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ATC Urban Sketching?
Although I prefer to sketch living, organic subjects, many of my previous sketches have depicted old buildings in Tokyo.
This has always been a sort of a love-hate relationship with me because I don't enjoy the tedium of drawing architecture with all its perfect angles and measurements and endless rows of windows.
But I do find old buildings in Japan very attractive, and thought I might try it again to expand my recent sketching activity beyond my sleeping students.
A quick look through this web site and the dates written on the backs of my sketches reveals that I haven't sketched buildings for three years, and my last building sketch was actually a backdrop for figure sketches, which was my new focus.
So I searched the web for some inspiration and discovered that nearly all the sketches of old buildings I found were in the context of the Urban Sketching movement which has been around for several years. I was familiar with the term, but really didn't know what Urban Sketching entailed.
When I did a web search for Urban Sketching, I came across several of my own sketches, which might imply that I have been an urban sketcher all along and didn't know it. Well, I do live and sketch in the city, but I was sure there had to be more to the definition than just sketching in the city, so I found the Urban Sketchers Manifesto on the official web site:
- We draw on location, indoors or out, capturing what we see from direct observation.
- Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel.
- Our drawings are a record of time and place.
- We are truthful to the scenes we witness.
- We use any kind of media and cherish our individual styles.
- We support each other and draw together.
- We share our drawings online.
- We show the world, one drawing at a time.
Okay, these all describe me fairly accurately except for number six because I rarely draw with other people, and I'm not a member of an Urban Sketchers group. So I guess I'm not a bona fide Urban Sketcher by definition, but apparently my sketches can be considered urban sketches.
Then I recalled that a few of my previous sketches of iconic Tokyo landmarks had been done in pencil and watercolor on trading-card-size paper, which would combine two trends: urban sketching and ATC. The sketch below is one of these ATC urban sketches.
A quick web search failed to show examples of such a hybrid done by other people, and I'm not surprised; trading cards are very small which severely limits the subject matter.
As a matter of fact, most of the Artist Trading Card drawings I have seen on the internet were based on the artist's own imagination, created in isolation away from the real world. If the ATC artist did depict something that existed outside of his or her own head, it was to draw from a photo of a famous entertainer or cartoon character.
This would be the exact opposite of urban sketching which is done on location and captured from direct observation.
I prefer to sketch from life and actually have difficulty sketching from imagination. But I do like the convenience of small cards, and the fact that I can slip these cards into a plastic sleeve if I want to give them to somebody as I do with my student sketches.
So fancying my self as some sort of cutting-edge pioneer, I decided to give ATC urban sketching another try, this time in ink which seems to be the preferred -- but not required -- sketching tool of urban sketchers.
In the past I have never been able to love Microns for some reason, but decided to try them again because the ink dries smudge-proof immediately unlike Carbon ink in a brush pen or fountain pen, and you can bear down on the paper and make a stroke in any direction with no problem. I didn't want to fuss with my tools too much this time.
I took some trading-card-size cards and sketched an old shop in one of my favorite parts of town and here is the result.
I had to draw real tiny, and sometimes I needed to use my high-power (+5.00) off-the-shelf reading glasses just to see what I was drawing. The sketch took me an hour and a half, was tedious and left me very tired. But I did succeed on putting an urban sketch on a trading card. Okay, probably not a big deal to anyone but me.
Will I try it again? I thought I might, but I have had second thoughts; sketching ought to be enjoyable -- that's the whole reason I insist on sketching on location rather than from a photo back at my desk -- and this wasn't particularly fun.
But I was happy to finally return to urban sketching after a three year hiatus, so I decided to return to the size I had used back when I was sketching buildings regularly, namely postcards.
Back to Postcards
So on my next day off, I took one of my sketchbooks, my watercolors and brush pen and set off to find an old building in Tokyo. I found an old neigborhood which had several good choices on the same street. I settled on one that had the most color and produced this.
I was using my good old brush pen to make living lines, but that started to get tedious after a while, so I tried one of my Microns, the size 08 and then the size 05 and discovered that I can make the nearly the same lines as a brush pen by varying the pressure, but the results were more consistent because I could bear down on the paper and support my pen that way. Suddenly I had a new appreciation for Microns.
This sketch took a total of three hours and twenty minutes. The first two hours were spent standing in across the street from the building and sketching in pencil and then ink.
Then before I could move on to the watercolor phase, an old man passing by invited me to take a break from my sketching and follow him so he could show me his artwork. I was a bit reluctant but couldn't politely refuse. It turned out that he owned one of the old shops two doors away I had thought about sketching, and he was a professional illustrator and manga artist, so we had a pleasant time of chatting and looking at his work, much of which had been published.
Besides, my legs were getting tired after standing and not moving for two hours, and the November weather started to get colder, so the break was not unwelcome.
I colored the sketch with watercolors later at home using a photo, and added opaque white characters with a Uni-Ball Signo Broad Point Gel Pen which is the best pen I have found for this.
I don't like to draw from photos because I prefer the challenge of transforming a three-dimensional object to a two-dimensional drawing, but I am just okay with coloring from a photo. Maybe because it gives me more freedom to use whatever colors I want.
Still, I prefer to do the entire sketch from beginning to end on the spot, because for me, the experience of sketching itself is gratifying.
Maybe I don't enjoy sketching at home because my home in Tokyo is so small I don't have a dedicated place for my art, and as you probably know instinctively, we artists crave our own special space.
So the place on location where I am standing and sketching is the closest I can come to having my own space.
And the reason I stand rather than sit is because Tokyo's back streets are so narrow, that I would be nuisance if I sat on a stool, blocking pedestrian traffic. Besides, I have more freedom to sketch from better view points if I'm willing to stand.
Style changes
I must confess that I had intended on producing a simply colored, lightly sketched vignette with lots of white unpainted aeas in the style of so many urban sketchers on the web, but ended up with my old familiar style.
It's funny; there was a time when I was in search of a style to call my own, and now it appears that I have a style which is difficult to escape.
And when I look back over my previous sketches, I find that my sketching style was indeed more light and airy in the past, like this sketch to the right which was done fifteen years ago.
And here is a sketch I did of the same subject four years later. You can see how my style had begun to evolve into a darker, heavier look.
I don't think it's a bad style, and it does evoke an emotion that my old style did not. But I think I prefer my old lighter style at least some of the time; I kinda like the emphasis on line work which is overlaid with a very light touch of watercolor.
So I need to go back and study my old sketches and try to reclaim that lighter style. For one thing, my old style generally took less time and was more suitable for my all-standing sketch sessions. And I seem to recall it was more enjoyable.
So I'm going to have to go back and study my own web site (this very web site!) and relearn some lessons on sketching that I have forgotten.
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which is the best pen I have found for this.
