Urban Sketch or Plein Air Painting? What matters?

Correspondent: Beverly Choltco-Devlin

When I first joined Urban Sketchers-Tacoma, I came to my first outings trying to figure out the transition from formal watercolor painter (who often painted en plein air) to the art of sketching. I had also engaged in urban sketching prior, but that was mostly in pen or pencil, and I certainly did not know the term "urban sketching" as an appellation for what I had been doing on a hit or miss (mostly miss) basis since my first outing to New York City with my high school art class a half century ago.

Recently we had a repeat outing the Seymour Conservatory in Wright Park in Tacoma, a beautiful location. The Conservatory was the location of one of the first Urban Sketch outings I attended a couple of years ago after I had first moved to the Pacific Northwest.

Both outings were meaningful and similar in the camaraderie that takes place, the chilly weather that made my hands shake, wishing I had brought fingerless glove and the challenges of depicting a large glass structure with complex angles and the nuances of representing the translucency of the panels comprising the building.

I present here my two different "sketches" for comparison.

This one was completed in its entirety at that first outing in April 2015:

And here is the second done two months ago in October 2017:

As you can see (hopefully) these two "sketches" depict the same building with very similar conditions (did I mention my cold hands?) in terms of general lighting, point of view, perspective, etc.

The difference is with the treatment of the subject.  I believe, now, that the original work is more a plein air painting; I spent the entire time outside on this one view. The second would more accurately be described as a sketch.

The question is: Does the distinction matter?

I do not believe it does except to me personally. I believe I have grown a lot over the past two and a half years in my art. By observing my fellow sketchers and learning and growing with them, I have discovered the following:

• Every sketch/painting does not have to be perfect. I have learned that it is perfectly fine to let go of my compulsive need to get everything right and accurate
• Quick loose sketches can often be more lively and dynamic than a formal painting
• I need not be terrified of sharing my work among other artists or online
• I have become more bold in my palette, a lesson learned from observing my fellow sketchers over the last years. 
• Each painting or sketch is comprised of a learning experience, whether recognized or not
• When the same subject is drawn or painted more than once we can see subtle changes to the environment we are sketching. These differences, even if we are not cognizant at the time, are evidence of the documentary role that Urban Sketching serves. In this case:

• The large tree was even taller
• The foliage in the front had changed due to fall color.
• Though the days were both sunny, the light was a little different due the first being in spring and the second in fall. 
• The Conservatory wings were now covered in black plastic film. 
• A car was present during the first outing, but not the second 

• My sketching style has become faster and more loose
• It is OK to say: "My hands are cold and numb and I am going inside (or elsewhere) to sketch" which I did. 

Most important perhaps, though, are the changes in my heart and soul and mind about being a part of this amazing group of artists.  At the first outing I was still a bit nervous around my fellow sketchers, intimidated by those who were so accomplished, a bit shy. On this most recent outing I felt a true sense of belonging to this amazing group, a sense of friendship, a sense of simultaneous individuality and common community purpose. 

Does it matter if what we do is classified as a plein air painting or an urban sketch? For purposes of posting on the official website, both these works meet the criteria of both. What is important is that we are creating, we are documenting, we are recording observations and we are communicating through visual means with our fellow artists and the world at large. 

Correspondent: Beverly Choltco-Devlin

Reflections on being an Urban Sketcher

Correspondent: Beverly Choltco-Devlin

My fellow sketchers' work that is polished, together and done quickly and efficiently, as mine never are, still, provides boundless inspiration.  I am learning though and striving to get better.  If it was not for Urban Sketchers - Tacoma, I might have despaired of my art when moving here.  Art has been an abiding passion since childhood, but I have not spent the time needed to excel in the ways of fine artists who have the talent and are able to do art for a living.

Yes, I have completed a handful of works over the past 50 or so years that I can say are finished and which I am proud to say I have created, but I literally have boxes and boxes of work that are, to me, less than successful and, even more often, unfinished.

So... I have learned the following about myself and my art since discovering urban sketching.

• Art is process not product.  Urban sketching has taught me that the process is what counts, the doing, not the finished piece.  
• Urban sketching has cured my paralyzing fear of sharing my work. This beautiful movement glories in letting others see our vision, in learning from viewing others work and celebrating the community of art.
• Documenting my life through urban sketching in a way that is immediate and important, if not immaculate, brings a freshness and a clear sense of what has occurred.  
• I can do art every single day without the imposition and inhibiting wall that comes with believing one must create a work that is complete and formal and finished.  
• Urban sketching has helped me to grind my need for perfection under my heel, to fling my untutored, but undeniably fresh and spontaneous expression to the world.  
• I can learn over time to emulate those whose work I admire, to develop the technical chops I want to acquire, i.e., perspective, shading, cross-hatching, continuity and a sense of style, drawing people with abandon.  
• The support of my fellow urban sketchers, the encouragement and fellowship are truly magical.  No criticism, just creation.
• Most important, and this is, after all, what I believe art to be: I am able to continuously capture the emotions and impressions that accompany the varied events in my life, both simple and profound.  

By example I offer some of what I was able to accomplish in the past two weeks:

Sharing the holiday decorating of my parents' gravestone in NJ this past November with my beloved sisters. We had not all been together for quite a few years since my Dad's tragic and unnecessary death at the hands of one who abused and used him. This was a very emotional visit for us.

An ad hoc outing with some of my fellow urban sketchers to commemorate World AIDs Day in Tacoma where I remembered my beloved friend, Ken Stevenson who died from that horrific disease in 1986.

A spectacular and beautiful Thanksgiving with both our sons courtesy of the generosity of the family of one of our son's partners on San Juan Island. Our beautiful Pacific Northwest is truly remarkable.               

                                                               

And, finally, a fun evening at Daniel Smith studio and Schooner Exact Brewing Company with Gabi Campanario and Stephanie Bower, whose vision for this urban sketching movement has provided me with a salvation that I not thought possible for my love of drawing and art.  

If you love drawing and sketching and would love to join us, please consider attending one of our outings. Your life will change!

  

Lucency in Art and Thought

Correspondent: Beverly Choltco-Devlin

Throughout my life glass has held a strong fascination for me.  I have never been able to rationally understand how something that has substance and mass can be clear or translucent. I have read physics and optics explanations that make no sense to me.  Thus the transparency of glass is, ironically, shrouded in mystery for me.

Serendipitously, I have lived and worked most of my adult life in places renowned for art glass; both in creation and display.  I worked with stained glass as a hobbyist for a while when living in San Francisco.  I let go of that avocation for a number of reasons: the toxicity of the materials, my discomfort at a perceived lack of personal creativity while patiently and sometimes painfully cutting pieces of glass to match someone else’s vision, and a lack of space.  I did not have the opportunity to learn other glass arts and moved in a more committed way toward painting.  After moving to upstate NY,  I fed my love of glass and frequented the Corning Museum of Glass often, always planning to take a course in glass blowing.  The work of Dale Chihuly and the many Czech and Italian glass artists enthralled me.  A friend of mine there is a spectacular glass artist in her own right. 

Somehow, magically, I ended up in the Pacific Northwest and working in Tacoma, birthplace of Chihuly and home to the Museum of Glass. 

This past Wednesday, our Urban Sketchers Tacoma outing took place at the Hotel Murano, a hotel in practice, but a veritable glass museum in its own right. The work that graces this hotel is stunning. The iconic Chihuly is represented, certainly and well.  I felt this time that the connections that abound in my art and life fused here like the beautiful pendants found in their gift shop. 

My first ever outing with Urban Sketchers Tacoma took place at the Hotel Murano over a year ago.  Everyone had made me feel so welcome. I was new to the area and very tentative.  It was a pleasure this past week to revisit the place in which I had made new friends, re-energized my artistic endeavors, and finally felt a sense of belonging after moving away from the comfort of 30+ years in one location. Not least, certainly, I reveled in the experience of viewing the beautiful work here. 

With almost too much to observe, I finally settled on a different perspective from our first outing there, and moved to the 3^rd floor Mezzanine. Parking myself on one of the lush leather sofas, I sketched the view into the spectacular atrium below. Behind me were the large expressive sketches of bowls in colored pencil by Chihuly. Below me was the incredible anemone chandelier, by Italian artist, Massimo Micheluzzi (often mis-attributed to Chihuly). 

Glass and sketching.  Crisp razor edges and flowing lines and translucency.  The sun streaming in to create luscious colors in the many pieces. During this outing, I made the connection  between sketching and painting and art glass. The elusiveness and magical nature of transparency and translucency of watercolor and glass art are not that far removed. 

Another startling revelation came to me during that visit.  Chihuly and many world renowned glass artists are of Czech or Slovak ancestry.  Micheluzzi and others are of Italian heritage.  The Hotel Murano is also named after the famed island in Italy noted for its glass art. My father was of Czech and Slovak ancestry and my mother was Italian. Could this fascination with the lucent expressions of art through glass and line and watercolor be embedded in my genetic and ancestral heritage?  I like to think so and that the mystery of these discoveries will be carried on. 

As the famed artist Michelangelo remarked when he was 87: “ancora imparo” – “I am still learning.”

Being a part of Tacoma Urban Sketchers has enriched me immensely.  I have learned much about drawing and sketching and I have enjoyed the rich and supportive camaraderie of my fellow sketchers. As you can see, my sketches are not masterful, but provide a vehicle for continuing to learn.

It is no exaggeration that working with my fellow sketchers has also brought me a profound understanding of myself. I know it will for you also and I encourage you to join us. 

Finally, check out the stunning world-class collection of fine art glass by visiting the hotel when in Tacoma or virtually through their online gallery by clicking here. 

Meet the Correspondent - Beverly Choltco-Devlin.

By Beverly Choltco-Devlin

We live in a region rich with possibility for sketching, for experience, for inspiration, and for reflection.  Since making the radical move here ten year ago after 31 years in upstate NY, I am struck by surprising similarities between the two places; for me, the Pacific Northwest, unique, majestic and of a grand scale like few other places on the planet, somehow seems familiar to me.  This may seem sacrilege or a stretch to many, but I ask you to each consider my perspective.

The city of Tacoma, where I worked until I retired in 2021, has a temperament and authenticity akin to that of Utica, NY, where I worked for most of those 31 years. Tacoma and Utica, industrial cities, are each decidedly overshadowed by nearby Seattle and Syracuse, respectively, in terms of acclaim. But each also have so much to recommend them, include incredible natural spaces, a thriving artistic milieu and a caring unpretentious population.   And, looking east from each of those four cities, two major mountain ranges provide a strong and welcome counterpoint to urban life: here the majestic Cascades and in the east the venerable Adirondacks.   Additionally, my former home back east and my current home here were sited on the the brink of those wild places.

What has this to do with urban sketching, one may ask?  I feel home here in the Pacific Northwest. Though the dramatic move at first seemed as if I had dropped through a rabbit hole, I now sense a deep continuity in my life and art.  It is no accident that I am drawn in work and play and life to those spaces that both represent the excitement of the city and the grandeur of the mountains.

I often wonder where urban sketching ends and my love of the mountains and nature begins. I believe it doesn't matter all that much.   I appreciate that "urban sketching," while originating in an urban environment, is more about experiencing, recording and, most importantly, expressing life and place in situ and in context, rather than having to actually take place within the "city limits" or reflect entirely urban themes.

That being said, I offer here some sketches, all technically drawn within city limits, but each representing the natural world in some way.  I questioned whether the simple drawing done from 3600 feet above sea level in a hot air balloon over Woodinville qualified as an "urban sketch," but  decided that if we think of such political boundaries, a decidedly human invention, in three dimensions, it works.

I am still trying to decide if I will add color, but offer humbly here what I drew in the basket of that balloon for some brief minutes of  that exquisite hour. I am inclined to leave it in its state of immediacy as a primal representation of the excitement and awe I felt then, tempered with a teeny bit of fear. When I think of how terrified I was 20 years ago of flying, this simple little drawing gives me great joy! Each time I view it, I remember that I was floating through the amazing natural world of the sky that few get to experience, while relying solely upon a basket, some fabric, a propane torch and, ultimately, the trust I placed in the expertise of our pilot. The simultaneous view of the Cascades and Seattle and Woodinville and even Victoria was incredible.  While most assuredly not the best sketch I have ever done, this is one for which I feel great pride.  Such a sublime melding!

To an extent, this is what urban, and in fact, all sketching and artistic endeavors mean to me: i.e., the blending of human constructs, and the natural world that give us both joy in its pure state and, also, the resources with which we build our cities and the roads to the mountains, and the paper upon which we draw, and the computer we use to create these posts. Most importantly, sketching and drawing reflect the human experience, my own and that of others.   I have done many truly "urban" sketches (in that strict sense of the word) of buildings and architecture and denizens of the inner city, but, for today, I post images of those places that reflect the bridge between the wonderful worlds of city and the wild.