Sketches - Saugatuck and Queretaro

I had to travel to Queretaro, Mexico back at the end of June, and it sort of threw me off the blogging kick until now. I also decided to take a break from Illustration Friday. I enjoyed the feedback from people and checking out the work of others, but it really takes time.

Prior to Mexico we took a long weekend in Saugatuck, Michigan, a favorite town of ours - not too far away, a lovely beach on Lake Michigan with dunes, some good restaurants, art galleries and antiques. I'm ready to go back already! I made this water color sketch from a photograph I took of the sunset. Not one of my best, but it was fun to get the little watercolor set out.

While in Queretaro I actually had some weekend free time and used it to do these two sketches. I don't normally take the time to do outdoor sketching - or indoor for that matter! I have a difficult time with architecture and landscapes because of shrinking things down to a small piece of paper. I spent about 20 minutes on the pencil sketch and still managed to get the bell tower out of proportion, but that's how to learn.

The color sketch took about an hour and a half. It was supposed to be a loose sketch but became a more detailed study than I thought. I still have work to do on perspective as well.