Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
This is a flashback to last summer when I sketched the old Green Keepers cottage in Victoria Park.
I have sketched it before, back in 2013 here, and my plan was to draw the cottage again, but better. Way better I thought, because my sketching skills have improved over that time and I was thinking of sketching from a more 'values' based approach, rather than my old style that was very much based on 'line'. You know, the old 'ink and wash' technique of applying line over a pencil sketch, and then apply watercolour.
My sketches these days are based on values, shape and colour. At least that's what I'm aiming for!
So when I arrived at Victoria Park the extreme heat of the day, combined with intense sunshine, meant I had to try a different approach, and you know what? It made for a much better sketch.
Why is the sketch better because I had to shelter under the shade of English Plane trees? These trees are massive, and it's noticeably cooler when you're under them by the way.
The problem was that the cottage, was a loooong way away! So I captured the view of it looking through the trees, framed between 2 trees. I then added in some walkers, someone sitting on the park bench and the cricket players having a team talk out in the middle of the field.
All of these problems made my sketch better because they added context. Rather than just a house sketch, I had captured a moment in time, a recognisable local scene that alludes to the cottage position in Victoria Park and the kind of activities that people do in the park. The sketch has depth with a distinct foreground and background. I could have made it better by adding more atmospheric perspective, but hey I'm a slow learner!
Of course I've posted this in the middle of a Southern Hemisphere winter in a bid to warm-up up. Heat isn't a problem right now, I'm very much looking forward to spring time!
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