How You Can Get Sketching

How You Can Get Sketching

Sketching around Europe is something I started doing round about the same time that I discovered Urban Sketching. 

* Urban Sketching Is Great - And You Don't Need Talent To Do It!

 Yes, it's true.  Like I said, it’s a simple idea. If you want to get right down to basics, urban sketching is just giving a name to something that loads of people have been doing for a long time – sketching the world around them. As a movement, it began in Canada, as a group of sketchers in an online forum  “for all sketchers out there who love to draw the cities where they live and visit, from the window of their homes, from a cafe, at a park, standing by a street corner.” I suppose that the big difference between this and the thousands of people who had already been doing this themselves was the idea of a community, and the use of the internet – Facebook, blogs etc, - as a forum and gallery.

 What is the Urban Sketching Manifesto?

Basically, it’s the agreed set of rules and standards which true Urban Sketchers live by. It states : -

1. “We draw on location, indoors or out, capturing what we see from direct observation.
2. Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel.
3. Our drawings are a record of time and place.
4. We are truthful to the scenes we witness.
5. We use any kind of media and cherish our individual styles.
6. We support each other and draw together.
7. We share our drawings online.
8. We show the world, one drawing at a time. “

You’ll notice that there’s nothing there which speaks about your ability as a sketcher, or the quality of the work you produce. In my experience, urban sketchers genuinely value every sketch each other produces. There’s no stipulation on the media or methods you have to use to produce your sketches, only that you try to do them on the spot.

What's the point?

Well, I genuinely enjoy sketching, so to an extent that's enough of a point in itself. If you've tried sketching out in public, and you really don't enjoy it, then there isn't much of a point to it for you. But give it a try first. You might be surprised at what you achieve once you give free rein to your creativity, and you'll be creating a unique record of your own personal experiences. 

While it doesn't have to be about your own progress as a sketcher and an artist, if you are interested in developing as a sketcher, then the sketches you make will serve as a great record of the progress you make. 

What should you sketch?

Hey, that's up to you. Basically, when I go to a new town or city, I want to sketch what inspires me, the things I like. For the most part these are buildings, because I like buildings. However, I'm just as likely to sketch a tram, or the interior of a Metro station, and very often there are people whom I want to include in the sketch, because they are all part of the story. And that's important, because your very best sketches will tell some kind of story.

How do you actually go about it?

When you start urban sketching, you’re not burdened down by any onerous set of rules and regulations to follow. You won’t be told words to the effect of – all well and good, but it’s not an urban sketch because . . .

So, for example, if you sketch on your own, it’s still an urban sketch, and if you sketch with a friend or a group, it’s still an urban sketch. If you’re sketching a building it’s an urban sketch, and if you sketch a person sitting at a table inside a building, it’s still an urban sketch.

Start off by selecting and acquiring your equipment. You're going to need: -

a) Pen or pencil

b) Paper.

a) Pen or Pencil

It can still be an urban sketch whether you sketch with an ordinary graphite HB pencil, or a biro, or an elegant fountain pen, or a specialist sketching ink pen. It can be a sketch if you leave it monochrome, or if you apply watercolour to it. It’s your sketch, so the decision is all yours.

There are no hard and fast rules about what medium you should work in. Pen and ink is very popular, but maybe you’d feel happier starting off with an ordinary HB graphite pencil. The important thing is to use what you are comfortable with, and use what will be most likely to produce the results you want. You might like to look online at other people’s work, and see the results they achieve using pencils, biro, ink pen etc. This will give you an idea of the sort of media you’d like to work in yourself. For what it’s worth, my own personal feelings are: -

Graphite pencils –

·       make it easy to remove rogue marks from your page.

·       They enable you to do more subtle shading than ink.

·       May be a good place for you to start

·       Don’t make such a distinctive mark on the page, and don’t photograph or scan as well as ink if you want to display your work online.

Charcoal –

·       A good charcoal sketch is a work of art.

·       Charcoal sketches photocopy and scan better than graphite sketches.

·       You can get charcoal pencils, which give you the expressiveness of charcoal, together with the ease of use of a pencil.

·       It can be harder to make fine lines and sketch in details on a small pad using charcoal

Biro –

·       Biro sketches tend to scan or photograph better thank pencil sketches.

·       You may have a biro that you’re particularly comfortable writing with, and so might be more comfortable sketching with it.

·       Biros are not primarily made for sketching. The ink doesn’t flow as well or as smoothly as in a specialist sketching pen. Even expensive biros can leave small blobs which will smudge.

Cartridge/Fountain Pen-

·       Sketches with this kind of ink pen scan and photograph better than graphite sketches.

·       This kind of pen is often a bit thicker than a biro or sketching pen, and many people find them clumsier to use because of this.

·       Ordinary fountain/cartridge pen ink dries more slowly than biro ink, or sketching pen ink. Using this kind of pen you run the greatest risk of smudging.

·       Most ordinary fountain/cartridge pens have a nib which makes a line that is rather thicker than is ideal for sketching.

Gel Pen -

·       Gel pens have the same advantages as a biro, and the ink flows more freely and evenly than in a biro.

·       Personally, I don’t like a ballpen – and a gel pen is essentially a ballpen, it just has a different kind of ink. I find that ballpens can be very unforgiving if you put even slightly too much pressure on the paper.

Ordinary felt tip – felt writing pen-

·       A felt tip colouring pen will produce sketches that copy, photograph and scan better than a graphite pencil.

·       A felt tip colouring pen has a nib which is thick – too thick, in my opinion, for sketching.

·       A felt tip note writer does use a kind of ink which has a habit of soaking through even a quality sheet of paper.

Specialist Sketching Pen -

·       Produces sketches which consistently photograph, scan, and copy better than graphite.

·       Comes in a variety of nib sizes, which makes it easier to reproduce detail

·       Uses ink which a) – dries almost instantaneously, and b) – will not show through the back of a piece of quality sketching paper

·       Is still highly effective if you apply a watercolour wash to it.

·       Is more expensive than any ordinary pen or pencil.

Watercolour

I personally wouldn’t make a sketch using just a paintbrush and paint. However, there you can get some great effects by adding washes of watercolour to your ink sketches.

b) Paper

I don’t recall ever making an urban sketch on the back of an envelope, but I’ve used a wide variety of paper in my time, much of which was never intended to be sketched on. 

The fact is that you can get ok results on whatever you use. There’s no rule which says that you can’t use an A4 pad of plain paper from your local supermarket, which will cost you next to nothing. Of course, the paper itself is likely to be only slightly thicker than tissue paper, and so don’t expect to get your best results on it. 

You can buy a sketchbook for not a lot more. When you’re starting out there’s not a huge amount of difference between the sketchbook you buy for a pound in a discount store, and a sketchbook that costs four times as much for half the number of pages in a specialist art suppliers. 

As your eye develops, and you start doing things like applying watercolour washes to your sketches, though, you will find a difference. Personally, I like a soft cover, 20 page sketchbook, size A4 or A5, from Daler Rowney with paper that is 140 gsm/2. That’s still a lighter paper than I’d use to paint a full watercolour, but it takes a watercolour wash quite well.

 If you’re going to carry a sketchbook with you almost everywhere you go, then an A4 book is not the most practical choice. A5 is a much handier size, but I think that it’s still large enough to allow you to make a detailed sketch of a whole scene. 

Once again, though, there’s no rules about it. My advice is to try out different papers and sketchbooks, and when you find what works for you, then use it.

With materials, as with almost anything else – you get what you pay for. Maybe when you’re starting out there’s not that much difference between the results you can achieve on using very basic pens and paper, and more expensive specialist pens and sketchbooks. As you improve, though, the difference in quality should become more noticeable.

Making  a Start

It’s only natural to feel a little nervous and self-conscious the first time that you make a sketch on location. But you don’t necessarily have to start out in public. If you’re nervous, maybe you could start with the great indoors rather than the great outdoors. What can you sketch in your own house? Well, pretty much anything, really.

When you’re ready to take your sketching into the world outside, people usually don’t even react when you’re making a sketch on location, and when they do react, it’s nearly always in a noncommittal or a positive way. If you’re sketching solo, then there’s no rules about how you should react if a passer-by interests him or herself in your sketch, but as in everything else, a little politeness costs nothing.

What do I do with the finished sketches?

Anything you like, even if this is nothing at all. Personally, I’d urge you to share them with the world. Remember – this is YOUR vision, how you see this scene, and not how anyone else might see it. If people want to look at perfect images, then they should buy a camera and look at photos.