I’ve mentioned that this winter I was going to try to learn to draw at an indoor workspace and to draw from photos. I know it sounds odd to those of you who do it all the time, but I’ve spent five years drawing on location and have a really hard time drawing in a ‘studio’ or from photos.
In this I’m very much like the dog that’s got to walk around in circles a couple times before it lays down. Location sketching, for me, is about discovering something to draw, which requires wandering a bit. There is no wandering in a studio. Once I get going on an indoor drawing I seem to be able to do it and even enjoy it, but initiating the behavior… that’s harder.
I decided it was time, though, to draw from a photo. Looking for something that would motivate me to do so, I decided that I should draw from a photo that is not of something I can go out and see. The idea of historic sketching must have come from my watching the new Timeless series, which is about time travel, but as I already have a lot of historic photos of Quebec City I thought that was where I should begin. I chose a photo of a trolley, both because I like trolleys and because it was taken in the year that I was born.
I started by lightly drawing everything using a Platinum Carbon Pen, keeping the lines very light so I could cover my errors if needed. This is what I ended up with:
To bring a more solid nature to the drawing I started increasing the contrast, using a Platinum 3776 pen and a Platinum brush pen. This got the drawing to this point:
Then it was time for color and touch up. I still struggle with watercolors but at least I’m starting to pay attention to it. I was pretty happy with the results. Hope you are as well. I think I’ll be doing more historic sketching.
I really like this. What an interesting idea. I remember seeing these old electric trams.
It was a lot of fun. One of the neat things about Quebec City is that it wears its history well. I can stand and look at this view but in 2016. Much has changed but it’s easy to envision the trolley coming up the hill even if the little station stop is gone, as are all the overhead wires.