201807, 08, 09 Zwarte boekjes

keeping small notebooks in an ‘always carry a sketchbook’ - kind of way

Draw in trains.

‘Daycards’ are not expensive, If you ever find yourself stuck on what to draw, travel to the city for a day. It's not even about going anywhere in particular. Simply observing people is a nice enough thing to spend a day on.

Drawing small

Small sketchbooks do not let you draw all the details. More - quickly becomes - too much, too busy. Ask yourself, what's the simplest way to make this read?

Drawing from observation is tough!

Outside you have no internet tutorials to fall back on. Close your books and see how much you’ve remembered.

Take Notes

Remember that; sketches are notes you take for yourself. So that you don’t forget. That's all a sketch has to do. Record interesting shapes and patterns. To flesh out as fully finished drawings later.

Learning good habits.

Old buildings in the Netherlands, the kind you'd see in postcards, have little glass panels. I'm so used to drawing these that I've caught myself drawing windows with panels even when they aren't there. This is a shortcut that stems from misremembering the line you want to draw: the line you Do draw is a guess or assumption.

ik weet niet precies hoe dit werkt, maar als het zo is dat je gebruik maakt van de vormen die je eerder al geleerd hebt, leer ze dan correct. neem de moeite 'to put in place a set of abstractions that you can then use in your quick sketches'. Better to get it right the first time.

Pen + water

I've taken a liking to ink drawings. Ink and water is somewhere in-between drawing and painting: met potlood teken je lijtjes en met inkt teken je de schaduwen. it's quick like a pencil sketch but you think and work as if you're painting; not in lines but in mass and shape. raam er echt uit ziet. Draw slow, observe carefully.