I’ve just started a daily sketch exchange with another artist. There are no rules, no judgement, and you can take 5 minutes or 5 hours. You just sketch and exchange – every day. I love it. I have done a sketch every day and just not cared about being perfect, drawing well, judging my work or worrying about how much time I should spend on it to make it “better”. I just do a sketch. I did one at the office last week because I knew I had no time later. 5 minutes – that’s it. I grabbed an old piece of cardboard and a felt pen and drew the plant on the counter while I waited for my ride. One day I drew someone on the skytrain (very quickly before they noticed and became uncomfortable!) Today, at my first Urban Sketchers gathering in a while, I did three sketches! Normally, I go to one of these sessions and fret about what to draw, worry the lines and feel anxious about the result. But now – I don’t care! I just draw. I posted two of my sketches on the urban sketchers site (here’s the link). Below is a smattering of the dailies, including one of Aunt Cyn – a “sketch” after my first Tai Chi class of 2020…
The Powell Street Festival – on Powell Street and surrounding area, naturally – provided some great urban sketching opportunities. I parked myself on the side of an alley and sketched away. I never posted the sketch though because I was disappointed, thinking that my spacing of the telephone poles across the street wasn’t quite right. Why do I worry about “accuracy” anyway? It’s just a sketch and the point is to get an impression, a feeling, a sense of place. I tell myself. Over and over again.
So, last week my nephew drove us down to the Belgard Kitchen (what a fantastic place!) to join his lovely fiance for a brew and we happened to drive by my sketching spot. Guess what! The telephone poles ARE actually abnormally far apart! Here’s the sketch:
Actually, I’m still not that happy with it. Anyway, here’s a link to the day’s work by other Urban Sketchers.
If it wasn’t for the Urban Sketchers I’m not sure what I’d end up posting. I’ve sketched in the area before but this time took a bit of a different view. Here’s Sunday’s sketch:
Another great outing with the Vancouver Urban Sketchers – we went to the Via Rail station near Main Street. Built around 1917 on reclaimed land in False Creek, this building, in addition to being a train station, has also been Greyhound’s Vancouver home since the old bus depot on Dunsmuir Street was torn down. I’ve been travelling on Greyhound since I was 15 so I’m a little sad it’s shutting down its Western Canada operations, although I’m not particularly surprised. My first sketch is the ticket counter, soon to be a memory. I’ve also posted these sketches to the Urban Sketchers site – you can see my fellow sketchers’ work at this link.
We’re in another heat wave in the city but I found a nice shady spot to sit for a couple of hours and sketch. A group of Vancouver Urban Sketchers met at City Hall then spread out around the grounds. Regretfully, I didn’t bring a pad of heavier paper and the scan shows ripples on the page from the washes, but OH WELL. Just means a visit to the art store for more art supplies! Such a chore…
