Why I’m Obsessed with Urban Sketching
By Caroline Mustard
Ramblings of a self confessed city girl
I sometimes think you can separate people out by whether they hate the bustle and hustle of the city and yearn for the peace and quiet of the countryside or, alternatively, love the hustle and bustle and, after a few of listening to the wind in trees, can’t wait for the noise and chaos of city living.
I fall into the second category.
Pre-COVID, my granddaughter took me out for my birthday and asked me what I’d like to do. My answer was simple: spend the day urban sketching. So we found a nice cafe on Chestnut Street and I had the best birthday. My drawing wasn’t that great but I was hooked.
This is the drawing I did on my birthday about 8 years ago. The best birthday!
So that brings me to the subject of this blog. Many of my students travel, and more power to them because they can bring back great photos for us to draw , But they want so much to be able to capture their memories in their sketchbooks as well as on their of their iPhones. The iPhone is an amazing invention but, as my hero David Hockney observed “There is nothing wrong with photography, if you don’t mind the perspective of a paralysed Cyclops.” In other words the photos you take seldom capture the essence of what you see with your eyes.
But drawing does.
When I’m sitting down at a busy street and looking around me, I try to draw what I see - not just straight in front of my eyes, but from the left and the right above and below. I find that so exciting. Of course, sometimes I just draw exactly what I see in front of me but, more often than not, I draw way more than I would be able to see if I just stared straight ahead
Four Points Under the Golden Gate Bridge. Pen and Ink
And that brings me to the next thing I love - seeing people walking by, sitting down, chatting,me pushing baby carriages and getting up and taking their dog for a walk (or, if you are lucky, their duck or pet pig.) All these things fascinate me and I love drawing all of it. When you’re doing urban sketching you just get to record life all around you.
Urban Sketching in the City
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Many of my students travel, and more power to them because they bring back great photos for us to draw. But they want so much to be able to capture their memories in their sketchbooks as well as on their iPhones. The iPhone is an amazing invention but, as my hero David Hockney observed “There is nothing wrong with photography, if you don’t mind the perspective of a paralysed Cyclops.” In other words, the photos you take seldom capture the essence of what you see with your eyes.
But drawing does.
When I’m sitting down at a busy street and looking around me, I try to draw what I see - not just straight in front of my eyes, but from the left and the right above and below. I find that so exciting. Of course, sometimes I just draw exactly what I see in front of me but, more often than not, I draw way more than I would be able to see if I just stared straight ahead
And that brings me to the next thing I love - seeing people walking by, sitting down, chatting,me pushing baby carriages and getting up and taking their dog for a walk (or, if you are lucky, their duck or pet pig.) All these things fascinate me and I love drawing all of it. When you’re doing urban sketching you just get to record life all around you.
Aquatic Park directly below Ghiradelli Square, San Francisco. Pen and Ink and watercolor
Grasping the Fundementals
Every artist has their own “voice” and it’s no different with urban sketching But having a firm grasp of a few basics truly helps. And the rest comes from practice.
Seven magic tips I recommend:
Start simple: I read an excellent article in the UK press by a well-known British illustrator who also loves urban sketching. He recommended starting out drawing something really simple. Like a coffee cup, a bottle, a sign, or a window. Don’t try and draw a whole scene to start with. Get comfortable with drawing whatever is in front of you. It works.
Do Speed drills. Life doesn’t sit and wait so learn to draw fast. Do some drills making different kinds of marks as rapidly as possible~ straight lines, “S” curves,, circles, hatching, cross-hatching, and scribbling . The ability to draw fast is a vital skill for the urban sketcher
Look don’t think. Self explanatory.
Take Claude Monet’s advice “When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow. Claude
Learn to use your pencil to estimate proportions, angles and spatial relationships ( what lines up with what).
Take a photo. You mihjy not finish so this gives you a visual record so you can finish it later if necessary.
Join a group. The Meetup app is free and will give you different sketching groups in your area that you can join or just go to their sketching Meetups. Sketching SF for example, has over 5,000 followers and meets all over the city. Less than 10% actually show up for different meetups, but there are many opportunities to get out and sketch. Our own Joybig Drawing monthly Sketch Meetup visits different locations in the Bay Area. That way you can go out with other like-minded folks. They are generally uninstructed and free. But take a small donation to help the organizers.
All the basic skills listed above can be learned and I’d recommend my book The Joy of Drawing: A Beginners Manual, available on Amazon. It comes with free YouTube videos for all the exercises and a free
But really, the best way to get going is just to do that: get going!
So why not have a go this summer, enjoy yourself and I guarantee that you will have memories that transcend your camera.
Next time you go on a journey, don’t just see the sites through the lens of a camera but instead, find a nice spot order some coffee or wine and do a wee bit of sketching. I think you’ll enjoy it.
Try it out and let me know how it goes.