View under the Net

This was the view almost under the net.  You can see how it spanned the whole room.  What was tricky to represent was the netting itself.  It created a transparent veil that was white -off white.  This made it difficult because our pens draw in black. So I tried to suggest the veil with the lighter washed out colors  as if you are looking through something.

Emerald City Trapeze Arts

Yesterday Seattle Urban Sketchers group went to the Emerald City Trapeze Arts studio to sketch aerial arts and flying trapeze classes.  What an exciting outing.  We saw both adult and children getting up enough nerve to swing on the flying trapeze.  I can imagine the adrenaline going!Here is one sketch from the day from above.  I used the the second floor mezzanine as a foreground element.  It was visually darker in this space so it created a great dark frame.    The mid ground was where the trapeze class was taking place had the brightest light.  The bright color of the instructor's and student's leotards becomes the focus of the drawing and draws attention to the activity in the mid-ground.

Urban sketchers sketching the flying trapeze class.

Sketch along the way home

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day in Seattle. I decided to walk home from grading at the UW.  This is the view I get while crossing the Montlake Bridge.  I decided to do it in pencil instead of my typical ink. I could have spent more time on this but it was a quick one.  I will try to go out again and do an ink and watercolor sketch.

Line to Color Workshop in Seattle

Workshop Description and Registration Information
Announcing Line to Color Workshop in Seattle:  May 17-19, 2013.  All levels welcome!

Botanical sketches At Cafe Louvre in Edmonds

Tonight is the Edmonds Art Walk.  I have a few of my Botanical  paintings up at Cafe Louvre.  Come by to see them!
Cafe Louvre: 210 5th Ave S #101 Edmonds, WA 98020‎

Line to Color Workshop April 27th, 2013

http://glwsketchworks.blogspot.com/p/workshops-and-events.html

 
Note Date Change for this workshop: 
Saturday April 27th 2013,  Frank Ching and I will be giving a one day workshop in Mount Vernon, WA. We will also be giving a more developed workshop in Seattle over a 3 day period in May (TBA).
These workshops will focus on the process of building up a sketch from the line to final color.
We will  introduce  the concepts of perspective, composition and approaches to watercolor values to bring out a sketch.  All levels are welcome.  See link above for more information.

Historic Ballard Alley

Last Friday we had a small group of urban sketchers get together to sketch in Old Historic Ballard.  We had a visitor from Vermont join us who is new to Urban Sketchers.  She had heard of us and was interested in joining us to for a sketch outing.

I found this old alley between two historic buildings and started by doing some quick value studies then a watercolor value study before starting the sketch.  It helped me visualize values and simplify colors.
See studies below.

Garfield High School Orchestra Winter Waltz 2013

I have sketched at the Garfield  High School Winter Waltz for the past 3 years, ever since my son started playing with the Orchestra.  This year he didn't, but I love to hear the music so we went again.  I have never sketched the orchestra itself.  They are in a corner of the hall and because of the dance floor it is difficult to get in a good position to sketch them.  This year I went on the second floor balcony and found a spot that look directly down on them.  This is Marcus Tsutakawa, Orchestra teacher leading his orchestra.   What a wonderful event!

Final Touches

So this is not considered a "true urban sketch"  because it was not fully done on site.  Sometimes we just don't have time to finish a sketch.  Do you rush to finish it... just to call it an urban sketch?  Or do you take a picture and finish it later.  I opted to finish it later.  Winter Waltz final touches.

Value and Color study

Here are some quick sketches I did of value and color for the winter waltz final touches.  They are about 2x3 and done in 5 minutes.  They are just to help me visualize where the values are and how the colors will work. 

Winter Waltz 2013

A couple of weeks ago we attended the Garfield High School Orchestra's Winter Waltz at Benaroya Hall.  This is the third year I have gone.  It is always such a wonderful time, an opportunity to listen to great waltz music in an amazing venue and  have a glass of wine, dessert, dance and sketch.  This year we did not dance but I sketched.  I was able to do two sketches. This is the last sketch I did with the first pass of light washes.  I wasn't able to complete it on site but will show the final version tomorrow.

Final Stage: Darks

The final pass in this watercolor sketch was to hit the pendant light with a dark wash to separate it from the background.  I made a very dark wash and applied it to the bottom and left side of the light  to reinforce the direction of light and shade.
When it was still wet I dipped my brush directly in ultramarine blue and hit the left side of the base of the light...adding a very deep tone.

The contrast in value is what will create spatial depth in a fairly flat drawing.

Second Stage: Midtones

Yesterday I talked about the first stage which was to apply light washes and leave some white highlights. What I kept white were areas that received the most light or were giving off light, like that of the lamp's light source.
In this scan of the sketch, I have applied the midtone values.  The glass within the tracery was actually dark and the metal frame work around each glass pane appeared white.  To capture this, I prepared a wash that had a consistency of coffee rather than tea.  I applied this darker wash with a smaller brush so I could just paint in the areas of the glass and leave areas between each pane the background color  to suggest the framework around the glass.  In reality each pane had a slightly different appearance so some panes received an additional pass to darken the value. I then added the same wash to the bottom of the lamp and to the left side that was in shade. I then dipped my brush in water and to the wash to apply a lighter wash to the shaded side of the columns. Finally I prepared a light  red tone to the upper portion of the arch to imply the wall and ceiling color.

First Stage: Light washes

The first stage of this watercolor was applying very wet light washes.  I do it with a big brush that holds a lot of water.  I keep the pigment very light...like the value of light tea.  you can also apply a little more color in the wet areas while it is still wet to get interesting wet on wet effects. But what is also very important is to save those areas of white.  That will add sparkle to the watercolor later.
It is hard to truly regain white areas once it is painted.

Suzzallo Library January Sketch Outing

Last week we went to Suzzallo Library on the UW campus and sketched for our January sketch outing.  It is a beautiful Collegiate Gothic Library built in 1926 by architects Charles Bebb and Carl F. Gould.  The reading room is 250' long, 52' wide and a breathtaking 65' tall. 

I chose to sketch a detail from the library... the lights with the soaring walls behind it.  I finished sketching it but didn't have time to watercolor it on site.  This was an opportunity to show the stages of the inkline watercolor process.

Here is my first stage.  The inkline sketch.  ( I had already laid the first light washes over it, using photoshop I took out the color...this is close to what I originally started with.)  Second stage tomorrow.

Inkline Stage

Sketching at Volunteer Park Conservatory

Today I took a walk up the hill to Volunteer Park on a sunny crisp winter morning.  I went into the Conservatory at Volunteer Park to sketch the orchids on display.  Beautiful specimens.  It was hard to get the back and side lighting happening.  This may have been too small a sketch to accomplish that successfully.

Paperwhites Part 2

Here is the completed watercolor of the paperwhites.  I started by doing the bowl the paperwhites were sitting in but that really took away from the focus of the flowers so I ended up painting everything to pop out the white of the flowers. Ultimately I should have worked light to dark building up the watercolor altogether. Yarka Semi Moist Pan Paints.

Paper whites in Progress

I painted some Paper whites as a way of testing out the Yarka Paints I have.  This is an inprogress painting although I should have approached it in a totally different way.  Instead of painting the object I should have first painted the background light washes then get to the details.  The Yarka paints blend well and as you will see in the next drawing of this create nice mixes of colors.

Essential Bakery in Wallingford, Seattle, WA

Another Sketch using Yarka Semi Moist Paints.  This is really inexpensive but has wonderful mixing quality.  Paints are available at DickBlicks.com
http://www.dickblick.com/products/yarka-semi-moist-watercolor-pan-sets/

Sketches from 2012

I just finished putting watercolor over some sketches I did in 2012.  Didn't have a chance to add color on the ink line drawings earlier but found time recently.  I was using a new set of watercolors "Yarka"  a Set of 8 colors for only $6.00.  They mix well to interesting secondary and tertiary colors....but I was told from Frank B. that they are staining colors.  Nice to experiment with them.

Here is one sketch that I had done on a sketchcrawl day in November while waiting to join the group at the Seattle Art Museum.  I was parked in my car on Western This is the view from the car.

Second Sketch from Sorrento Hotel

Happy New Year!

Sorrento Hotel Lounge and Bar

Last week I went to the Sorrento Hotel with a friend for a drink and time to sketch.  I was told it was a great place to sketch.  What a wonderful cozy room with a fireplace and decked out in holiday greenery.  Here is the first sketch I did.

Christmas Eve Service at UPC

Our traditional Christmas Eve.  We get our cooking and wrapping done for Christmas day and then attend 11 p.m. Evening Service at University Presbyterian Church, Seattle, WA.  Great music and service. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year!

Sketchouting at EMP

Sunday a large group of us met at the EMP for our monthly Sketch Outing.  It was a challenge to sketch a space with very view orthogonal walls.  Here is what I was able to do.

EMP Lobby from 5th Ave South entrance.

City Cantabile Choir Celtic Christmas Concert

Saturday night we went to a concert put on by director Fred West and the City Cantabile Choir.  It was a Celtic Christmas Concert with a choir singing medieval and Irish songs, a pageantry of hand made lanterns,  Uillean pipes, fiddle and Celtic harp instrumentals and step dancing performed by two 11 year old children who were  Open Champion Level dancers.  What a wonderful and different Christmas Concert.  I was intrigued by the lighting and the lantern processional.  This is a sketch from it.

Sketch 3 Soulumination Courtyard scene

Sketch 3 from Soulumination Artist Sale.

Sketch 2 Soulumination Sale

View inside the Soulumination Court yard at the Artist sale. 

First Sketch from the Soulumination Sale

Waiting in Line for Soulumination Sale to open.

This was the scene at the Soulumination Sale.  Waiting for the doors to open.  They had plenty of stuff to sell, but people got there early to be able to get their first choice in wreaths and other items.
It was a cozy site inside compared to the rain outside.  I sketched on location but had to add color later because of the rain.

Scenes from Soulumination Artist Sale

Last chance to catch a great event.  12-5PM today.