During a family vacation in Maine earlier this summer, I escaped for a few hours to nearby Camden, Maine, to do a little sketching. Camden is a beautiful little town in the midcoast region, a vibrant community with a bustling Main Street lined with historic brick buildings and a picture-perfect harbor.
It was a hot summer day when I opened up my sketchbook and began to draw. People glanced my way occasionally, but only a few stopped to chat. Mostly, I was left in peace to focus on my drawing.
I started on the left side and worked my way across the two-page spread, blocking in the large shapes of the buildings in pencil first, then inking the drawings and adding details.
When sketching, I often intentionally wiggle my hand a bit to make the lines more irregular, as shown in the close-up, above. This gives the sketch a looser, more casual look, and I think it makes the drawing a lot more interesting to look at. With their wiggly lines and irregular shapes, the resulting sketches look less like an architectural rendering and more like a quick impression of the scene.
But, in the end, this sketch was anything but quick! It probably took me about an hour and a half to do the drawing, which isn’t bad for such a complex scene, but, when it came time to paint it, the process seemed endless.
All that brick! And all those windows! (49 in all, if you count the glass doors and transoms, too.)
And the signs!
Because I love lettering styles and signage, I had decided to include close-ups of all of the shop signs, which had to be carefully drawn back in my studio (no wiggly lines here!) To color the lettering, I used a combination of watercolor, fineliner pens, and Gellyroll gel pens.
This “quick” sketch of Main Street had turned into quite a project, but I just took my time and worked on it here and there in the weeks after I had returned home from our trip.
It was easy to pop into the studio for ten or twenty minutes at a time and add some texture to the bricks or paint the merchandise in a couple of windows.
The last step in finishing it off was to add the “Camden” title. Whew! Finally done.
But it’s not really finished, because I had continued drawing the west side of Main Street on the following page …
So I have more signs to draw and buildings to paint.
And the next day, I went back and started drawing the east side of the street.
I ran out of time before I could finish the entire block, so I guess I’ll just have to go back again next year. (Sketching retreat in Maine, anyone?)
This is the reality of travel sketching for me. I always end up having to complete pages later at home. But that’s okay. There’s a lot to be said for working at a leisurely pace in the comfort of my studio. As much as I enjoy the excitement of working on location, it’s much easier to do lettering, signage, and fussy details at my work table.
The important thing is that I took the time to capture a memory and experience the joy of the moment when I made the drawing. I got something down on paper, and that’s a heck of a lot better than just thinking about sketching but doing nothing, or snapping a photo and promising myself that I’ll sketch it later.
Seize the moment. Draw what you love. You’ll be happy you did.
One Comment
Leslie,
This is such a wonderful post! Thanks so much for sharing it with us! It is so you and so Camden!
I am in to go to Camden to sketch next year! I love Maine!