One Spot - Two Different Subjects

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon in the loop, riding my bike, sketching and taking photos.  One of the reasons I love living in the city is the ability to hop on Lake Shore Drive bike path and just ride and see where the day takes me.  After a recent guided kayaking tour I took with my wife on the Chicago River, I was inspired to return to one of the major stops, near Merchandise Mart and the recently finished river walkway.  I found a nice spot on the Franklin Street Bridge.  With a great view east, down the river towards Michigan Avenue, I started off with this loose ink sketch of the skyline.  I normally like to lay out my sketches in pencil, but just decided to go for it in ink with this one.  I tend to be a perfectionist.  I like to spend my time making a sketch work well, often times, too much time.  However, diving right into this ink drawing was a real nice change of pace and really freeing, creative experience.  Instead of making sure each line was completely straight, I allowed the pace of my drawing to dictate the characteristics of the sketch.  All in all, I was really pleased with how it turned out and was able to capture the essence of the skyline with gestural lines, stippling and some hatching.

The beautiful thing about being in the Loop is that there is nearly an endless supply of things to sketch.  Having finished the skyline sketch, I stayed in the same spot and sketched the Franklin Street Bridge House, which was a lot closer to me and allowed for some greater attention to material, proportion and detail.  The lighting and shadows were changing very fast so I penciled in a rough outline and indicated where the shadows were at the time.  By the time I finished the pencil sketch, the shadows had already changed and disappeared.  I then inked the drawing with a fountain pen and Faber Castell Cold Grey IV 233 PITT artist pen.



These two sketches were both done in a Stillman and Birn Epsilon sketchbook, which has become my go to sketchbook for pen and ink sketching.  For a long time, I have had a tendency to go back and forth between one sketchbook and another.  I would bounce between a sketchbook geared toward watercolor, to one with ivory colored paper to another with grey toned paper.  But, I've enjoyed this Epsilon paper so much, I've been diligent in filling it up.  This sketchbook is shaping up to be one of my favorite collections of sketches yet.   I look forward to filling it up and seeing where the rest of the pages take me.

You can see more of my work and sketches on Instagram: @abillustrator and my professional website www.AndrewBanksIllustration.com.

I am trying to savor the last precious days of nice outdoor sketching weather before Chicago winter returns.

Until next time!

Andrew

We All Have A Sketch To Tell

A Recap of The Chicago Sketch Seminar 2015

The recent Urban Sketchers Chicago Sketch Seminar, held July 11th and 12th at the Palette & Chisel and surrounding neighborhoods was a fascinating collection of art instruction, collaboration, conversations and the sharing of art supplies. But most importantly, the act of so many people coming together to the north side of Chicago is to create memories and stories.

Each time that an urban sketcher puts pencil, pen or brush to paper, they are creating memories about a scene. A scene which they have spent a few minutes choosing carefully as the one they are going to invest as much as a half hour or more sketching and painting. This takes time, a lot more than a quick snap of a camera to record, and with each stroke there is plenty of brain activity taking place into the selection and mixing of color, brush type, pen selection and considerations for composition. After a personal investment of time and talent upwards of an hour, very few of these sketchers will ever say, "Well, that was a colossal waste of time." It would be akin to delivering your first baby and say "That was interesting, now where were we?"

There were other stories that were more about the human spirit than in paper and paint brush. Deb Donnelly was leading her Sunday morning workshop on "Mingling Watercolor with Words" when a young woman from Korea happened upon her group. As Deb tells the story, this young woman was in her final hours of her visit to America and she was trying to capture as many of the artifacts that she could get her hands on to take back home to Korea with her before she had to leave. 

She was attracted to all of the wonderful art supplies laid out by the workshop participants, even wanted to purchase a few of them until she spotted the Chicago Sketch Seminar t-shirt (printed by Monkey Pencil Screenprinting) worn by one of the participants. That participant, Miguel Retana, was so moved by this Korean woman's need to buy this shirt from him that it led Miguel to taking the shirt off his back and gifting the shirt to her. It would be a memory that would not soon be forgotten by this young woman, Miguel, or any of the urban sketchers who were there to experience this wonderfully warm gesture.

If you are interested in learning more about the kind of seminars that Urban Sketchers Chicago produces, the art supplies we use, our monthly Sketch Crawls, and the warm humans who make up our group, send us a quick note to Urban Sketchers Chicago 
at urbansketcherschicago@gmail.com or check out the Facebook group's page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Urban Sketchers Chicago/

You're Invited To Join Our Book Club

For years I was always jealous of how my wife enjoyed a festive get-together with her book club. The thing is, I am not that fast of a reader and one sure-fire way to get me to fall asleep is to put a book in my hand that does not have any pictures in it. Does that happen to you too? Therefore, I have always kept at arm's distance from book clubs, but count me in on the drinks and snacks.

When I joined Urban Sketchers Chicago, I had already been carrying various spiral-bound sketchbooks of varying sizes and quality with the sole intention of keeping various doodles, notes, ticket stubs, receipts and vacation photos. I guess you call my sketchbooks journals or scrapbooks, not sketchbooks. After a few months of being part of urban sketchers, I soon began to adopt a new mentality of making sketches that told the stories of my surroundings and recorded the events of my life. Now whenever people look at my sketchbooks and point to a sketch and ask "what was happening in this sketch?" I launch into the story behind it.

In Urban Sketchers, there are hundreds and hundreds of stories behind each sketch. Sometimes you can deduct the story by just looking at the sketch and other times the story behind the sketch really needs to be delivered by the artist who captured that moment. And these are stories that come from the unique perspective of one particular artist and the sketchbook (or as we like to call them, our storybooks) have a very short print run of "one."

If you have always wanted to be part of a book club and have a strength in "communicating through your visual literacy" (as professional artist Don Colley would say), you should check out our book club to learn more about the Urban Sketchers Chicago Sketch Seminars, the art supplies we use, and our monthly Sketch Crawls. Send us a quick note to Urban Sketchers Chicago at urbansketcherschicago@gmail.com or check out Urban Sketchers Chicago's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/UrbanSketchersChicago/.

If you want the best sketchbooks for your sketch novel, check out Blick Art Supplies, Stillman and Birn and Hahnemuhle USA. Thanks for checking us out. 

Wes Douglas

Top photo: © 2015 Wes Douglas
Middle photo: © 2015 Alex Zonis
Bottom photo: ©2015 Andrew Banks

Dressed for Sketch-cess

TUESDAY TIPS & TRICKS

With only a few weeks left before the Chicago Sketch Seminar, no doubt you are starting to think about what to bring, how to pack and what to wear. Fear not because, thankfully, urban sketching is nothing like going on vacation or climbing Mount Everest. All you really need is something to draw on and something to draw with...a pencil and a sketchbook. Done. Beyond that it is a personal preference for your style of sketching and whatever your workshop instructor has suggested for you bring.

If you scan through the past Tuesday Tips & Tricks, you will see a vast collection of techniques and how-tos that mention recommended brands of art supplies. And as long as you trust the Chicago Sketch Seminar Sponsors*, you just can't go wrong. But unless you want to drag a rolling suitcase around with you all day, decide how you plan to sketch that day and simplify your supplies to fit in your shoulder bag or backpack.

So how about that third question: "what to wear?" Perhaps you have heard the phrase “travel light?” This is very good advice when you will be walking the streets of Chicago with a few too many art supplies. And yet with Chicago weather you never really know what to expect so you have to plan for contingencies. Here then is my survivor’s guide to urban sketching in Chicago.

> wear something to protect your head

> wear something to protect your eyes from the sun

> wear something to protect your skin from the sun and possibly insects

> wear something because we are a casual group, just not THAT casual

The diagram below shows the anatomy of the properly outfitted Urban Sketcher:

A collection of Urban Sketchers’ Popular Seats, Stools and Chairs:

*Chicago Sketch Seminar Sponsors:

USk Chicago is grateful for the generosity and support of its Seminar Sponsors. Our sponsors are supporting the Seminar through financial and product donations. Donations will go towards supplies and materials for workshops, product samples for goody bags for each registrant, materials to be tested in the Supply Speed Dating Activity, as well as some incredible raffle prizes to be raffled at our Gallery Reception on Sunday evening.  Make sure to visit their websites and connect with them on social media to see how other sketchers are using their products:

Blick Art Materials  #blickartmaterials

·       Twitter            @Blick_Art

·       Instagram      @blickartmaterials

·       Facebook     “Blick Art Materials”

DeArtramentis

·       Twitter            #DeAtramentis

·       Instagram      #DeAtramentis

#Documentinks

·       Facebook     “Atramentis”

Faber-Castell

·       Twitter            @FaberCastell @Faber-Castell USA

·       YouTube      FaberCastellUSA

·       Facebook     “FaberCastellUSA”

·       Pinterest       “Faber Castell USA”

·       #fabercastellusa

General Pencil

·       Twitter            @GeneralPencil

·       Instagram      @General Pencil

·       Facebook     “General Pencil Company”

·       #GeneralPencil

#GeneralsPencils #GeneralsCharcoal
#Hahnemuehle
#sakuraofamerica

Hahnemühle

·       Twitter            @Hahnemuehle_USA

@Hahnemuehle_DE

·       Instagram      @Hahnemuehle

·       Facebook     “Hahnemuhle USA”, “Hahnemuhle”

·       Pinterest       “Hahnemuehle”

·       #Hahnemühle

Jet Pens

·       Twitter            @JetPens

·       Instagram      @JetPens

·       Facebook     “JetPens.com”                   

·       #JetPens

Nock Co.

·       Twitter            @NockCo

·       Instagram      @NockCo

·       Facebook     “Nock Co.”

·       #Nockshots                  #Nockc

Sakura of America

·       Instagram      @SakuraofAmerica

·       Facebook     “Sakura Color Products of America”

·       #Sakura

#pigmamicron

#sakurakoi

#gellyroll 

Stillman and Birn

·       Twitter            @StillmanandBirn

·       Instagram      @StillmanandBirn

·       Facebook     “Stillman & Birn”

·       Pinterest       “Stillman & Birn”

·       #Stillmanandbirn 

Winsor & Newton

·       Twitter            @winsorandnewton

·       Instagram      @winsornewton @winsornewton_usa

·       Facebook     “Winsor & Newton” #winsornewton

·       #winsornewton

·       #winsorandnewton