Watercolor Sketching in Rio de Janeiro : The Three Big Shapes
Rio de Janeiro. This town seems impossibly picturesque. The combination of mountainous coast and teeming metropolis. A landscape like nowhere I’ve been before.
A view like this has to be painted with a keen eye toward simplification. What are The Three Big Shapes? (This is one of my code phrases. Mantras I use to keep myself on track). Here, they are Land, Sea and Sky – with the white city being the shape left behind.
This one is my all over favorite sketch from the whole trip. This is winter in Brazil! As a Canadian, this is rather incredible. As the day warmed up and the sun moved, we got Land Sea and Sky in a different set of colors.
The best thing about traveling and painting with the group. Well, there are many best things – the great company, the shared motivation to paint, paint, paint – but also, being able to look over at a friend’s paintings and see – wow, that’s what I need to do! Exactly there! My rapid sketch of Sugarloaf mountain (above) was cribbed right out of Omar Jaramillo’s sketchbook.
This last one, a fun experiment. We were walking back from a long day sketching, and Linda Permann dared us to sketch one more – on the beach, in a puddle of streetlight, looking at the dark water. Isn’t that awesome? Sketching buddies that won’t quit, even when the sun goes down. I honestly had no idea if this was possible, so I’m quite happy with the way it turned out.
Every one of these sketches from Rio is something I’ve never seen before. That is what I love the most about urban sketching. Experiencing something new wherever you go.
Trackbacks
- Welcome to the Biodome : Field Sketching in the Dead of Winter | Citizen Sketcher
- Evening in Hudson | Citizen Sketcher
- Sketching Lac Boyd: A Taste of the Good Life | Citizen Sketcher
- Travel Sketching at the Khmer Temples: Ta Prohm and The Bayon | Citizen Sketcher
- Anne-Laure Jacquart demos a perfect use of negative space | Citizen Sketcher
- Painting en Plein Air at the Publisher’s Invitational | Citizen Sketcher
- Cathy Johnson’s latest book: Artist’s Sketchbook | Citizen Sketcher
Citizen Sketcher 
Wonderful– this is a really nice style you have! :)
xoxo,
Isabella
Big wow.
That night sketch is particularly wonderful, especially the rose-colored sky and the ghosty mountains.
Wow
In some places your pic looks even better
Beautiful. :-)
Wonderful pictures.
also love your whites – just think, a whole city, twice, certainly does not distract from the mountains and beach, I would have ruined my painting if I had tried to put the cities in. Neat and wow.
Stunning!! Love the big. 3 tip!!
Simplification is allowed and appear beautiful only in the stream of art. No one can question or confront as to why certain bits of the original aren’t represented or why something is present when it isn’t part of the original. Art is at peace, irrespective of anything. Great work :).