Book Review: The Urban Sketching Sketchbook: Architecture And Cityscapes

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Gabi Campanario’s long-awaited book, The Urban Sketching Sketchbook: Architecture and Cityscapes, as finally arrived. Gabi is the guy who launched the urban sketching movement that is now a worldwide love affair and his first book, The Art of Urban Sketching, is still the best tour of the worldwide urban sketching community.

I’ve had this new book on pre-order for quite some time and I was thrilled when it showed up in my mailbox because it’s about drawing BUILDINGS. Of all the things I draw, architecture is, by far, my favorite. Architecture just says so much about a city and the people who live there. And let’s face it, there’s a lot of architecture in an urban landscape.

If you’re a sketcher you just have to smile when you look at this book. Excepting the beautiful reproduction of Gabi sketches that grace both back and front covers, this book looks just like a sketchbook, complete with the elastic band that most of us very much appreciate on our sketchbooks. I sure wish my favorites, the Stillman & Birn sketchbooks, had them.

When you release the elastic you find a book that’s formatted similarly to his first book and features not only his sketches but those of many of the top urban sketchers on the planet.

The real meat and potatoes of this book is that Gabi takes on topics such as perspective, composition, drawing organization, simplification, and others while using architecture as the principle subject. In spite of its small size (5×8 and 110 pages), it’s jam-packed with information for someone wanting to draw architecture. This, in fact, is a gotta have book if you’re so inclined. Highly recommended.

The Real Entrance To Narnia

Posted on October 18, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Yeah…yeah, I know that the kids got to Narnia by way of a wardrobe but have you ever wondered where the main entrance was? I think I’ve found it. It’s in Levis, Quebec. Just go through this gate and up the steps into the forest. Easy peasy.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

Quick-Sketching Quebec Tourists

Posted on October 16, 2014 by Larry Marshall

I’m participating in Sketchbook Skool’s ‘story-telling’ course and this week we were blessed to have Melanie Reim as our instructor. Melanie draws at the speed of light, with loose, flowing ink lines and mostly these depict people on the street. She’s an excellent instructor but more important, she’s an incredible inspiration.

So, I found myself sitting on benches in our downtown area drawing people. I’m a slow sketcher so my attempts at quick-sketching anything always come up short. Nevertheless, I really enjoy doing this. In fact, it’s the only kind of sketching of people that I do as they are not my favorite subjects. Here are some of the sketches I did. Hope you like them.

Quick Sketching With Ron Husband

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Larry Marshall

As a street sketcher I’ve wondered why there are so few resources for those of us who want to draw people on the streets. It seems that every other book is about drawing portraits. Another third talk about life drawing, mostly of naked people. What’s a guy to do if he wants to learn to quick-sketch people, doing real life things?

The answer comes in an amazing book, Quick Sketching, by Ron Husband, a 30 year veteran of Disney Studios. His day job is animation but, it seems, his hobby is drawing folks in the lunch room, in the mall, and everywhere else he finds them. He’s compiled a book of hundreds of his sketches and provides an amazing amount of information to help sketchers quickly sketch human behavior.

This is not your typical art book that spends a third of the book talking about materials. Ron assumes that you know that paper is the flat stuff and pencils and pens are the devices used to make marks on it. Ron is more about teaching you what to look for, how to depict the body in motion and how to simplify those images so they can be done quickly.

He begins by talking about the importance of quick-sketching, the goals of quick-sketching and some of his general philosophy. He moves on to discussions of simple shapes that, when added together, equal a human body. This is followed by a discussion of different body types.

There is a major section on analyzing action, thoughts on body language, and the value of props in quick-sketches. The rest of the book is composed of chapters on people standing, walking, dancing, doing sports, and working in various occupations. Each of these chapters discusses how clothing reponds to the positions and how balance is affected by the activity. Each chapter is heavily illustrated with sketches by Ron and these alone are worth the price of admission. There’s a separate chapter about sketching children and others that concentrate on animal sketching.

If you’re interested in quick-sketching people this book provides a lot of bang for the buck. It’s 343 pages of text are jam-packed with information and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

The Teggert Bell At Mt Herman Cemetery

Posted on October 12, 2014 by Larry Marshall

I discussed a sketching trip I made to the Mt. Herman cemetery here in Quebec City in my last post. I love that place, though I’d rather be walking around in it than “resting” in it, if you know what I mean.

I hope to sketch there quite often, though outdoor sketching days will soon become few and far between as winter is knocking on the door. But I had to return to sketch the Teggert Bell. It is in honor of the family who have acted as cemetery directors for five generations and the way it’s displayed just begged to be sketched. Here is my meager effort at doing just that.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black ink