Where and how we sketch is a big topic for urban sketchers now. Life is very different than it was half a year ago and all of us somewhat need to adapt to that. Many sketchers including me have started to explore the world of virtual sketch/Street View sketch. It’s not urban sketch, so I’m not going to talk about it here. But I feel this change is giving us a good insight about how we sketch in general.
Last December, we had a special year-end meet-up with the great help from our fellow drawing group, Yotsuya Dessin-kai. They have stopped having figure drawing sessions, which they held every Saturday night, for three months so far due to COVID-19. But they are trying out different new ideas online now. On May 30 and 31, they organized an online sketch event, where participants sketched the scenery in a port town called Ohara in Chiba using Street View and shared their works on social media. You can check them out here.
As part of this event, three members of USkJ (Shin-san, Maria-san, and me) did sketch demonstration using Zoom. We showed sketch process videos, where we drew views in Ohara using Street View. As I said, Street View sketch isn’t urban sketch. But it’s a good exercise that helps you become conscious about how you see/draw things and how different to you drawing from life on location is from drawing from images on Street View. By practicing Street View sketch and taking part in the sketch demo, I learned how I interpret the world through drawing.
As an urban sketcher, I tried to do “Street View sketch in an urban sketch style” this time. Then, what is an urban sketch style? For me, urban sketch is about documenting life. It’s an extension of daily activities and thus quick and casual in many cases. I wanted to recreate such a feeling of urban sketch on the page, so I quickly captured the view only with pen in 20 minutes.
I hardly think about my sketch process, but I usually frame a view that I want to draw in my mind first. Then I start by drawing a line which I’ll refer to in order to get the scale, positioning, angle, etc., as I did in the video. Through the process, I interpret and narrow down the view. But when I draw using Street View, the very first step (framing a view in my mind) doesn’t happen because the view is already in a frame on my small laptop screen. So, I often struggle to interact with such “framed” views to be honest.
Maria-san made two videos; how to do a sketch walk using Street View and her sketch process. The first video is fun and informative. If you’ve never gone on a virtual sketch walk, you can watch the video and start exploring the world of Street View.
Her second video is the time-lapse of her sketch on iPad. She said, as her academic field is landscaping, she tends to be attracted to plants. You can see her interest in the plants in the sketch. Also, the laundry appealed to her. It’s a very familiar, yet private scene which is difficult to draw unless it’s your own house. But you can draw it from Street View without worry about the owner of the house (Of course you need to keep it in mind that all the photos come from the real world though).
For Maria-san, the difference between virtual sketch and urban sketch is whether there is interaction with the place or not. When you are on location, you can communicate with the place through your five senses and sometimes talk with people there. This is a unique quality of urban sketch which virtual sketch doesn’t have.
I’m always curious how he draws. The way he captures a place, people and “feel” is amazing. I believe many of you guys feel the same and are interested to know what he thinks when he sketches. Some viewers asked so during the demo. But his answer was “I’m thinking nothing.” He really kept saying that. We wanted to learn how he draws…lol. Yet I think it well explains how he approaches sketch: draw before you start to think what and how you draw. So, please watch the video and just feel how his hand moves across the page.
Shin-san doesn’t see a big difference between on-location sketch and virtual sketch in terms of drawing scenery. This is just my impression, but perhaps what he values about drawing on-location is being able to physically feel the existence and vibes of people in the place? I don’t know, correct me if I’m wrong.
We all see and draw the world differently, and it’s interesting to know differences. It makes us learn a lot about how we sketch and helps enrich our sketch life. I hope you enjoy the videos and they bring you some discovery.
As another feature of the Ohara sketching, they had a live talk show with an illustrator, Koike Amigo-san. He talked about sketch a bit and that was a deep insight about how we tell a story through drawing. So, I’m going to give a summary of what he said in the end.
When we draw, we capture things in front of us, within a frame. But there’s the world spreading outside the frame. Smell, breeze, temperature, people, conversation, etc. What is important about sketching is to tell the story of such things, not just drawing a view that fits within a frame. In order to do that, we need to feel the world with our five senses (as Maria-san said). That experience enables us to tell the story of the world surrounding us. This is an important message to urban sketchers, isn’t it? Draw using your whole senses. It’s very basic, but we should always keep it in mind to enjoy sketching. I’d like to say thank you to Koike-san for giving a fun and insightful talk, and also to the staff who worked hard on the Ohara sketching and all the people involved in it. I’m happy being part of it. And as always, to the readers of this post, thanks for reading. See you in my next post:)
