For my Saturday morning sketching this past weekend I headed to Briarwood Mall in Ann Arbor. The group I meet with once a month will be there this coming weekend to sketch. Since I won’t be able to join, I went early on a scouting mission.

After wandering the mall looking for my “muse”, I saw Santa’s village down near Von Maur. Perfect, just what I was looking for. I circled the man himself and his green velvet couch-throne and line of eager children then found a choice vantage spot near the little village exit.

For this sketch, I did a rough pencil sketch, inked it, erased the pencil, then started in with ink wash and color. I’ve been using a 20% ink to water wash in a set of water-brushes to do a couple grisaille layers of pure values. I picked this technique up from amazing artist, Steven Reddy.

As I was finishing an older guy hanging out nearby waiting for his grandkids and family was eyeing my sketch. I turned it to him, took out an AirPod, and said, “What do you think, can you tell what it is?” He laughed and said it was really good! He enjoyed seeing me do it and was amazed at how fast I was.

Another woman stopped and asked if she could see what I was doing and commented how much she appreciated seeing art happening. Her daughter saw my sketch and expressed amazement. Always a fun reaction to get!

Connecting with people that appreciate art is a joy I didn’t expect it when I started sketching, but it is a joy.

Until next time!

This is indeed happening. Not just the writing of this first, momentous blog post, but the unending moment of all of creation continues to happen, and that is the this to which I’m cheekily alluding.

The other “this” that is happening is the development of this book, Zen and the Art of Urban Sketching. Creating and publishing this book is a life goal whose purpose is the creation of it as much as the achievement of publishing it will be someday.

“The Path is the Goal” – I read this many years ago as it was the title of a book and the focus of the message. Written by Chögyam Trungpa, it changed the way I looked at the world and led to this post and my love of urban sketching.

I hope you’ll join me on my path, as I use this blog as a place to capture my thoughts and ideas for this book, and to celebrate when it is published.

Let’s be patient, pace ourselves, and get started right away. Like, now.