Last week in my Travel Sketching course a question came up about drawing cars. I had just happened to do a sketch a few days before where I used my ‘indicate-but-not-draw’ car technique. This involves drawing the tops of the cars and using them to create an interesting frame to the bottom of my scene.
I use this technique when my focus is on an individual building, but when I’m drawing a street scene, I always include them!
Here are two examples from the wonderful main street in the country town of Canowindra.
A few years ago, I did a lot of research on drawing cars and filmed a video of my discoveries (and a way to draw them easily in urban scenes) inside my Watercolour On Location course. So if you want more tips on drawing cars please check out my video on it in Lesson 3 of that course. I also have basic tips for drawing car shapes in street scenes inside Foundations Lesson 9.
Writing this article today is a good prompt for me to draw more cars. They are an ever-present subject to draw!
2 Comments
I dread cars and try to avoid them, hence I love the technique of only drawing the edge they make in the view. Though your street scenes are quite nice with having the cars in them, so perhaps I’ll venture bravely into adding some cars to certain scenes. Especially those when the historic building I do want to capture has cars in front of it, and sometimes that’s just part of the story! I went to Jerome, Arizona last year and didn’t sketch anything because the cars were everywhere and I got overwhelmed. Worth revisiting those photographs now I’m learning so much in the travel sketching class!
I hope this technique helps you Jamie – yes some places are all about the cars!!!!
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