Capture the Moment

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Publishers of Architecture, Art, and Design Gordon Goff: Publisher www.oroeditions.com info@oroeditions.com Published by ORO Editions Copyright © Jim Lammers 2020 Text and Images © Jim Lammers 2020 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying of microfilming, recording, or otherwise (except that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Graphic Design: James Monroe Design LLC Text: Jim Lammers ORO Project Coordinator: Kirby Anderson 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition Library of Congress data available upon request. World Rights: Available ISBN: 978-1-951541-27-9 Color Separations and Printing: ORO Group Ltd. Printed in China. International Distribution: www.oroeditions.com/distribution ORO Editions makes a continuous effort to minimize the overall carbon footprint of its publications. As part of this goal, ORO Editions, in association with Global ReLeaf, arranges to plant trees to replace those used in the manufacturing of the paper produced for its books. Global ReLeaf is an international campaign run by American Forests, one of the world’s oldest nonprofit conservation organizations. Global ReLeaf is American Forests’ education and action program that helps individuals, organizations, agencies, and corporations improve the local and global environment by planting and caring for trees.


Table of Contents PREFACE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 WHAT IS SKETCHING? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Artist’s License. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Imagination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Sketching Using the Right Side of The Brain. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 BLACK & WHITE SKETCHING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Pencil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Pen & Ink. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 COLOR SKETCHING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Color Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Watercolor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Colored Pencil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

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viii • CAPTURE THE MOMENT SKETCHING BUILDINGS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Composition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Elevations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 One-Point Perspective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Two-Point Perspective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Multiple-Point Perspective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Shade and Shadow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Reflections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Landscapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Cityscapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Parts & Pieces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Sky. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Windows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Towers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Skylines & Distant Views. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 KEEP ON SKETCHING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 RESOURCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125


INTRODUCTION We race through life so fast that our grasp of things is often only skin-deep. Maybe it’s time to slow down a bit and take a look at what we’re missing. Sketching is a great way to really see things. We are all able to sketch, even those who say, “I can’t draw a straight line.” This is a book for travelers who always say they’d like to draw some of the new and unusual sights they see, but don’t know where to begin. Sketching takes just two things—courage and perseverance. •

Courage, because you’re committing your talent to paper for the world to see—maybe not the world but perhaps your friends and certainly the passerby who takes a slight detour to have a look. You are baring your soul, but remember sketching is not about making a work of art that you can hang in a museum. It’s not competitive, it’s just for you and, if you like it, then it’s a good sketch.

Perseverance, because you will need practice. At first, it’ll take dozens of drawings before you find your groove and start making sketches you like. Eventually, you’ll be able to set all the technical aspects of sketching on the back burner and let your right brain take over—that’s when the fun begins. This book will be a help to you, but the only way to learn how to sketch is to keep on sketching.

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2 • CAPTURE THE MOMENT It is also about capturing a moment—seeing something that excites you and putting it down on paper so that you can look at it later and relive the experience, the day, the adventure. A sketch is the best souvenir. I’ll show you some tricks and techniques to make sketching easier. A sketch fixes us in time and space—it is an experience all by itself. I can remember when I made a particular sketch, who I was traveling with, the strangers that sidled up to have their pictures taken with me, and the kids who were enthralled with watching me sketch. Sure, a photo picks up all the details, but a sketch captures the feeling, the essence. It forces us to see the details, the relationships, the colors, the people, the sky, the weather—in short, the spirit of the moment. Traveling provides a great opportunity for sketching–not only because of the new sights–but also because we’re free from work and the cares that are. You don’t need to see everything there is to see in a new place, just pick out something that impresses you and get to know it well by sketching it. When we travel, we don’t want to follow the same itinerary as everyone who’s come before us. We want to feel like explorers and adventurers in uncharted territory. That’s exactly what sketching can bring to the travel experience; our sketches reflect our own individuality. The first part of this book introduces you to sketching from observation and the different media available. The second part focuses on the techniques of drawing buildings, cityscapes, landscapes, and people in colored pencil. The art of perspective is covered in detail. The emphasis is on buildings because they reflect culture, history, a way of life, and cityscapes. Landscapes and people are emphasized because they are the context. Exercises are scattered throughout, along with plenty of examples. Let’s start sketching!

Old Faithful Inn Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming


WHAT IS SKETCHING? Sketching is putting your impressions of something down on paper quickly, making a two-dimensional drawing out of three-dimensional objects and making them appear real. A sketch is a 5 to 15-minute rough draft sometimes made as a preliminary study for a more detailed drawing. The pursuit of volume is of paramount intrigue in the art of drawing—the hand plotting out a web of lines to snare a three-dimensional form on a twodimensional plane. —Sue Ferguson Gussow Sketching is all about learning how to see—details, shadows, windows, reflections, people. After sketching for a few years, you’ll come to look at a scene and ask yourself, “How would I depict this?” You’ll begin to see things you didn’t notice at first glance. There is a tremendous difference between seeing a thing without a pencil in your hand and seeing it while drawing it. —Leonardo Da Vinci We sketch from observation. We don’t create images out of our heads, instead we render them the way we see them, the way we feel about them.

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4 • CAPTURE THE MOMENT People ask me how I know what to sketch, and I say there are two categories of sketches. First, you may be sitting at a sidewalk café enjoying a latte while waiting for your traveling companions to join you. If you sit there long enough and look around, you’ll find something to sketch—a window, a corner of a building, something. The second, and better category, is a building or a street scene which compels you to sketch it. It reaches out and grabs you. Maybe it’s the sunlight, the composition, the beauty of the building, but it turns your head and you sit down to sketch it. Buildings are important to sketch because they are monuments to the way people live or lived at a particular time in history and what they valued. Finally, sketching is about the symbiosis between eye, mind, and hand. It’s training your hand to do what your brain tells it to do. It’ll take practice, but you’re in control. Get the muscle memory working.

Artist’s License The beauty of sketching is that you can draw just what you want to show in your sketch, and leave out the telephone poles, scaffolding, power lines, and other distractors. You can alter the sun angle and location if it doesn’t suit you—put the shadows on the left side rather than the right. You can increase the contrast, change the color, add a blue sky instead of a gray one, add people and objects. I exaggerate the essence—it’s a sketch after all. Realism is for the camera. I try to make it memorable, omitting the nonessential and keeping it modest. A sketch is not a rendering, detailed representation, or illustration. In sketching—as in life—keep to the simple. Sketch rapidly, the self-imposed time constraint will help you prioritize what to show in your sketch and what you want to leave out. This will also help you get to the right side of your brain, which is where you need to be when sketching. It helps you stay in the moment. This isn’t about creating a perfect work of art. It’s about the experience of observing a moment and trying to capture something about that place and time. —Amber Sausen, President, Urban Sketchers Twin Cities


WHAT IS SKETCHING? • 5

There were so many stupas and temples in Bagan, located in the Mandalay region of Myanmar, that we became stupefied. A quick sketch that cuts to the chase.

Imagination When making a sketch it’s essential to know when to quit. Working on and on beyond a certain point doesn’t necessarily make the sketch any better. In fact, it may just make it muddier and less interesting. Something must be left to the imagination of the viewer, and that’s best done with a quick sketch. It’s important to draw not from our own imagination or experience, but from what we see and what we feel.


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Colored Pencil Colored pencil sketching is similar to watercolor sketching only easier. You don’t have to wait for the paint to dry; you’re much more in control of the outcome. And you can erase if the color is wrong or too strong. I use Prismacolor pencils, which come in an almost infinite selection of colors. I sharpen both ends, one to a fine point and the other to a wedge. I designed a pencil holder and my sweet wife Sheryl stitched it together. I can tie it to my knee so it is easy to find the right color. It rolls up and fits in my jacket pocket along with the 5” x 7” sketch pad.


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Colored pencil allows me to overlay colors. Note that the ocean blue is really two blues, some black, and a little green. The building, fence, and rocks were outlined with a 05 Micron pen.

This sketch was made in Gilleleje, a charming fishing village on the north coast of Zealand in Denmark. You can see Sweden is in the distance.


COLOR SKETCHING • 37

Stadhuset or city hall in Stockholm. I started with a light pencil outline of the building, followed by an ink outline with a 03 Micron pen. Then a light color wash of orange over the entire building, and finally a darker orange was added on the sunny side and gray was added on the shady side. Lastly, some red to punch up the tower.

No matter how many colored pencils you carry you’ll never have exactly the right color. Overlaying colors can help get the match you want, or just don’t worry about it.


SKETCHING BUILDINGS • 67

Shade and Shadow Shade is generally defined as the portion of a building that doesn’t get direct light. Shadow is cast on other things because the building blocks the sun. Shadow is usually darker than shade. The amount of shadow depends on the angle of the sun. The roofs and other horizontal surfaces, whether in shade or shadow, are usually lighter because they always get more light than vertical wall surfaces. It might truthfully be said that the success of a sketch depends more upon the rendering of its shadows than upon any other factor. Shadows define form. —Ernest Watson Longer shadows in the early morning or evening, shorter shadows at noon. For purposes of illustration the following diagram assumes that the sun direction is perpendicular to the observer. Note that the lines in the shadow go to the same vanishing point as the portion of the building that they represent. Of course, in a sketch you can have the sunlight coming at any angle and direction that you choose, you just have to be consistent. On the walls that are in shade you’ll need to overlay the color with black or gray.


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The trading post at Jennis Bay Marina, British Columbia, Canada. Shadow helps define the log floats that the building sits on.

Dating from 1772, Kakkehoved Ă˜stre Fyr in Gilleleje, Denmark, is one of very few preserved coal-fired lighthouses in the world. It was a pleasure to sketch after biking to the site. The shadows are not nearly as precise as in the previous diagram.

The Lighthouse Bistro in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. The railing shadows help to give depth to this sketch.


SKETCHING BUILDINGS • 87

Cityscapes Sketching buildings is okay but a piazza with some street life in the foreground makes it more interesting and gives more depth to the sketch.

This is my first sketch made in the Plaza de Santo Domingo, my favorite plaza in Cartagena, Colombia. I was attracted by the intense blue Caribbean sky contrasting with the whitewashed building. Plus, the need to rest my feet and have a lemonade to help me cool down. The people and automobile give depth to the sketch. They, of course, needed to be drawn in first. Note, layering of sky colors.


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This is a quirky sketch of the Sultan Mosque in Singapore. It’s one of the comparatively few nonmodern buildings in this wonderful city. The car, the people, and the lamp post give some depth. I was at a sidewalk café rehydrating on this rather warm day.

Speedsketch of the harbor in Reykjavík, Iceland. Note the foreground, middle ground, and distant views.



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