Last week I popped out of my studio for a few hours to visit a building that I have wanted to sketch for a long time – Glebe Town Hall. And as per my normal practice for a SketchingNow adventure, I visited a cafe first – Wedge Espresso.
I often wonder why I schedule these day outings in the middle of my most frantic work period of the year. But I have realised that they are important. The week before, I didn’t go out and worked very long days Mon-Sat – it was tough! Even though I might not be able to do a full day excursion for each Buildings lesson, as I did during Foundations (such as a day at the beach, a day in the mountains, a day on the harbour) the getting out and away from my work is still very important.
Last week, I forced myself to stay in a cafe for over 1 hour and do these two sketches. I know it sounds silly to use the word force, but my pace these days is not to hang out and chill. I don’t seem to be in the mental space for leisurely sketching just for me.
Then I headed out to do the sketch I needed for the course. But first I stopped for a quick visit to Gleebooks and checked to see if my new book is in the Australian database yet. Yes, but no date as to when it will be in stock in the bookstores down under. The official release date is next week but I know one person in Bangkok has already bought a copy, so it’s on the shelves in Asia already.
I decided to stretch myself a little and do this quickly in ink only, without my usual setup lines. Most people think that doing pencil setup first slows you down, but I find that doing the hard thinking, mapping out the proportions and the main structural members with a few quick pencil lines means that I can work much faster and freer with the pen. So the overall sketch time is less. (BTW I devote a whole lesson in Foundations to explaining this Minimal Setup approach.)
Anyway, for this sketch I used a few new techniques, drawing my first lines in ink but with a few special tricks. If you are doing Buildings, make sure you check out the step by step photos I took especially for you.
This building has so many lovely details that I need to return soon and do another version or two or three?
2 Comments
I received notice yesterday from Amazon in the States that my book (your book!!) will be delivered on October 3!
I do like the sketch of the interior of the coffee shop. A super capture! Really looking forward to seeing your book!
I will try my luck this weekned in Kinokuniya Malaysia if it’s already available, hope they have the US edition. 🙂
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