Marc Taro Holmes

"As much as I harp on sight measuring, accuracy isn’t everything. We should find our own balance between accuracy and spontaneity. I have a personal motto: Don’t document—design [bold mine]. Don’t just draw what is in front of you. Design what you put down in response to what you see. There may be valid reasons for you to alter strict reality to match your perception.

Your first goal should be to make viewers feel what you felt at the location, then to draw their attention to the specific elements you were fascinated by. It’s only a (close) third in importance for people to recognize the place. To get that personal response to the drawing, sometimes you’ll have to make intentional “errors.” It’s acceptable to move a tree, or car or signage in order to reveal an important detail or to cover a distracting area. That’s fair game. I’ll draw the impression of details like carved moldings or serrated edges—not a blueprint of the building. You might also want to make a building a little more elegant, or add some wide-angle lens curvature to real perspective, bringing more of the world into view.

Personally, I often leave out distracting background elements, drawing architectural subjects with a clear silhouette, leaving out the city behind so the subject can be seen against clear sky. And I always consider suppressing detail toward the edges of my sketch so that the eye is not drawn away from my focus of interest. I try to do this all in good faith, not altering a scene any more than is necessary to tell the story as I experienced it."



In "The Urban Sketcher - Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location" by Marc Taro Holmes



If you're serious about Urban Sketching, Taro Holme's book is the one to go to. Learned a lot of stuff from it, namely to let myself go when on location. I also learned that the main goal is not to reproduce what's in front of you but to interpret it and put on paper what you "see" with your inner eye. This is also the book to come back to every time I'm stuck sketching something.

My own approach after reading Taro Holmes' book:

1 - Observe -> study and observe the subject carefully, it's easy to get lazy...;

2 - Analyse -> How is this built?, Analyse what you see (structure, material, lighting, etc.);

3 - Process -> Take away what you don't need, keep what's important;

4 - Interpret -> Retell the story my way!

Two of my efforts as I read the book:

https://manuelaantao.blogspot.com/2020/02/dont-documentdesign-techniques-for.htm...… (meer)

I'm a big fan of Marc's and follow his blog faithfully. Therefore, this book is not a huge surprise - I'm well acquainted with his style. I like it better than his urban sketching book because I feel like the photos are of better quality and the artwork supports his points all the way through the book. He shares examples of painting both architecture and scenic views directly with watercolor.

I'm a long way from his skill level but I love that he encourages everyone to let go of the need for perfection and embrace the vagaries of watercolor. There are a few walk-through projects where he shows a broad step-by-step progression, but mostly he shows finished works and describes the technique or what he learned in that particular painting.

The one observation I'd make is that you have to already be able to draw to some degree because the whole premise of the book is to jump right in and paint with no pencil or ink lines. Even though I'm light years away from being able to do that with architecture, I'm excited to try it with more organic scenic views. Thanks for the inspiration Marc!… (meer)