Sketching in the Garden...

It's been great to teach two workshop series this year at Descanso Gardens.  The first, in February, "Sketching on Location" focused on the basics of drawing...seeing and drawing in line and shape, and the second in June (when the Gardens are most colorful!), "Sketching with Color".  I do a lot of sketching in advance to show students examples, and I love working my way through the basics...Descanso Gardens becomes a wonderful sort of outdoor "laboratory" to break down methods...and I always love learning from that process myself!

 I start with making lots of little thumbnails with fountain pen...composing and massing shapes

Always fun to add the visitors in the landscape...

Adding some color to ink thumbnails...

A little demo to show approaches to quick sketching with a limited palette (and limited time!)...

Some "notan" sketches in the Rose Garden with brush pen...

Experimenting with Inktense pencils--the gardeners at work making Descanso the beauty that it is...

Conversations in the cafe...

I love sketching at Descanso in any season...these are from the Rose Garden in February, when things are just beginning to bud...

And a shameless exercise in color in the Rose Garden at the height of summer color...

Color at the Arboretum

The beginning of a new year, and it's about time I updated here!

First, I'll share some work that follows up on my studies of Notan (harmony of light and dark) that I shared here after my Urban Sketchers Singapore workshop...time to work on color!

I did a workshop in November called the Harmony of Color at the Los Angeles Arboretum.  I believe that strong color work really needs a solid understanding of values, and I've noticed that sketchers often struggle with this when working with color.  It's so easy to get caught up in "local color", and miss the rich range of values that you're seeing.  So, I began with monochromatic studies...















I think the best place to start with color is with seeing "color temperature", so I did some studies in complementary warm and cool colors...

I started by painting the cool shadows of the Queen Anne Cottage and surrounding foliage with ultramarine blue watercolor...

Next, I used pyrrol orange (very  brilliant reddish orange!) as the complement to blue.  I wanted the cool blue to predominate, so I tried to be selective with the orange.  Just as in Notan painting, I try to be mindful of the pattern I'm creating as I work...

Then, I thought I'd experiment to see what would happen if I started with the warm color, pyrrol orange, and then added the complement of blue...I frankly found that confusing, and here the warm and cool are battling it out for dominance!  I added yellow to make a sort of triad (3 colors that are equidistant on the color wheel).  So, even if it's not completely successful, it's something to learn from!

My next step was to experiment some more with triads...and made some variations on the primaries.  While I was added I did some other complementary combinations, like violet/yellow.  There are endless possible variations, and I have more experimenting to do!

My next triad study started with painting shadows in cobalt blue...

Then adding layers of hansa yellow light and pyrrol orange--fun to see the range of greens emerge...

Some more color studies at the Arboretum...starting with some quick thumbnails...

And some larger color studies...

Singapore!

It was very exciting to be part of the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Singapore last month...still thinking daily about all that I saw and experienced, and especially the wonderful Singapore Urban Sketchers community!

It was an honor to present my workshop, "Light and Dark with a Punch of Color", and I'd like to offer a PDF of the workshop handout.  Let me know if you find this helpful!

click here:

Light and Dark with a Punch of Color

More about the subject of the workshop in the previous post below...

Here are a few photos 

from my workshop site 

at the Singapore Art Museum...

My easel parked in front of "SAM"--
Singapore Art Museum, with a demo sketch

Don Low sketching in front of SAM

Don Low sketching in front of SAM

My charming helper, Grace Liau sketching 

Kee making a beautiful composition
across from SAM

Suma laying in a
bold pattern of light and dark

Don Low's thumbnail sketches

Sketching in the shade of those
lovely tropical trees

Rob and Keesung sketching digitally--
I loved seeing the ideas working
across different media!

Gabi Campanario and Rob Sketcherman sketching
and chatting at our lovely, shady site

Murray Dewhurst, one of our official
sketch-reporters at the site

Some "first stage" sketches--finding patterns
of light and dark in the landscape and
composing them on the page...

Some more "first stage" sketches,
will have to find a better way to
document the digital sketches!

Some "final" results--with color added
--using color intentionally to add emphasis,
meaning or create a path

Jason Das sketching some visitors nearby

End of Workshop #3--we may have lost a few
before this picture was taken, but
I love seeing the results!

Before and during the Symposium, I spent lots of time at my workshop site considering best views and approaches...

pencil sketches--a way to gradually mass the light and darks

These were demo thumbnail sketches...using pencil to mass darks and light.  As I did these, I considered 2 ways to compose:  creating a small frame first helps you see the whole right away by working "outside in"...another approach is to start with what most interests you, and work from there--"inside out"...being mindful to balance areas of light and dark as you "grow" the sketch...

thumbnail views of SAM--laying in shapes with
a brush pen makes you really commit to the
lights and darks right away!

more views around SAM--light and dark with color
added for emphasis...

Sketching here inside Dome, the Italian-style coffee bar in the museum, where the interior is elegantly

black and white--so were the patrons, and the photographer and bridal shoot just outside...

 More Singapore sketching in my next post!