Fredericksburg Sketches

A visual Celebration of our community

By Paula Raudenbush

In the cold, dreary months of winter it's often hard to sketch outside. It's also hard to find things in the house that I haven't sketched many times. So when interesting things happen inside it's fun to sketch something new.

This was one of the Sunday afternoon concerts at St. George's Episcopal Church and because I didn't want to drag out all my watercolors, I decided to just use pencil. Sketching musicians is tricky because they keep moving but, unlike athletes, they do sort of stay in one place and their movements are repeated so if you miss them the first time, just wait and they'll do it again. Still they are harder to capture than the audience members so sit relatively still. And, of course, I couldn't resist drawing a bit of the architecture. Nothing is drawn to scale and it was done very quickly but I mainly wanted to capture the event.

Don't let the cold weather keep you from sketching. There's plenty to draw inside. If you can't get to a concert, just draw your kitchen table, or the dog sleeping by your chair. There's always something to sketch. Cheers!

Paula Raudenbush is an admin for the Fredericksburg Chapter of the Urban Sketchers and maintains a studio in Libertytown Arts Workshop.