Meeting Sketch

Had one final meeting to sit through before the semester ended, and it didn't require constant involvement on my part ... so a little sketching on the Tablet PC was in order. With all the snow and cold outside, I suppose I was thinking of the warm summer in an Italian piazza.

Doodling?

I've never thought of myself as someone who doodles ... when I sketch, I most often feel the need to draw places, or to have some reason for drawing, and my sketches tend toward the representational rather than abstract and/or impressionist. Even when I do sketch out of my mind's eye, it's almost always a place (or a building, like the previous post about the Pantheon). This sketch, which was done back in October 2000, is an example. Not sure why this little scene popped into my head, and the trees/sky could surely use a little work, but ... it's comforting somehow. Seems like a nice place to be. So was this a "doodle" or was it something else?

Pantheon from Memory

Just a few quick sketches of the Pantheon from memory ... it's snowing and I didn't want to head out there just yet, so this was a brief diversion and a half-hearted attempt to begin the "sketch-a-day" thing that so many sketch artists seem able to do. I don't know that I'll ever be so dedicated, but I do feel compelled to try ... sort of ... occasionally ... I guess.

Master Drawings

Though I don't do it as often as I could or should, I enjoy studying 'Master Drawings' and occasionally sketch from the few books I have on the subject. These sketches were done a few years ago, with a Speedball pen and FW Sepia ink, followed by a quick wash of M. Graham sepia watercolor.

Digital Sketching

I intend to blog about both analog and digital sketching. To that end, here's a very quick sketch that was done on a Tablet PC, using Alias Sketchbook Pro software. It's also a quick test-run to see how swiftly I can go from a sketch on the tablet to the blog - after about 2 minutes on the sketch and about a minute in Photoshop, here I am typing. So that's pretty fast. While I don't tend to carry the tablet around for outdoor or travel sketching, it does come in handy when a meeting or presentation is dragging and I need something interesting to focus on.

Getting Started

Got a new Moleskine (pocket-size) a few years ago, and after doing just a few sketches, I put it on a shelf in my office and got busy with other things. But I'm going to try to develop this SketchBlog, and this seemed like a fine way to begin. So here's the first sketch from that book, a quick pen and colored pencil view of my old office, completed January 31, 2006.