Weekend Sketchbook Update
Over the last weekend we managed to get away with a couple of friends to some cabins near Lenzen, a small town on the border between Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommen, and Sachen-Anhalt. We got some great weather, did some walking, paddle boarding, cooking, and general relaxing.
I also tried to get some sketching in. Once again I realised just how hard it is to draw proper “nature”. I struggled to find focal points. I wanted to somehow draw a whole field or a forest, but had no idea where to start. I would see one tree, bush, or curve of a path and want to capture that, but would then get lost in the details.
So I drew “stuff” and it worked out much better for me.
(Click any image to make it larger. All drawings on A4 paper.)
I started off with my old reliable brush pen and found that I was just making messy shapes, so I switched to a fountain nib pen that’s usually too scratchy and rough for my tastes but turned out to be the right pen for these sketches. It’s interesting how tools affect the work. For quick gesture sketches of people, I think it’s still the brush pen, but for these sort of slower, a bit more focussed drawings, I needed a more deliberate tool.
Looking at these I do see a ton of little mistakes, but I also see an hour or two of concentration and observation, which at the end of the day is the point of sketching on location.