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Sunday, February 27, 2011

Illustrator's Sketch Day

Yesterday our SCBWI illustrators packed up our sketchbooks and pencils and headed to the San Jose Mission here in San Antonio.  This is a reoccurring event for our group, gathering at different locations in the city to sketch for a few hours, chat and enjoy being out of the studio.

The mission is a beautiful place, while the Alamo is the most famous mission in San Antonio, the San Jose is the most impressive.  It's a massive fort, still mostly intact.  And it also the site of the oldest church west of the Mississippi river.

Our Sketch Days are loosely based on the International Sketch Crawl idea.  Check them out - you may decide to start a sketch day of your own.

Our first Illustrator's Day was at the zoo, our next one will be at the Botanical Gardens.  We try to pick visually interesting places where we can also sketch families & kids with the attractions.

I took way better photos than sketches, but that's okay.  It was good to get out of the studio and meet up with other artists.  Not every day has to have a finished product - it's okay to enjoy the process with no end results.

Before we started our sketch session local painter Terry Puckett gave us a refresher on perspective.  She brought along a book on Maurice Utrillo to share with us.  I had never seen his work before.  I love his colors, playfulness of line and strong perspectives - he was a bit obsessed with one point perspective in his work. 

Click here to read a short biography on Utrillo and here for a list of his paintings online.

2 comments:

  1. Love the moody shots of the mission, and a refresher course on perspective is a great idea (I could use one). Botanical Gardens: awesome!

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