How To Clone Your Original Sketches

Interview with Kordt Larsen, WS 10: Photographing & Promoting Your Sketches
By Wes Douglas

Have you ever been sketching on location when someone admires your work so much that you feel compelled to give them the sketch? Or how many times have you been to a party, or family get together, and want to show your latest sketches but didn’t think to bring the sketchbook with you? 

Well, before you tear out the sketch and hand it over, or pat your pockets in a vain effort to show the sketch that you don’t have, you will learn the skills and tools to easily capture your sketch with your phone. Capture it and make adjustments before you make someone’s day a little brighter. With this workshop, you will be able to call up your sketches faster and more impressively on your smart phone. 

Here is one workshop that will show you one of the most valuable skills you really need to know.

I asked Kordt Larsen about his workshop, "Photographing and Promoting Your Sketches" (WS 10). “I help a lot of creatives who are looking for tips on how to show off their work and advance their skills. I am taking these same tools to share with urban sketchers because I think knowing how to create better looking images of your sketches is a universal skill that everyone wants.”

Does it matter what kind of phone that I have? "All of these tools and apps that I am sharing with students will work across different platforms. I use an iPhone, but bring whatever phone you have, or tablet device, and I will work with you in this workshop."

Union Station Group Photo (before adjustments):

Union Station Group Photo (after adjustments):

Learn how to capture, how to adjust, and how to share your sketches with your urban sketching brothers and sisters. Urban sketching is a social sketching group and this workshop will give you hands-on training on getting your sketches ready for sharing online and on your mobile devices. The tools are free or inexpensive and will allow you to make adjustments while you are still on location. And the best way to protect and archive your original sketches is to have digital versions of them. Make your sketch images look as good online as they do in your sketchbooks. 

Bring your sketchbooks with your smart phone and Kordt will show you how you can make both work for you better and more easily. You get to work directly on your sketches from the Sketch Seminar and be sharing with the Urban Sketchers group before your next workshop. You can see how Kordt fixed one of my sketches (left).

Kordt says, “I really hope that the simple tips and tricks I’m sharing will increase the number of great sketches that we see on in the Urban Sketchers Chicago group like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.”

Kordt, how should people sign up for your workshop? “Good question and an important one. First, go to the website https://chicagosketchseminar.wordpress.com and click on the “registration” tab, then click on the “BOOKWHEN” type, it will take you to the list of workshops. My workshop is WS 10 on Saturday afternoon from 2:30pm to 5:30pm and Sunday morning 10:00am to 1:00pm.”

Chinatown Revisited

Sunday, I went sketching with the Urban Sketchers Chicago group.  It was really wonderful to meet some sketchers I had not met before.  We revisited Chinatown, where we had sketched last year.  We are thinking this should be a yearly event.

I arrived early (really?), so while I waited for the others to appear, I did a few sketches, sitting on Cermak Road, facing north.  The first sketch is a portion of the Three Happiness Restaurant, and the view up Wentworth Avenue.

(Pencil, Micron pen, watercolor in Holbein post card book)

Next, I sketched people who were passing by or standing around.  I loved the young woman who was listening to a tour group leader giving a lecture.  The young woman kept fidgeting her legs around, while keeping her arms crossed.  Even from across the street, it was obvious that she was bored out of her mind!

(Pencil, Micron pen, watercolor)

The next two sketches were done at Chinatown Square, a block or two north of Cermak Road, on the west side of Wentworth Avenue.  We were happy to discover that there was a Chinatown Festival happening – and it was very festive!  We were entertained with music, young children dancing, many different people and even a procession of monks.  I set up my little, bum-numbing stool, and began to draw.

When I finished the drawing of the horse sculpture, I acquired a small fan club – two young girls, around 10 and 11 years old, and their twin cousins, the most adorable four-year-old boys.  The older girl asked me to draw Angry Birds.  (I had to use my phone to find an Angry Bird to draw – the red one, of course!)  Then the boys had to have Angry Birds as well.  One of the boys asked me to draw a big house.  (The house I drew could only have been inhabited with stick figures!)  While I was drawing and looking down at the paper, one of the boys kept putting his face under mine, bringing our foreheads together, and staring into my eyes.  I’m not sure what that was about!  Then the younger girl asked me to draw flowers.  I drew everything and gave them the pictures.  They hung around for about an hour – a very appreciative audience – and I enjoyed it immensely!

(Both pages done with pencil, Staedtler pens, Micron pen, and watercolor 

in an Arches Travel Book, 140 lb. paper)

I copied the symbol for “horse” from the base of the sculpture.  Then, the oldest member of my fan club asked if she could draw the “new” symbol on my page.  I was delighted with that!  All in all, a great day with the Urban Sketchers!

Sketchcrawl at Lincoln Park Zoo 7/21/13

Lovely day for being outside sketching.

Used the Caran D'ache watercolor leads on this one.

Ink and wash

Watercolor with no preliminary drawing. I really like doing it this way.