Two weeks ago, I traveled to Palma de Mallorca with no time to draw or enjoy the beaches by the Mediterranean Sea at 100%. Even so, I managed to get some late afternoons on the beach and half a dozen really quick drawings. Thinking about this trip I realized that the faster a drawing is, the more you can capture what surrounds us, well, sometimes it’s not like that and my drawings of this wonderful island demonstrate this, much to my regret. They are really captures of fleeting moments of my day to day, quick and concise drawings because the time to draw was very short, so short that sometimes the drawings were unfinished. Many Urban sketchers argue that this is what a sketch should be, but I like to prolong the pleasure of looking, seeing, drawing and painting. That’s what characterizes my sketches, but sometimes I have to be very fast because time makes it so. Am I a fake Urban sketcher? Do my sketches, by losing focus, also lose the improvement in drawing skills and the increase in spontaneity and freshness in my sketches? Perhaps. The most knowledgeable in Urban sketching advocate that a sketch should be of reduced dimensions, without great details and just suggesting some details in some parts of the drawing, the tools should be reduced to a minimum as well as the color palette.I agree to a certain extent, but we cannot forget the pleasure and joy that comes from these moments of total concentration when trying to sketch a view, an object or a person. Thus, each Urban sketcher must be left with his modus operandi and let him be happy while sketching, whether faster or slower, the important thing is to capture the view, the object or people. This is my opinion.Anyway , here are some notes of what I managed to draw. I hope the next trip will be less busy and I’ll have time for urbansketching the way I like to do it.
Final words- Thanks for checking out this post and I sincerely hope I have managed to clarify a little more what an urbansketch should be and have not, on the contrary, confused your mind. Thank you
Paula Lourenço sketching 