Mayan, it's Napoleon Bonaparte's sister-in-law, as I remember...how she came to reside here, I don't remember.

 
It was a chilly, sunny day so I sat in my car and took advantage of solar heat pouring in the windows, only occasionally starting the car to warm my feet.

Back to the beginning . . .

sketch crawl, 10.11.07, a photo by vickylw on Flickr.

It was my very first sketch crawl, in October 2007, and the first day sketching with Cathy 'Kate' Johnson. This is the back of the Olde English Garden Shoppe in Excelsior Springs, MO, now closed. Feeling a bit intimidated about sketching with others, I just drew in pencil on-site, erasing often.



Later at home, I did this watercolor version. Since then, I'm overcoming my shyness -- now I sketch directly in ink and watercolor any where, any time. Being stretched can be fun.

FALL TRIP TO THE EAST

Late this past October I had the good fortune to make a visit to Fallingwater in southwestern Pennsylvania. For those not familiar, this is probably the best known work of architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was a beautiful fall day with the leaves changing and the stream running fairly fast. I did my best to sketch this scene and to capture the mood of the day and place. This drawing with bits of watercolor added was done in a small watercolor moleskine.