Taylor Wilson Interior Design Portfolio: Urban Sketchers: Olympic Sculpture Park

Group shot at Olympic Park

Sketching at Olympic Sculpture Park gave me multiple opportunities to sketch many different views and sculptures. A highlight of the day was to accompanied by the Urban Sketchers group in Seattle. After sketching for a while, I walked around to talk to some of the sketchers and ask them about their work. One woman I talked to had just started her sketch of a sculpture. The drawing consisted of a simple outline of the sculpture and a little bit of the landscape, but from there she started to add some color with water color. I thought that would be a great way for me to try to add color to my sketches as the rendering markers tend to bleed. She directed me to a local Seattle art store with great supplies, and recommended Dan Smith Inc watercolors, even just the basic blue, red and yellow would work.

Another woman I approached had a very detailed drawing of a sculpture at the end of a tree covered path. Like the previous sketcher, she had did not have too much drawing detail, but added detail and depth with the colors she used. She said she spends about 10 minutes doing the line work and then 20 to 30 minutes adding in color. She was using a Pentallic watercolor paper sketch book and watercolor. Flipping through her book, I was amazed at how much detail and how lifelike she was able to make her drawing with the use of watercolor.

Throughout the sketch crawl, I completed four sketches. I would say they were more incomplete as I wish I had more time to add detail and possibly try to use watercolor on them, I think this calls for a future trip to Seattle. During the day, I worked on my cross hatching skills to add value and shading to objects, measuring buildings with my pencil, and rendering markers for color. My favorite part about getting to work with the Urban Sketchers was to see their love and passion in art. They enjoy sketching so much they get together to have sketch crawls and share their work with the community. Also, finding inspiration in everyday life is a beautiful thing, and they inspire me to become better at my craft.