Yesterday I reported on our 44th Worldwide Sketchcrawl participation. What I didn’t do was show you my sketches and talk a bit about them as that post became quite large because of all the photos. Here be the follow up post on my sketchcrawl sketches.
The sketchcrawl was supposed to start at 10AM but I ended up getting there around 9:30. As you enter the botanical gardens there is a large water feature amounting to several lily-pad-filled ponds with small water features between them. I located shade, my first prerequisite for sketching on a sunny day, and started sketching next to the second of these ponds. It was a great place to be as I could meet people as they arrived while sketching. It breaks my meditative sketching state to have to get up ever few minutes to say hi but gosh… isn’t that what sketchcrawls are all about? I think so.
Stillman & Birn Delta (6×8), Pilot Prera, Lexington Gray ink
By the time I’d finished this sketch, I was sitting in the sun as at this time of year the sun swings across its southerly track across our sky fairly quickly. So, I was once again hunting for a shady spot.
I found it on the other side of the entrance, with several sketching options. I decided to draw the main kiosk that faces the entrance. Lots of brightly-colored flowers, a nice shape and the girl who manned (womaned?) the kiosk obliged by wearing a red shirt. I switched weapons for this sketch as I wanted to get some more experience with my Hero pens. I’ve got several of them and I don’t use them enough.
Stillman & Birn Delta (6×8), Hero 578, Platinum Carbon Black
It was lunch time so we all met together to swap sketchbooks and wish we were as good as everyone else. For me, this is the best part of sketchcrawls. I do a lot of solo sketching and it’s really fun to get together with other sketchers, though my French is sufficiently bad that I’m more than a little bit limited in my ability to talk like an adult. Quebecers are quite patient, however.
After lunch I decided I should draw flowers. I don’t know flowers beyond red flowers, purple flowers, orange flowers, etc. I can tell you the names of all their parts, discuss at length the mating ‘habits’ of plants, and all the rest, as in another life I was a research scientist but when it comes to naming flowers… I got nada, or as we say around here, rien.
Stillman & Birn Delta (6×8), Pilot Penmanship XF, Lexington Gray
But flowers are cool. Depending upon how accurate you want to be while drawing them, they can be quite challenging as the more you drill down into their details the more difficult they become to properly depict. I’ve drawn very few, and it shows (grin). Here’s a couple. At least they look like flowers.
Stillman & Birn Delta (6×8), TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black
I’m a building sketcher. I also love to sketch garbage cans, fire hydrants and lamp posts. I’ve rarely drawn plants that weren’t part of a building sketch. After our sketchcrawl at the botanical gardens I started to rethink that and suddenly I’m aware of the obvious. There are plants everywhere. Who’da thunk it?
