Lesson 1: Church

Lesson 1: Outdoor Exercise - sketch a church.

St. Mary's Church

I did this sketch while attending the Oktoberfest in Mt. Angel, Oregon. I did four sketches of this church starting with a continuous line drawing to warm up and discover aspects of the building.

Continuous Line

Next, I did some abstracting of shapes. First I looked at the negative spaces of the sky and the windows.

Negative Spaces

Then, I looked at the positive shapes of the building itself.

Positive Spaces

After lunch I switched positions and painted the final sketch head-on using the constructing volumes technique. I drew in pencil first and added watercolor in several washes - the sky, light tones, middle values, and finally the darks.

Constructing Volumes

Next I drove up the hill to Mt. Angel Abbey. I wanted to check out the buildings with the idea of coming back later to sketch them. There are many beautiful buildings on this campus including a famous library designed by Alvar Aalto. It was such a beautiful day I decided to sit down and sketch the church. I used a brush pen first and then added color with Daniel Smith watercolors. It turned out to be my favorite sketch of the day.

Mt. Angel Abbey

Mt. Angel Abbey with sketch

Location Notes:

• I underestimated the dry time between washes. You can see in the positive shapes sketch that the largest dark window bled into the mid tones.
• I'm still having a hard time judging placement on the page.
• Shadows shifted as I drew and painted. What happened is I painted the shadows as they were at the moment. So, the net result is that the painting records the shadow shifts over time and is not a snapshot of a moment in time.
• I saw and wanted to add more detail, but I resisted the temptation.
• I tried mixing juicer mixes of watercolor. This made things a lot easier because I didn't run out of a color and have to stop and remix more.
• Each sketch took longer than anticipated. The entire exercise took me over two hours to complete.
• I lost track of time and became oblivious to my surroundings including the people around me. A few people walked up behind me to look at what I was doing and surprised me when they made a comment. They were all complimentary by the way.

Jim