Capturing a bit of life in your on-the-spot sketches can be a challenge—people and animals move!
You’ll get plenty of practice working fast and capturing as much as you can in a short amount of time. A sketch needn’t be a finished work you frame and hang on the wall.
Practice on the birds outside your window. A feeder or twelve will give you plenty of opportunity to observe bird life and, sometimes, the local mammals as well. Squirrels and woodchucks seem to enjoy the fallen seeds just as much.
John Muir Laws, author of The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds, suggests just drawing what you can see—if you can’t see it, don’t draw it. Get the overall shapes and don’t worry unduly about detail.
Working quickly in Prismacolor wax-based colored pencils, I only sketched what I could in a short amount of time. I went for the basic shape and then added details back into the overall form as the woodchuck continued to feed. Quick zigzag squiggles worked to suggest volume and shadow.
Look around you, wherever you are—your kitchen, your studio, your backyard or garden. Then think about what truly says “home” to you. What speaks to your heart, right at this moment?
It might be your spouse, your child, your cat. It might be your bookcase or the rows of fresh vegetables in your garden. Perhaps it’s your woodstove, fireplace or chiminea on a cold day. It might be your house itself! Whatever it is, sketch that and put your heart and soul into it.
Laura Murphy Frankstone finds colored pencils to be excellent for capturing subjects that move quickly. Here, a friend’s greyhounds lounge for a moment before bounding off. Look how Laura caught a sense of contained energy with those kinetic lines.
Swedish artist Nina Johansson often sketches the neighborhood surrounding her urban apartment in graphite. The medium is particularly well suited to capturing subtleties of tonal value in a setting like this.
The gorgeous color and feeling of summery light made me grab my journal and my paints. My cat was sound asleep in the birdbath, so I captured her shape very simply and let the bright, strong color carry the image.