Sketching in museums

Too cold to draw outdoors? Museums are a great place to indulge in urban sketching during the winter season. I recently sketched at Seattle's Museum of History and Industry for my newspaper column. On the photo, you can see a sketch in progress of the locally famous "toe towing truck."

But as fun as sketching inside a museum is, you may encounter some obstacles. For reasons I can't really understand, some museums have strict rules about sketching, going as far as banning wet media such as watercolors. Are they afraid we'll vandalize their art collections? If that was the intention, a car key could do more damage. I think museums should be more friendly to artists. We are their number one customers!

"The Art of Urban Sketching" hits Singapore bookstores

"The Art of Urban Sketching" isn't officially out until February, but in Singapore, the city where it's being printed, some sketchers have already gotten their hands on it!

Photo from Urban Sketchers Singapore Facebook Group.

Teoh Yi Chie (pictured left) says in his blog that he got the last copy on the shelf at Basheer bookstore. According to comments on the USK Singapore Facebook group, the bookstore sold out all the 85 copies they had and will refill the shelves as soon as they can.

Teoh Yi Chie is an sketcher and art blogger who reviews art and design books on his site, Parka Blogs. I was thrilled to read his positive review of The Art of Urban Sketching. He also posted this cool video where you can get a feel for those 320-pages of sketching goodness.


From Parka's flickr photostream.

Dibuja Caracas

Sketch time at the barbershop

I can finally check the barbershop off my list. Ever since I saw João Catarino's barbershop sketch on the Urban Sketchers blog more than three years ago, I've wanted to sketch while getting my haircut. But I never seemed to muster up the courage to do it. Not being that good at the art of small talk -- a handy skill to have in these situations, I've always feared an avalanche of questions from the hair stylist if I started drawing. But this last time, my itch to break a new pocket Moleskine was bigger than my desire to sit quietly and watch 15 or 20 minutes of potential sketching time go to waste.

"You go right ahead," said the hair stylist when I told her that I'd occupy myself sketching while she trimmed away my hair. She respected that. Didn't give me any strange looks. Didn't ask further questions. She didn't even seemed surprised that I wasn't interested in the football match on TV -- every haircutting station at this "Sports Clips" barbershop is equipped with a giant flat screen tuned to ESPN or whatever sports channel you may want.

At the end, I was happy with my haircut, and with my sketch. I'm pretty sure I'll be coming to "Sports Clips" again.

Turkey time

Photo by Lisa Sheffield

The things we do to get a sketch! I recently spend some time drawing turkeys for my Seattle Times column. It was pretty scary. I kept having to fight them off with my Niji waterbrushes so they'd stop pecking at my sketchbook. One of them almost grabbed my brush off my hands!

On Facebook, I invited readers to send captions for this photo:

—‎"Hey, back off! He's working on a masterpiece -- ME!" (by Melissa Gong)
—"And why are you not sketching???" (by Nina Khashchina)

Leave your caption as a comment and I'll add you to the list! For more photos from my turkey sketching time you can also visit this flickr set.

And to those celebrating next Thursday's holiday, Happy Thanksgiving!

How to draw horses

Knowing I would be sketching horses for this week's column, I took a little time to learn about the animals' anatomy beforehand. A Google search on how to draw horses led me to this useful page at elfwood.com, a SciFi/Fantasy art and fiction website.

The article, written and illustrated by Suzanne Jessup, included just what I was looking for: simple diagrams of a horse skeleton and muscles.

Jessup also writes that she's "of the school of thought that you can not draw anything well unless you know how it is put together."

That seems to contradict another rule I also follow: Draw what you see, not what you know. But I think she's still right.

When it comes to drawing live creatures, an understanding of anatomy really pays off. And the same could be said about sketching buildings. Even a basic knowledge of architecture can make a big difference.

Illustration Age

What a nice surprise to discover my work featured on Illustration Age, a website with a motto I fully support: "Long Live Illustration."

I have to thank one of the new Illustration Age editors, Mark Kaufman, for the shout out to my "sketchpad journalism" —I love the sound of those two words together. Mark is a fellow Seattle-based illustrator and the creator of one of my favorite alternative comic strips out there, American Affairs Desk.

More of Paul Madonna's "All Over Coffee," in print

Browsing newspapers from other cities at the Seattle Central Library, I looked up Paul Madonna's drawn feature, a "comic strip without the comic," as he calls it, inside The San Francisco Chronicle. It runs inside the "Datebook" section.

The art of Paul Madonna

San Francisco-based artist Paul Madonna is the author of "All Over Coffee," a drawn feature that runs every Sunday in the San Francisco Chronicle. His beautiful drawings of San Francisco's cityscapes, which he makes on location, sitting on a fold-up stool, were one of the things that inspired me to pitch Seattle Sketcher to my art editors at The Seattle Times in late 2008 — my work in the newsroom at the time focused mainly on infographics and illustration.

Seeing Paul's work, you'll understand why I think newspapers should publish more drawings and illustrated journalism. His work is not only artistically stunning, it also brings a wonderful sense of place to the pages of the Chronicle. I bet readers love it.

Paul's pen and ink compositions aren't quick or sketchy, but carefully rendered and colored. You won't see people in the scenes he draws, yet the atmosphere he manages to create has a life of its own.

A couple of years ago, I had a brief conversation with Paul for this article about illustrators as storytellers. He told me that "All Over Coffee" grew out of hours sketching at cafés, that pastime enjoyed by many an urban sketcher.

Paul is also the only sketcher I now who has his own iPad app.

Cemeteries are great urban sketching locations

Sketching at a cemetery may sound creepy, but it's actually a great way to reflect as you draw. See my drawings over at my Seattle Times blog.

And over on the Urban Sketchers blog there are also great entries for cemeteries.