Mill City Museum with MetroSketchers

Finally... a gorgeous day to sketch outside! Today's sketch-outing was at the Mill City Museum - a must see for any visitor to the city (and this native sadly admits that she has not actually been inside...).  Case and point - sidetracked by the beautiful weather outside and the old mill foundations along the river make for finding a quiet peaceful place. The other motive for sketching outside was that inside we could only use pencils. So we (Claire and myself) found a few nice stones down by the river to sit down and sketch on.

A few months ago (about six I think) I purchased a small sketch pad of hot press water color paper as a test because as much as I love the "tooth" on my Moleskines, I wanted to try something smoother. And per usual, it sat on the shelf unused because I was too accustomed to other materials. I'm not sure if something in me snapped as I walked out the door this morning, but curiosity got the better of me and I grabbed the unused hot press pad. Needless to say, I do believe I am quite happy with the results... nice blending with the watercolors, and a smooth paper that does not distract from the image.

Right before the watercolor is added.

 

Everybody's sketchbooks all lined up:) Great inspiration!

Winter Weekends at Indeed Brewing

All of these long winter days has lead us to find and explore outlets that get us out of the apartment. With my husband looking at starting a brewery and my pending Architecture Registration Exams we've taken to a form of "hanging out" at local breweries.  More than just enjoying a handcrafted beverage, he gets to try any amount of any beer he wants (usually while chatting with other beer fanatics), whilst I, as a designated sober cab, get to enjoy the opportunity to sketch this trend. With all the new local breweries popping up it's quite a challenge to catch them all!

In architectural drawing there's a constant argument over how to represent people. Should they be shown "hyper-realistic," do they distract from the space, or add to it? Should they be shown as implied, such that the focus is on the building.  Every architect has their own (widely varying) opinion on this. Urban sketching by contrast focuses on drawing on site and capturing the moment as you see it.  In this case I hope I've captured a semblance of both - that is drawing on location and on the spot, but influenced by the desire to find this balance between architectural space and the people who inhabit it.

Gold Medal Park

Monday evening I had the opportunity to get together with the Visual Journal Collective through the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts. The event for the evening was sketching outside on site (a personal favorite), in preparation for a Minnesota State Fair sketching get together. The sketch location was Gold Medal Park right next to the Guthrie on the Mississippi River. Above is my sketch for the evening.

Sitting at the top of the park I almost forget how much of Minneapolis is really visible. With the Mississippi River, the Stone Arch Bridge, the Guthrie, and a park setting, it was hard to decide what to draw for the night. While walking around the park, my eye caught sight of this old building across the river.  I really wish I knew what it is. Please do let me know if you get a chance, so I can add a name to my sketchbook.

I did want to take a few seconds here and talk about process, as everything takes time and thought to develop and unfold.

1. This is what I was able to draw by the end of the gathering (by the time it got dark).  In general I like to make a bunch of quick pencil lines to get an overall idea of perspective, scale, proportions, and composition. At this point I try to not get too carried away in details.  Once I got home and looked at the sketch again, I decided to add the bold boarder.

2. Erase all those pencil lines! Graphite never really stays on paper anyways. Once everything had been inked over, I erased all the pencil lines and started to add color with the sky.

3. Hmmm... more color and more detail.  Windows always seem to be worth the effort in drawing every little mullion. From here I kept adding more layers of color and then decided how to do shade and shadow (or just shade in this case).

If you get the chance to compare the end image to the photo, there are two key things that were intentionally changed to create a more interesting image.  One being a more exaggerated perspective (from my view the perspective was too flat, I thought something a bit more dynamic might be more interesting), and I changed the direction the sun was coming from to let the light façade lead the eye across the page.

Seriously though, what is the name of this building?