Peter at his Toulouse Demonstration with the sketchers

Urban Sketcher’s Symposium Demonstration with Peter Rush

I snuck into the Peter Rush‘s demonstration. I was at a neighbouring demonstration and I wasn’t enjoying it, and I heard laughter at Peter’s demonstration so thought that would be more fun. So I gently sidled over to his group, and nobody seemed to notice. As the demo had already started, I edged closer to where Peter was standing so that I could see what he was doing and talking about. I walked past a seated sketcher who was drawing a really graphic version of the street scene – I told him how fabulous it was, and what talent he had. It wasn’t until I looked back at him that I realised it was Len Grant a sketcher from the UK who I follow and admire. Fan-girl moment!

It’s Not Beautiful Why Did You Draw That?

Peter demonstrated his approach to simplification of a street scene, by sketching it as a collection of smaller elements – light signs, and posts etc., and then he built his sketch out from there. The buildings and vehicles in the background were simplified, and were there to add context, but the really stars of the show were the ugly bits of street furniture.

My First Demonstration Sketch

It was a really inspirational demonstration, and as soon as I was sketching the first warm up sketch I knew this was an approach I’d use in the future. I think one of the keys to success in this style of sketching is to pay special attention to obtaining a sense of depth. I didn’t achieve that in my sketch so it looks flat and one dimensional, but I still like the crazy mess of everything going on in this small section of the street and road in front of us.

So by mastering the use of tonal shading and colour to differentiate the foreground, mid ground, and background elements, you’d be able to elevate this style of sketch from a collection of doodles, to a piece of art that captures the interesting and dynamic disorder of a street scene.

My Second Demonstration Sketch

As is my way – I sketched quickly, and turned slightly to sketch another section of the street which had lots of signs. Again, not enough depth, but I love the playfulness of capturing these ugly and utilitarian elements.

Obviously this style of sketching a scene is personal taste. I know lots of urban sketchers prefer to sketch pristine street scenes of buildings without the signs, posts, and rubbish bins. But I love the overwhelming feeling of including all of these elements into a sketch. They’re there, and so I like to sketch them. But there’s no right or wrong. Include them all, omit them all, or just sketch in the ones that compliment the story you’re trying to tell. Whatever floats your creative boat.

Personally, I’m especially drawn to no-entry signs. They’re a good excuse to add a pop of red into an otherwise monochromatic street scene.

Photo Gallery from Peter Rush’s Demonstration

I already mentioned that I was enticed into drawing with thinker line marks in my Dan Archer tutorial, and when I saw Len Grant’s sketch, I realised how dramatic increasing the tonal variety of your line and liberal use of black can create a much more dramatic and impactful sketch. I’m beginning to think I should ditch my 0.05 nibs I’ve been favouring and start looking at creating thicker lines.

Sketch Crawl on the Last Day of the Symposium

I didn’t have any sketching commitments on the last day of the Symposium, so I joined by fabulous sketching-sister, Jo Brown, on a sketch crawl. I met her at the first sketch crawl location in Wilson Square. She was mid-sketch when I arrived, so as I wanted to sit with her, I had to sketch one of the street scenes nearby. I wasn’t inspired. There was just too much detail and the street was too overwhelming, and if I’m being honest, I just didn’t have the patience to sketch the street in front of me.

But then I remember Peter’s approach to sketching a street scheme, and suddenly I was inspired. I started with the signs. I really liked the Hotel signs on either side of the street, which I think gives the scene some balance, without being symmetrical. I tweaked the signs a little, so that one was white lettering on a black background, and the other Hotel sign was the reverse. The flash of yellow diversion signs were eye-catching, so I used them as my main area for using spot colour in the scene. It was also very topical that there were a bunch of sketchers on the pavement sketching the same street scene, and adding them adds a sense of connection as to why I was there.

If I was to draw this again, I’d leave the buildings as line-drawings only and no colour, with the only colour add to the signs and on the foliage in the background. I think this would have been more successful in establishing the three main layers of depth in the scene. There’s other things I’d do differently to improve the composition, but as a travel snapshot captured with a sketch rather than a photograph – this sketch is much more interesting, despite its technical faults.

Getting Inspired by Peter’s Technique now I’m back home

I went to a physio appointment last week, and I usually pop into the neighbouring cafe for a coffee and water after the session, and sketch customers at the other tables. I’ve sketched the surrounding area a couple of times, but it’s not very interesting. But today I gave the street scene another look and had a go at capturing the scene.

Rather than sketching it as it is, I moved elements around to cluster them onto my A6 page. For example the Jazz sign is actually across the main road and down the street a little. The ice cream sign was quite close, but I added in the background as a larger element to fill up that space. And I sketched the big green recycle bin completely out of proportion to make it a lot smaller, because I wanted it as an element in the scene, but I didn’t want it to dominate the scene. I wanted the focus to be the no entry sign and slice of watermelon.

I had so much fun sketching this scene and moving elements about and playing around with perspectives and the size of the individual elements. These would make such memorable travel sketches. Accuracy and technical perfection not required. Just chaos and colour and intrigue.