Theme of the Week: Thumbnails!

I use thumbnails is several different ways.

Most often I use them to help me figure out exactly what I want to focus on in a scene. So often in urban sketching we are confronted with a busy urban scene and it can be hard to hone in on something specific. So I like to play around with different aspects of the location to determine what would make a good larger sketch as in this series of thumbnails I did while in Oaxaca Mexico. I did the smaller thumbnails first then the larger drawing of the church.

Another situation where I use thumbnails is to understand value in a scene. Often I see color before I see value. If I do a black and white thumbnail, especially if I use pencil or gray marker to fill in value, I can end up with a stronger sketch.

A third, and less common, way I use thumbnails is just to understand the layers of a scene – foreground, middle ground, background. Where do things in the scene fall? What is closer? What is farther away? This gives me a pathway as I set up a sketch or painting so I’m familiar with what goes where. I use this more in planting a larger painting.

Sometimes I use thumbnails to try out different color combinations.

The four situations above are ways to familiarize myself with the scene. They warm me up and help me find my bearings on the page.

The fifth way is thumbnails as minis, finished sketches, just small.

Try it out! It's easy, quick and low risk. 

We’re All Still Together

Maple Leaf water tower sketched from my car on my way home
from an errand.

By far, the best part about Urban Sketchers is that it brings together people who share a common passion. Those of us who attend outings regularly have come to rely on the ongoing infusion of camaraderie, creativity and fun. It’s been very hard the past 12 weeks since our last sketch outing.

Missing my tribe, I was thinking about how our founder Gabi first began what eventually became the global Urban Sketchers organization. Long before there were sketch outings, this blog or the international symposium, Gabi had noticed that people around the world were doing something he enjoyed doing himself: sketching their surroundings from life. He knew this because he had seen them posting sketches on Flickr, the image-sharing website. Initially, Gabi created the Urban Sketchers Flickr group so that sketchers could easily find and view the work of like-minded people. That’s how it all began – individuals sketching in their own parts of the world and sharing online. That’s why sharing online became an important part of the Urban Sketchers Manifesto.

It’s going to be a while yet before we can meet again. Until then, Kate, Jane and I encourage you to keep sketching your surroundings from life and share your sketches online. We waited all winter and spring for the best sketching weather that’s just ahead! Let’s not waste it. Take a walk, stop wherever you feel safe, and sketch whatever you see. Go out in your car and sketch through the windshield. Step out into your own backyard, or simply look out your window. Show us your part of the world. We’re all still together, even if it’s only virtually.

Share your work and participate by viewing the work of others:

• On Facebook in the USk Seattle group
• On Instagram by using the hashtag #uskseattle
• On Flickr in the USk Seattle group

These thumbnails took less than 5 minutes each to make while on one of my daily walks through my neighborhood. Try it!

Weekly Theme

Are you looking for a source of drawing prompts? While we can't yet meet up for a sketch outing, we can still draw together. Gabi Campanario started Urban Sketchers on Flickr and there still is a global USk group there. Each Monday a weekly theme is posted. I've done this, on and off, since 2012. It is found in the discussions section of the group: https://www.flickr.com/groups/urbansketches/discuss/ 

Even if you aren't on Flickr, you can share your sketch of the weekly theme on our Instagram at #uskseattle or Facebook groups.  There's also no reason why you can't explore past weekly themes and post your sketches. 

Here is my very first weekly theme sketch, which was boats.  I hadn't done any drawing in about 40 years at that point! (Throw back to Stephanie Bower's challenge from USk Talks!)



This week's theme is "your nearest public transport stop ". I did a dashboard sketch (thank you, @steve_reddy for the term) from the safety of my car.  The parking lot behind the bus stop is for a gas station, coffee stand, and a food truck.  It was just a little too busy for me to want to sit outside to draw.  

Urban Sketchers are Alive and Well!

How do you arrange a meeting that can accommodate people from all over the world? You do your best. And that's how I "attended" the second ever Urban Sketcher's admin meeting at 6:00 AM on Sunday May 24 on Zoom. I did my best.

Once I got into the meeting, I could see there were a lot of folks online. I scrolled through the five screens of participants—that’s five screens with 20 participants each screen—and saw many I knew. There were sketchers from Brazil, Spain, Indonesia, Hong Kong, England, New York, Florida, and everywhere in between. It felt like a family reunion!

The goal was to share ideas and challenges and to inspire chapters to stay active during the pandemic. Several admins shared activities and ideas they have done in their groups.

USk Singapore, for example organized a “Circuit Sketch Break” for 28 days from April 7 through May 4. They posted 28 prompts for sketching from home, had sketchers submit their work and had a drawing for a prize at the end. They have since extended the submission deadline so people can continue to be inspired to sketch.

USk Dubai launched a “sketch at home campaign” with weekly prompts and submission instructions. They plan to publish the sketches in a journal. Here is a sample of their prompts:

Week one: Food

Week two: Through the window

Week three: My partner in lockdown

Several others shared what their group has been doing or not doing. They shared their successes and frustrations, asked questions of others and basically just hung out sopping in the vibe of being among so many active sketchers again.

At the end we had the traditional throw-down, or in this case a hold-up, where sketchers held their work up to their camera so we could see. Many had sketched the meeting; some just held up a sketch they had done recently. It was all quite fun and made me realize how much I miss the USk family.  

I have felt pretty sluggish about sketching during this lockdown period. The USk Talks have been fun. (Thank you Stephanie Bower, for your talk and challenge last month). And the USkTalk challenges have been interesting, although I’ve only done a few of them. But this meeting was like a good cup of coffee. Time to wake up! In Thurston County where I live we will be able to gather in groups up to 5 people beginning in June. Hopefully King County will be able to do the same pretty soon. Until then, I hope you are all safe. And keep sketching!

Hold-up of our zoom call sketches. 

Eight Years with My Tribe

5/20/12 Magnuson Park

When I set out to go to my very first Urban Sketchers outing exactly eight years ago today, I was kind of nervous. I had known about the Seattle group for several months, but as an introvert, I wasn’t very keen on the idea of doing anything with a group where I didn’t know anyone. I’m not a “joiner”; I’m more of a stay-at-home-doing-my-own-thing kind of person. But I also knew that sketching with others was a part of the Urban Sketchers manifesto. And I was also curious: Were there really lots of other people in Seattle who like to do the same thing I do?

Indeed, there were. The first sketcher I met at Magnuson Park that day was Kate Buike, who immediately welcomed me. Later that day I met Jane Wingfield (the three of us have been co-admins for USk Seattle for several years now). Eventually I met many other sketchers who have become friends, not just fellow sketchers. Seeing each other regularly and doing together what we all enjoy most, we have become more than a “group.” We are a tribe – people “with a common culture.”

During those eight years, it never occurred to me to stop participating in sketch outings. (I think the only ones I have ever missed were when I was out of town or indisposed.) It also never occurred to me that the outings themselves might someday stop.

6/16/12 Habitat for Humanity at Seattle Center

I’ve gotten used to a lot of things about living in the coronavirus age; after all, I’m naturally a stay-at-home person. What I miss most, though, is Seattle USk outings. I’m still sketching as much as ever. But I miss my friends, our camaraderie, and our shared passion for urban sketching.

Shown here are sketches from some of my favorite USk outings in 2012.

7/21/12 Tacoma Museum of Glass

8/19/12 Georgetown

9/2/12 Fish ladders, Ballard Locks

10/21/12 Columbia City

11/18/12 Seattle Art Museum

12/7/12 Gingerbread Village

My World is Smaller, But the Joy Remains

4th Ave. NE and NE 85th St., Maple Leaf neighborhood, facing south

As I’m sure every other urban sketcher has found, sheltering at home is frustrating. Being outdoors for exercise and fresh air is approved of and even encouraged, so we’ve been walking daily around the neighborhood. That’s a pleasure in itself – we are discovering beautiful houses and gardens we otherwise never would have noticed – but I can’t stop for a sketch the way I easily could in my pre-pandemic life. The sidewalks are narrow in Maple Leaf, so if a pedestrian came by, I would need to step into the street to allow them space.

Facing east

Nonetheless, where there’s a will, there’s a way. I realized I could stand on a traffic circle to sketch and easily stay farther than 6 feet from any passing pedestrian, and I’m also safe from cars. I made these four sketches from the same traffic circle over the course of a month at about the same time of day.

Facing north

My world has gotten very small. Except for four sketches I made from my car, this intersection a few blocks from home is the farthest I’ve traveled for a sketch in two months. Staying close to home requires more work; it’s not as easy to find a composition that grabs me. On the other hand, when my expectations and standards are low, the shimmer of sunlight on a slender maple is enough to keep me happy. The joy of “showing the world, one drawing at a time” is the same, even when the world is a four-block radius.

Facing west

Old Silo

Off SW 167 in Auburn, WA is an old barn and silo that I've wanted to sketch for a long time and never got around to it. It's at the exit for Emerald Downs racetrack. One of the most interesting buildings has already fallen down during the period that I've thought about stopping to sketch.

My car hasn't been driven much and the battery has suffered for it, so I took a long drive on the freeway to charge it up. I thought this could be a good day to get off at this spot to do a dashboard sketch of the silo from the car. There was no one around so I could have gotten out of the car to sketch but it was raining quite steadily.

I finally remembered to take a hero photo.