Tuesday, September 1, 2015

City Ink Sketches

I am taking an online mixed media class with one of my urban sketching favorites, Mark Taro Holmes. His first lesson in the course was on single-line and 5-7 line sketches. They are mostly continuous line drawings done with a fine line pen and then adding dark tones with a brush pen.

Here is a link to Mark's workshop in case you are interested. This is a short video that gives you an overview of his class. Since it was offered at such a discount I couldn't pass it up.

On Saturday when I got into the city I had about an hour to walk from Penn Station on 32nd St to where the NYC Urban Sketchers were meeting at 5th and 23rd St. On the way I saw a view that looked perfect for the first lesson, so I stopped to sketch. The goal of the single line sketch is to be able to capture a scene quickly, which is perfect for sketching when traveling or when you are somewhere with "non-sketchers." This probably took me about 10 minutes. 


When I was done I headed down to Madison Park to meet the group. I still had a little time to sit outside the park and sketch the iconic Flatiron Building. It has an incredible number of windows, but I left out most of them. Although this was not a single-line sketch I did use the idea of the brush pen for some darks to make it pop.


Tomorrow I will show you what was in the park!!!


6 comments:

  1. I'm taking Marc's latest class too, but I've been traveling too much to even look at it. I'm really looking forward to it, now that I've seen these sketches! It's amazing that you did these so quickly!

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  2. I'm taking Marc's latest class too, but I've been traveling too much to even look at it. I'm really looking forward to it, now that I've seen these sketches! It's amazing that you did these so quickly!

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  3. Wonderful sketches!!! What kind of brush pen do you use?

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  4. All those lines and windows...overwhelms me and you did these in 10 minutes or less? Amazing, Joan!

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  5. Wow, very nice and interesting. Looking forward to how you incorporated into your style. Fun!

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  6. Tina, you have been everywhere lately! Thank you.

    Oty - Thanks. I have a Skakura Pigma brush pen.

    Sherry, I just keep the line moving. Thanks.

    Jo, I think this method will be great for travel sketches. Thanks so much.

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