Digital Plein Air Sketching

We had a couple of days off this past week so my wife and I packed picnic lunches and sketched at two different locations in Lancaster County. On Thursday we went to the Tanger Arboretum where I sketched in the dwarf conifer garden using my 12.9” iPad Pro with Apple Pencil and the Procreate app. Brenda decided to sketch in the beautiful Beech Grove area of the arboretum. I made a color palette to paint from by snapping a photo with my iPad and using the create swatch palette from photo feature in Procreate. I used the standard Procreate flat painting brush.

On Friday, we packed a picnic for the Columbia Crossing Visitor Center in Columbia, PA which is beside the Susquehanna river. The massive concrete arch bridge is a feature of the area that’s hard not to include in an outdoor sketch. I decided to sketch with a fountain pen in a sketchbook while we sat by the river. Brenda was not into sketching that day so she read out loud some historical facts about the bridge and other bridges that were in that location over the years.

It was great to be outdoors (though I think we’ve both picked up mild allergies over the years).

Urban Sketching

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This week in Create-A-Thon 2017 - Urban Sketching. I have, in the past few weeks, been carefully putting together an urban sketching bag with essential supplies that I might want to use without carrying too much. I've found a light weight stool and had thoughtfully chosen which sketchbooks I wanted to carry. I have been a member of two Urban Sketching Facebook groups for a little while and I finally got up the nerve to join in on a meet up for each of them this past weekend. 

On Saturday, I joined Harrisburg Sketchers at Fort Hunter Park along the Susquehanna River for a beautiful autumn morning of sketching. After completing two sketches, I introduced myself to a few of the other sketchers and enjoyed a couple of conversations about sketching, art materials and looking at sketchbooks.

On Sunday, Isaac joined me to meet up with Urban Sketchers Baltimore in Fells Point. Isaac had intended to work en plein air in oil, but was unable to find a suitable subject. I was able to meet a fellow sketcher in person that I had communicated with on Instagram. After completing a couple of sketches, I talked to some of the other sketchers, but was not able to stay to have lunch due to a prior commitment. I was excited that Urban Sketchers Global later reposted my favorite sketch of the day on their Instagram account.

It was a great weekend to get outdoors and try Urban Sketching, and meet new people. I'm looking forward to future events with both groups in the coming months. I think I might sketch outdoors on my lunch break until the weather starts getting colder.

Urban Sketching

This week, I've gone on a couple of sketching outings to get more practice at loosening up my drawings. As I've been participating in Inktober this month, I find that my pen and ink drawings are much tighter than I'd like them to be. I would like to loosen up a bit, so I've been watching videos and reading about urban sketching, which is very similar to the mini-watercolor paintings I've been making in my pocket watercolor journal. I've been making photographs of the scenes that I want to paint as I've seen them on my outings around town, but I want to try to get out there and create on the spot pen and ink and watercolor drawings. This is going to get more difficult as fall and winter approaches, leaving less time in the evenings to get out there and sketch. I also still have my film photography hobby, but again it's getting more difficult to get out there and shoot. I've been trying to combine the two hobbies, which even my manic bipolar personality is overwhelmed with. But here, are a few of the sketches I made this week, with a walk around Hanover's Mt. Olivet Cemetery last weekend, and a lunchtime trip to the Walters Art Museum this week.

Outdoor Sketching

I finally went outside to try some outdoor sketching at Lake Marburg over at Codorus State Park on Saturday. I found a picnic table underneath a shade tree by the shore and started creating my sketch. I began with a light pencil drawing and then drew in the basic line art with a Pigmamicron pen. I had my pocket watercolor set with me and decided to try out the new flat waterbrush I had just gotten. I was using a larger sketchbook than I normally carry and thought the wider waterbrush would be better suited for the larger watercolor sketch. Once I started adding the watercolor I had to work fast so that it didn't dry before I could drop in some other colors. I found the waterbrush worked pretty well for me but eventually I want to experiment with tube paints, palettes and larger brushes. I liked the process of creating an outdoor painting, the weather was beautiful and it was very relaxing to focus on the sketch. I want to try more of this to see if I want to invest in a Plein Air setup.