As you read this we are probably starting the first day of painting in the Algarve. We’ll be away for a couple weeks, so I thought this is a chance to post something from the archives.
Let’s go back to last July’s trip to the Khmer temples in Siem Reap Cambodia.
Immediately after the 2015 USK Symposium in Singapore, we spent a week touring with some of the other workshop instructors. I’m sure followers of Urban Sketching blogs remember the coverage from people like Suhita Shirodkar, Stephanie Bower and Shari Blaukopf. At the symposium I’d been teaching about sketching people at high speed. But we’d also been exploring the city in our free time, getting used to the realities of painting in extreme humidity.
By the time the official programs were over, I was excited for the next leg of the trip – but I also felt like half a burned down candle.
Big workshops are an overdose of activity – all of the painting and drawing, combined with the social buzz – it can be exhausting. So the plan for Siem Reap was simply to paint every day. I wanted to do nothing else besides exploring the temples with my watercolors. No doubt there are other things to do in town. There are local arts and crafts, there’s dance and theater. There is great local food. Certainly there are fascinating markets full of street life and exotic goods. But by then I was into my zone of simply painting for myself.
So what can I say about visiting Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples that hasn’t been said before?
When visiting any great archaeological site, we are reminded that no matter how impressive our modern accomplishments (the iPad being the greatest I can think of right at the moment) humans have been constructing epic monuments for thousands of years.
The level of artistic achievement and the complexity of the engineering are so astounding that the modern mind isn’t even able to take it seriously.
[Painting Angkor Wat from the east side]
Think about the generations of effort invested in transforming the landscape on this scale. The huge reservoirs dug out of the jungle, the massive stone temples with every surface covered in sculpted carvings. I have a hard time imagining how it could be accomplished.
With any of these places – the great pyramids in Egypt or the Mayan and Aztec cities in Mexico – we have been tempted to revert to magical thinking. “Chariots of the Gods! These must have been made by aliens!”
In our modern society, where we can’t even agree to vaccinate children, it seems like cooperative effort on this scale is something out of the question. Something humanity may never see again. You get the feeling, when walking here, that this is a thing we have lost. We may never again see a culture reach these artistic heights.
I don’t mean to be romantic about it. I’m sure the reason ancient kingdoms were able to build this way had everything to do with theocratic dictatorships and the iron rule of warrior kings. You probably need a huge population of let’s-just-call-them-slaves. There is no time to worry about universal health care and education. Never mind the OSHA.
But it’s easy to brush that aside when you’re there, and simply marvel at the place. I often wonder, if these beautiful complexes were actually used by the people – or if they were gated palaces only for the privileged few. Who got to see these miles of relief carvings? Who was living in these halls lined with row on row of statues? Was it only a few saffron robed priest-kings living in luxury? or were the stone courtyards packed with people, animals and wooden houses – a chaotic village crammed inside the walls? Today it has an abandoned feeling. I prefer to imagine these empty places packed with a riot of color.
If you spend any time in the modern day temples in Siem Reap, you get a sense of that barely contained energy. The way every inch of space is used for color and decoration. There are very few solemn monastic courtyards in the bustling streets of a living Asian city.
[Wat Prea Prom in Siem Reap]
Next week, I’ll carry on with sketches from the more distant temples. Stay tuned! ~m
Sketchrawl in Sagres: April 2, 2016
We will be in Portugal for the next few weeks, teaching and painting. If you’re in the Sagres area on April 2 – we’re joining the local USK: Algarve group for an open sketchrawl. No charge, just come out and draw. No experience necessary! But bring your own art supplies. See some of you there? ~m
For a while now, I’ve been wanting try making my own accordion fold watercolor sketchbooks.
We are doing the last minute planning before our Portugal workshop – so this seemed like the perfect time to decide if I’ll be bringing these with me.
So I quickly bashed one together, and took it to a local life drawing workshop. This was a terrific three model costume drawing event hosted by the CCGV for Montreal’s Nuit Blanche festival.
I didn’t go as far as making a fancy binding or rigid cover for this – that’s certainly an option if you’re a craftsy type – this booklet is literally just a single sheet of watercolor paper, cut and folded following a pattern. (See below). It only takes 5 minutes to make one, and that’s the kind of convenience I’m looking for.
To me, the main advantage of this process is choosing your own paper. I made this 5.5×7.5″ booklet out of a 22×30″ full sheet of 80lb cold press Strathmore Aquarius II.
This paper uses a synthetic fiber, which has the amazing ability to stay flat when wet. It simply doesn’t ripple when you paint on it. (Here’s my first test painting done – wow! – back in 2013).
I can say, it really does work. You can paint directly into this little sketchbook, and not worry about stretching or taping the paper. Exactly what I want for a field sketching notebook. You can see you get plenty of wet-in-wet wash effects. And even though the paper is only 80lbs, it stays perfectly flat.
As with any book, you still have to leave it face open to dry – so I did clip it to a drawing board while working. But overall, I think this will suit perfectly for the days we’ll be touring the Algarve.
I’ll still be bringing an easel for the ‘stand and deliver’ painting days. But when we’re walking about, I hope to take advantage of this flexible format. You have the option to sketch either single pages, double page facing spreads, or to fold out four consecutive pages to make a 7.5×22″ panorama.
After finishing the book, you have the option to flip it over and keep drawing on the backs of the pages – giving you 30 pages total. You can also unfold the spreads back to the full sheet size -so if you were painting panoramas, you can easily trim them out and be ready for framing.
Here’s a PDF of the pattern for these booklets. Feel free to share it with anyone, or use it in your classes. If you’re like me and prefer to buy your paper in full sheets, this fast and easy folding pattern means you’ll never have to buy a commercial sketchbook again!
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Oh yes! and here’s a few other articles on sketching panoramas – in case you want to try out the four page spreads on a nice city skyline or 360 degree view!
How to do a Post-and-Rail Panorama Drawing
Example of a walking panorama, and a 360 rotation
My ArtistNetwork.tv video on Sketching Panoramas (paid content).
Getting Meta : Copying Your own Paintings
The other day I had occasion to do a demonstration painting at the Dorval Artists’ Association. When I do this sort of thing, I’ll usually try out my demo painting the night before. A little test run to get a bit of practice before attempting it in front of a live audience.
This year I felt this was even more necessary, as it’s been a long winter of not painting outdoors as much as I’d like!
It’s good to see the reflexes are still there (I really do fear the skills will vanish. It’s an irrational thought, but I think everyone feels that). I suppose I’ve done enough figure drawing, museum sketching, and illustration work to stay in tune over the winter.
What I usually do for these demos is bring an original painting along with me and make a little forgery in front of the audience. For whatever reason, this time I went one step further and made a watercolor painting by copying from this plein air oil study.
Last year – around this time – I was up in Charlevoix painting outdoors. It’s still winter at this point, so it was far too cold for watercolors (Watercolor will not dry below a certain temperature. Your paper just stays soggy). So that weekend I’d made a series of very rapid oil paintings.
So, I though, why not try this! Make a watercolor, copied from my own oil painting. This was kind of a fun experiment.
When I’m looking at the painting for reference I’m seeing color and composition choices I made out in the field, rather than the more factual representation of a photo. In particular, the intense cold forced me to be ultra-efficient. The oil sketch is done very rapidly, using only a palette knife, so I’ve been ruthless at eliminating detail. Simplifying the scene to the basic shapes.
This is something I’m always striving to do. Capture the essence of a place with calligraphic brushwork. Not become a slave to detail. When I’m painting from a photo, I’m always tempted to pile in too much information. You just have too much reality available to you with great reference material. Plus it’s too relaxing in the studio, working in the comfort of home, taking as much time as you like.
So this seemed to work out well! I don’t know exactly what it means for my work. I might try a few more studio copies from field word. But I’m always saying this – and it’s hard to find the time between wanting to get out to new locations:)
Sketching the Sketchers
Here’s some little portrait sketches from our last USK:MTL dim sum lunch.
There’s a style right now for brightly colored eyeglass frames that makes for fun drawings. My feeling on drawing eyeglasses is – don’t draw the entire frame. Leave some of it to the imagination to avoid overpowering the face.
I suppose that is weird advice – because I can say that about absolutely anything. Don’t draw everything you see :) Less is more. Make the viewer interact with the sketch. Make the brain interpret the lines. It’s more fun for everyone.
I still had my small vial of diluted ink to draw with. I think it really works for these little portraits. They’re in a 6×9″ pad of Strathmore 400 watercolor paper. I had thought these were cheap little pads (I bought them in a Michaels in some small town, as emergency back up on a trip). But it’s actually very nice paper. I finally realized, when it comes to Strathmore paper, the higher the number the better (300,400,500).
From Urban Sketching to Picture Books (and back again) : Interview with UK artist/author Lynne Chapman
Every year at the USK Symposium I get a chance to sketch with UK artist and illustrator Lynne Chapman. (That’s her on the far right in this lunch time doodle).
So I know Lynne as an urban sketcher and as the author of Sketching People: An Urban Sketcher’s Manual to Drawing Figures and Faces
Imagine my surprise to find out that in addition to our shared hobby of urban sketching, Lynne is also an accomplished book illustrator with over 30 picture books to her credit.
I am also pleased to see she’s recently become a fellow Craftsy.com instructor, releasing her first course Expressive Picture Book Characters.
Lynne has produced an in-depth how-to on her subject: how to invent light-hearted stylized figures for children’s books – with an emphasis on capturing personality and conveying the emotion of the story.
It’s an excellent primer for anyone interested in making picture books for their own friends and family, or for those building their portfolio as a professional illustrator. If this sounds interesting. have a look at the trailer:
Here on Citizen Sketcher, I’m somewhat focused on the art of location sketching – but I’m also fascinated with the other kinds of artwork a sketch artist can get up to.
To that end I’ve asked Lynne three short questions about the crossover between her professional illustration and her personal sketching practice.
Three Questions with Lynne Chapman:
MTH: So Lynne – you’re a dedicated Urban Sketcher, organizing drawing events with USK Yorkshire among other interesting location sketching projects.
Let’s talk about this split between sketching from the real world and your more imagination based work as an illustrator. What sort of skills or attitudes carry back and forth? Are there any ways one practice improves or influences the other?
LC: Years and years of drawing from life have definitely made my life as an illustrator much easier. The link is not direct – I don’t take images from my sketchbooks and work them up into book illustrations – but the constant observation and interpretation I practice as an urban sketcher, means I can have a pretty good stab at drawing most things I need to, from my head.
I usually need reference for the detail though: ask me how all the bits of a bike join together and I’ll have no idea, but I could still do a passable sketch of somebody riding one!
MTH: Can you tell us a bit of what that it’s like when you’re doing a book project – maybe let’s talk about the ones you write and draw entirely yourself. How do you start making the ideas real – is it a slow burn or a creative sprint? About how long does it take from beginning to end?
LC: It’s a far more drawn-out process than most people realize. When I get an idea for a story, I progress it by brainstorming-sketching on a big sheet of paper, creating possible narrative directions and quickly capturing funny pictures which pop into my head (this is where the drawing practice is so vital).
I leave it and come back to it, several times over a period of anything from a couple of weeks to a few months (so I have fresh eyes), changing things, ironing out problems, adding more images and fine-tuning the dialogue. That’s just the beginning though.
I next have to tweak the story line, to make it split into 14 double-page spreads (to fit the standard picture book format), then design all the spreads and draw it all out in pencil, ready to take to a publisher.
That bit takes around a month. If I sell the idea, I will probably need to rework it yet again (which could be anything from minor tinkering to almost an entire rewrite. The end usually takes a lot of getting right).
Eventually, I begin the pastel artwork, which generally takes me another couple of months. So, I am usually drawing a book for 3-4 months, but working on it, on and off, for more like 6. It takes another full year before it hits the shops.
MTH: On a personal note – you’re currently doing a location drawing themed artist-in-residence program at Manchester University’s Morgan Center for Research into Everyday Lives (which sounds a bit like a cover for government surveillance!). Can you tell us a bit about that project?
LC: Ha ha – so it does! It’s actually the center for sociological research and their work is really interesting. As artist-in-residence, I am sketching a portrait of a-year-in-the-life of the department.
I have been sitting among students on the grass or in the refectory, sketching them and their conversations; I’ve been a fly-on-the-wall in corridors and at meetings; I have sat in on lectures and PHD tutorials; I even created a portrait of the centre’s director, as seen through the contents of her desk drawer!
Probably the best bit is that I am shadowing various researchers. I have been sketching a project about how we interface with the weather (very pertinent with all the floods we’ve been having) and am just getting started on another one called Dormant Things – all about the objects we all no longer need, but can’t quite bring ourselves to throw away.
One afternoon we went into a woman’s house and I drew the hoarded contents of her hall cupboard! I’m using concertina-format sketchbooks, (ed note: we say accordion books over here) so I get a sense of a continuous narrative, an ongoing journey. I’ve filled loads already.
MTH: Following up with that – when you go into the world to do an extended sketching project – how does your background in writing books and storytelling with characters come into play?
LC: It’s interesting that, though the two kinds of work look very different, there is this strong link, through my interest in storytelling. I didn’t realize that myself until quite recently.
This sketching project is perfect for me as I am far more interested in capturing the flavor of what is happening throughout an entire day than creating drawings which are unrelated snapshots. I love how the concertina book allows images to flow into one another and how the linear format adds a sense of time moving through the work.
The other interesting link between my children’s book work and my reportage is humor.
The ideas and images I pull from my imagination, when I am telling stories for children, are almost always founded in some kind of humor. Now, I am noticing that, when I am recording what is happening in the Morgan Center, I tend to see the funny side, which means I project some of myself back into the images, both through what I pick up on to draw and by the comments I often flow around the image.
MTH: Now you’re bringing your picture book experience to Craftsy fans – what was your primary “teaching goal” for this new class? – what do you want people to take away?
LC: I chose to help people with characterization, because it is the most important aspect of telling a children’s story, or any story for that matter.
Your reader must totally believe in your characters, in order to be drawn into the dramatic tension: you need to make them care.
People so often struggle with this and yet a few simple pointers can make a massive difference. I have been sharing tips in schools for years, helping kids (and teachers) to create their own characters, and I’ve seen people’s delight at what they can do with a bit of guidance.
So, I crammed everything together into these 7 lessons: all my hot tips and everything I know about drawing personality, conveying emotions, communicating movement and vitality… it was quite a squeeze I can tell you!
But, by the time you have worked through the class, you should be able to draw any character you like: any animal or person; and make them funny, cute or mean, old or young.
Most importantly, through facial expressions and simple body-language, you will know how to convey what is going on inside their head. Best of all, it’ll be fun!
MTH: You can find our more about Lynne Chapman and all her various projects on her blog and her website. Or pick up her book on Urban Sketching from all the usual bookshops.
Sketching human frailty at the Mütter Museum Philadelphia
I waited many years to get to the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. it’s the sort of place where I can lose myself for hours. I love sketching a museum full of fascinating artifacts.
I actually managed a quick trip last year, but have debated a while before posting the drawings. You may want to skip this post if it’s not your kind of subject matter. That would be perfectly understandable.
In this case, the sketches aren’t just history. Mayan culture or Samurai armor. But rather, a look at the fascinating machine that is a human body – and the things that might go terribly wrong with it.
The Mütter is a museum of medical oddities. Antique anatomical wet-specimens, plaster casts, wax models, osteological (bone) collections, and rare medical instruments.
There’s a bit of a Dr. Frankenstein feeling about the place. The collection was originally assembled by a Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter (1811-1859). Initially begin as a means of teaching his private students, Mütter later donated his specimens to the College of Physicians – backed up by a sizable monetary endowment to launch the museum, and a demand for an on-going commitment to public access and education.
Dr. Mütter must have been an interesting man. He is described as an “exceptionally gifted ambidextrous surgeon”. Which is strangely specific praise. How did he demonstrate this ambidexterity? Removing a burst appendix with one hand while stitching a perforated bowel with the other?
He is known to have been a very successful surgeon, training in Europe before establishing a practice assisting Dr. Thomas Harris in Philadelphia. (No relation to Hannibal Lector-Thomas Harris. I don’t think?)
Mütter is said to have been a handsome man, with a confident bedside manner. He was also a pioneer in reconstructive surgery. One of the first nip and tuck artists. I can see him played by Robert Downey Jr or Daniel Day Lewis depending on the kind of bio pic you might want to make.
But I don’t mean to make light. His work was apparently ground-breaking. He was restoring club feet and cleft palates – not injecting botox. These were surgeries that could give a patient a productive life, or just allow them to walk down the street without drawing stares and mockery.
This was a time before anesthetic – something he introduced to America. It was also before doctors had a real understanding of anatomy or awareness about the spread of disease. He’s credited as an early advocate of Aseptic Technique – which we take for granted in this age of hand sanitizer at the Walmart.
I can see his passion for teaching. Working as he was, with all manner of medical quackery going on around him, he must have felt a great drive to show the world the science behind the surgery. This was knowledge that could truly improve people’s lives, if it only could be better known.
Only a small percentage of the collection is on display at any one time. To be honest, what began as a teaching collection is now a kind of educational haunted house with annual attendance exceeding 130 thousand visitors.
I don’t suppose there’s anything too wrong with that. But the display is biased towards the grotesque over the simply factual. (As are my sketches, I admit).
Besides the mesmerizing examples of non-viable fetuses in jars, and a variety of conjoined twins, there are skeletons of the smallest dwarf and largest man on record. Amazing to see how the body tries to adapt our basic pattern. The dwarf and the giant have the same bones, just squeezed together or stretched apart.
You might also see the skeleton of a man whose bones never stopped growing – all fused together in a jumble. Or an exhibit of Anthropological CSI – skulls of pre-humans demonstrating various kinds of historic murder.
The most disturbing for me was the example of a perfectly normal child’s skeleton labeled ‘Healthy Youth”. Apparently not that healthy. It seems unfair that a lad would beat the odds of all these birth defects, abnormalities and murders, yet still end up as bones in a cabinet.
It’s certainly an informative collection. And if it sparks a youthful interest in medicine or just sends you away with an appreciation for your own good health – or how recently we’ve invented modern medicine – well that’s probably enough learning for a day.
If you’re not passing through town any time soon, you might be interested in the late curator Gretchen Worden’s excellent book: The Mutter Museum: Of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
The Urban Sketcher in Česká Republika
I was pleased to find out that The Urban Sketcher has been translated into Czech :)
I don’t speak/read the language, so I’m interested to hear from anyone if they like the translation. If anyone has a copy or sees it in the wild please let me know.
It’s exciting to think people could be trying out ‘Street Sketching’ in Prague. Send me some links to whatever you’re drawing over there in Česká Republika!
Workshop News: Galway IE sold out! Thinking about India?
July 2016: IRELAND: This just in: our Galway Ireland Urban Sketching Workshop is sold out! Thanks everyone – we’re looking forward to meeting you all and starting the wandering sketch-trek from Galway to Manchester with those that will carry on with us. We have a short waiting list building up, so you can still contact Laurel to put your name down with the hopefuls.
FEB 2017: INDIA: It might seem like a long time in the offing – but if anyone is interested in our FEB 2017 painting adventure trip to India (Delhi/Varanasi/Agra) – it is worth it to sign up soon. We’ve just sold out Ireland six months in advance. So, don’t hesitate if you’re thinking you want in on that painting trip of a lifetime. Head over to the workshops page to get more info on registration.
Trip Planning For Portugal Begins in Earnest!
In other news: I’m starting the ramp up for travel to Portugal! Stocking up colors and paper. I think I need a minimum of 6 sheets a day to be sure I won’t be short paper. (I’m bringing 10×13″ for a standard format this time – fits in my lighter weight mid-sized bag and makes a 9×12″ original, which is a nice size for framing). And I’ve just been listening to advice from photojournalists who say ‘bring a full duplicate set of all important gear in case of loss/theft/etc’. So I’m doubling or tripling up on tubes and need to purchase a backup set of brushes to go into the suitcase. (That’s going to be a big investment).
Some news from online: Roseann Hanson of Arizona showed us this great idea (over in the Craftsy Travel Sketching class message board). She’s invented a DIY magnetic quick release for her drawing easel. Brilliant! Much quicker to set up than the threaded items you might have on a standard tripod. Read about her plein air setup and her very interesting life over on her blog The Constant Apprentice.
Here’s another brilliant invention/adaptation. Leslie Fehling of Prosperity PA is using the drop-in magnet trick for her water jar, but has another smart tip – use a drill bit gauge (Velcro’ed on here) for her brush holder. Pretty smart! Something to pick up at the local hardware store. Read the details of her compact lap-desk over on her blog: Everyday Artist.
Ok – that’s it for news from the studio – back to planning for Portugal! Hope I get some warmer weather soon to begin training in earnest.
~m
Good Question of the Week: How do I avoid ‘cartoony’ sketches?
Post Preamble: This is another in my very irregular series: Good Question of the Week. (which is not weekly by any means).
I have discovered there is a limit to the length of an answer on the Craftsy.com website.
Students ask questions in an email-like sidebar and I get notified when there’s something to discuss. Today, I found out the hard way there must be a character limit to the entry field. Because this (long winded) answer simply wouldn’t go through until I broke it into three replies.
Anway, enough inside baseball.
Here’s the question for anyone that might be interested:
Student Question: For sketching I think that line adds a freshness to the drawing but mine always turn out far too cartoony…which I don’t like. I Love the direct approach but I tend to leave that more for “real” paintings. How do I lose the cartoony effect? (ed. note: by ‘direct approach’ I think they are referring to direct-to-brushwork with watercolor).
Overly long answer: Absolutely good question [Name Redacted]! Ready for a super long answer? (Sorry, but apparently I was waiting for this question :)
So – the reason this course (referring to my Travel Sketching course) has so much emphasis on drawing-at-speed and embracing-your-errors via single line sketching in ink – is exactly to do with this problem of ‘cartoony’ sketchbook drawings.
It’s a method to push yourself out of stiff or awkward drawings, by not giving your mind enough time to over-think.
I find I have to be in a zone of seeing and drawing reflexively to avoid a ‘cartoony’ result – that I feel comes from overworking, and timidity.
(ed. note: Of course – I believe that there is nothing lesser about cartooning as an art. I love every language of drawing, and great cartooning is a very demanding mode – so I don’t mean anything snobbish about my current desire to be more painterly. I do admire cartoonists and one day might become one – if I live long enough).
Let me dive in to the reasons!
The things that I feel make a drawing ‘cartoony’ are A: rigidity and simplification, B: monoweight and closed lines, C: flat color, lack of depth.
A: Rigidity and simplification:
Cartoons tend to simplify complex shapes into something more geometric.
If you are not sensitive to tapering perspective, or a slight slope of the earth, or the lean of an old structure, or the divot of a broken brick, you might end up putting inflexible straight lines where a more organic shape might bring life.
Speed and reflexive recording of what you see allow you to exaggerate and record in a fresh way which you won’t achieve by taking pains to make a ‘good drawing’.
Here’s a drawing that I think you’ll agree is the opposite of rigid :)
This one too, to some extent:
These were accomplished by drawing while having a lively conversation with a friend at the same time! Also by being very cold and working standing up, and wanting to get moving soon :)
B: Monoweight and closed lines:
There is nothing more flattening than a graphic outline; a solid closed line that goes all the way around a form. This is a classic cartoon effect, meant to make a shape visually separate from a background.
One easy thing you can do is soften the ink line – I’ll point back to yesterday’s post on diluting ink, or of course there’s water soluble ink. Blending the line with water makes it much less prominent.
But if we’re talking about black ink line, that’s different.
In drawing, unlike painting, we have less natural opportunity for lost edges (places where object and ground can blend together).
What we have to do is force lost edges to happen by breaking lines. Let them taper off into open shapes. Vanish into the highlights. This looks to the eye like a painter’s lost edge.
Just look at the faces in this life drawing:
Here’s a sketchbook example of breaking line (and tone) to let in light:
C: Flat Color, lack of depth/texture:
Cartoons (and comics) are most closely associated with flat color. It’s practically the definition of cartoony.
The first part of the answer is texture. With watercolor, we push back against any monotonously smooth passages with a combination of paper texture and brushwork.
You can use broken brushwork as seen in the Impressionists. Or charging-in to promote wet-in-wet mixes. Also a slanted board will encourage backwash/blooms and drips. These are all ways of getting natural texture, instead of clinical perfection.
The second part is depth. I should say ‘dimensionality’ – because by this I mean observing shadow shapes.
Not talking about depth as in distance toward the horizon (that’s atmospheric perspective) but what I mean is being very conscious of ‘self-shadowing’. When objects cast shadows on themselves.
Marking what is light, and what is the shadow side is the fastest way to teach the eye that a thing is three dimensional. That’s why so many of my sketches are just white paper with only color in the shadow shapes.
And of course, you can do this in the drawing – without even any color or brush pen blacks. See how the shadows are in the drawing, even before the color.
All this combined is what makes a sketch painterly and not cartoony at all.
So anyway, just wanted to post that here, as it might make better reading on the blog, than in the questions window on craftsy :)
~m
Citizen Sketcher 