Habitual Sketching V Non Habitual Sketching
Sketching when I want to versus habitual sketching…
For many years I had been an habitual ‘en plein air’ sketcher, which was great for developing and honing one’s skills of interpreting what one sees with marks; sharpening one’s observation. However, this changed after the covid lockdown periods, during which time I produced 110 daily sketches in and around my own home. These daily sketches triggered a new approach to my artwork practice and a return to oil painting.
With my new surreal painting approach, I found I could travel in my head and let my imagination run, rather than just depict what was in front of me.
I still love sketching from life but now I don’t rely on it for the basis of my artwork.
I still produce preparatory sketches before I commence my paintings, to help me work out the compositions and to initially refer to, but, these are from my subconscious and imagination, not from something i’ve studied and observed in real life.
- Sketching for pleasure in a friends garden in Hastings.
For me now, the joy of sketching is to do it when I feel like it, not because I need some specific reference material. Sketching is is now a choice, rather than a necessity, required in order to produce a finished drawing.
Sketching is also good for me as it gets me out of my studio and into the fresh air and with a fresh outlook. I no longer feel pressurised to go out and sketch, so I can just relax and enjoy the process; being in the moment and immersed in the place. It is not a race. I can just do what I please in my own time.
My sketchbooks are very much my private source of information and memories.
Depending on the subject matter, time, and how I feel, I sometimes like working in an intense black and white mark making way and other times I like to use watercolour washes with simple lines (if the colours have really caught my eye). However, I do tend to pick subjects to sketch that are a little challenging, as they stretch me and because they interest me at the time. It is the process of looking. The more you look, the more you see and it tends to stay inside your memory much longer.
Now, when I do go out sketching, my compositions feel instinctive. I tend to begin by lightly blocking the composition in pencil before working into it with pencil or pen, tone and colour, not fully knowing how it will look until near the end, when the process has lead me there.
I love to play with the weight of line, foreground and background, as well as white space, all of which lend depth and narrative to the finished work.