When I teach in Provence, one of our group excursions takes us to the beautiful town of L’Isle sur la Sorgue where we set up to sketch across the river from one of the main streets in the historic area. Here’s the view….
The sketch I did in 2017 was a very literal rendering of the shops and cafes across the way…
Filled with details, it took a long time to draw and paint. It faithfully captures the view, and there are parts of it that I like, but I don’t feel it has a lot of life to it.
My sketch from September 2024, though…that’s a whole other story!
It’s wild, wacky, and a little bit crazy. And it’s a LOT more fun!
This is a project I call a “Wacky World” sketch, and I really enjoy springing it on my students toward the end of a week-long workshop when everyone is feeling a bit overwhelmed by all they’ve seen, done, and sketched. After trying so hard to do their best with their earlier sketches, suddenly they are given permission to not care about rendering a scene accurately. It’s a real shock to the system!
My rules for a Wacky World sketch are as follows:
- All drawn lines are skewed off of vertical or horizontal.
- Colors are bright.
- Shapes are simplified.
- Irregularities are exaggerated.
The idea is to relax and enjoy going a little bit crazy in your sketchbook. To forget about perspective and proportions and color theory, and instead revel in the joy of being creative and stepping outside the unwritten rules that generally guide your sketching.
Almost everyone in my class of fifteen did a Wacky World sketch that day, and I think they all enjoyed playing instead of trying to create a great piece of art.
For some, it was a game changer…
Personally, I love doing this exercise. It allows me to put all my perfectionist tendencies aside and focus on “drawing wrong”. (It actually takes quite a bit of effort to get my brain to tell my hand to draw crooked, inaccurate lines!)
Wacky World sketches make me happy. I tend to do them when I’m feeling lighthearted and excited about a place I’m visiting, and I think my happiness and excitement ends up shining through in these bright, colorful, crazy sketches.
There’s a dramatic difference between the two sketches shown above. It’s hard to believe they were done by the same person, isn’t it?
Which one is your favorite, and why?
I hope you’ll put a visit to Wacky World on your calendar for the coming weeks, and try this idea for yourself. It just might end up being the most fun you’ve ever had with your sketchbook!
6 Comments
I like them both! That’s what I love so much about urban sketching in sketchbooks. We get to experiment and try different styles and techniques. I often spend considerable time doing a fairly accurate sketch, but then when I outline with ink and add the watercolour, I get a lot more playful. My lines become more exaggerated and loose, then with the watercolour I don’t always stay in the lines, instead dropping in colours and moving the paint around on the page so the end result is much more relaxed and playful. I always love to see how different artists will approach the same scene. Looking forward to your next blog post!
Peri
You’re so right, Peri, that’s one of the best things about working in a sketchbook, feeling free to try new things instead of feeling like each page is a precious little gem. Every once in awhile, I challenge myself to sketch every day for a month and use a different technique or material for each sketch. It’s so much fun trying out new pens or setting a limitation for myself, like drawing with my non-dominant hand. It helps me break away from my tendency to try to make every page a masterpiece.
I like them both but because most of my drawings are more wonky than realistic so I am happy to see drawings that are wacky.
Hurray for wonkiness!
I too like them both. This illustrates something that I think has been going on in the FB art world for quite a while—the tension between creating accurate, realistic art and something that is not. I have seen people debating whether or not a piece of artwork is “good” simply by whether or not it accurately represents something. Then there are all the requests for how to “loosen up,” which usually results in less-than accurate rendering. A third topic that comes up quite a bit is style—how to get it, when to limit oneself to a particular medium, method, set of techniques, or subject matter in order to preserve one’s style, and whether or not an established artist should depart from her style or try new things. Recently, I talked with a potter whose work I love. He is burnt out. He even took a stint working at a local casino to see if he’d be better off making a living in a different way! He needs a change, but I challenged him to try and find it in his creative world. “Oh,” he said, “but then people like you who love something specific about my work would be disappointed.” Hmmm. I fall on the side of trying new things, of pushing boundaries, of maybe incorporating new ideas into a seasoned dance that everyone recognizes. So, even though I LOVE your established sketch style, Leslie, and wish I could be you, I’m going to go with loving the wacky one even more because I can imagine how it stretched your creativity, your choice of lines, shapes, colors, etc.
Thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful comment, Dottie. What your potter friend doesn’t realize is that there will always be an audience for his work, even if it changes. New people will come along who like the new style better than the old. He needs to face the fear, create for himself, and trust the process. There’s a reason he’s burnt out – he’s been creating for others instead of himself. We have to do what excites us and gives meaning to our art practice and our lives. Everything else will fall into place.