On Saturday, February 13, the New York City Urban Sketchers visited Staunton, Virginia, the Queen of the Shenandoah Valley. I didn’t make it to the morning session, but managed to join the group in the afternoon, and gave myself the earworm of John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads, sung by Olivia Newton-John — yes, her cover, it was from a Studio Ghibli anime, I can’t help it, it’s one of my favorite movies.
I never deny being weird.
“Almost heaven, West Virginia,
Blue Ridge Mountain, Shenandoah River,
Life is old there, older than the trees,
Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze”
I decided to use fountain pen, colored pencils, and watercolors in Etchr Lab hot press watercolor sketchbooks — yes, two, because waiting for watercolor to dry is zzzz. One of my goals, as always, is to get an impression of the photograph reference as quickly as possible, just as I would when I’m on site, so I work on my speed. If I slow down, I fiddle too much and the results are usually…crappier than crap.
I have to decide quickly which shapes and values will best describe the scene. The latter is my greatest challenge: some folks like to carve time to make value studies, but I am made of very little patience despite my advocacy of this practice, and start immediately on color. Because even on Zoom and working from photographic references, I pretend I’m actually on site, and give myself maybe a half hour or so for each sketch. Sometimes it works. Often it’s just…um…practice.
The sketches follow (clicking each image will open a larger version in a new window/tab of your browser).
The Staunton skyline, based on this photograph.
Based on this photograph by John Bilous.
Based on this photograph by John Bilous.