Process: Bayou Sketch

In urban sketching, the sketching process can be as unique as the location being sketched. Unlike a landscape painter, whom can set up an easel in the middle of a meadow and paint mountains at a leisurely pace for hours on end, urban sketching can sometimes allow for only minimal sketching timeframes. For my sketches, I carve a little time out of the little time I have for lunch, usually from ten to twenty minutes. To sketch complex buildings, like the Bayou building, located in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood here in Washington, DC, I scope out a spot, figure out how much detail I can sketch in a single section, and identify a detail where I can finish up on one day, and then pick up on the next. As for the spot to sketch from, I need to remember the exact spot, which is usually something like "along the fence, third post in, left foot on the sidewalk crack." In this manner, my sketches can take days or weeks to finish, but this is urban sketching, and to take a little time away from spreadsheets, layouts, and intensive digital work in the middle of the day, then I'm quite fine with that!