Sketching fast and loose

I’ve read that quick sketching is a great way to learn to draw the most important things and lines in a drawing.

By forcing yourself to draw quickly, you’ll need to find the areas and features you want to focus on, and decide to leave some other things behind.

So I decided I would do some speed sketches, using no more time than 5 to 10 minutes drawing. Then I added a quick layer of watercolour, much in the same style.

I’m hoping to get the courage to do some sketches (and paintings) outside, but for now I used some photographs from a 7 week trip we did in Southeast Asia in 2016.

I remember a lot from the actual location where we took the photos, so I decided that this would be the next best thing.

Anyway, the first one is from Mui Né in Vietnam, when we were waiting for a pickup truck to come get ut for a hiking trip.

While we waited for our car, we sat in a small café, watching other tourists leave in groups for the trip.

I can still remember the sounds and movements that surrounded us.

The photo itself looked like this:

My quick sketch ended up like this:

It was fun doing these kind of sketches, as it took away some of the pressure I feel with paintings to make them worthwhile.

It got very green, though, (and the wrong type of green) because i didn’t wash the brush well enough. But what the hell, it’s just a quick sketch.

I only used my small pocked box of watercolours.

The next one was a photo from when we came to the island Koh Rong Samloem, Cambodia in a ferry boat.

Our first view of the island was a man in a smaller boat waving to us as it bounced around on the waves coming in to shore.

It looked like this:

My quick sketch ended up like this:

Again, the colours aren’t very precise.

But this was all about working fast and loose.

So, to sum up, I’ll be doing a lot more of these in moments where I’m short on time.

So, on to the next!