Urban Sketching- a tiny adventure

It's been an urban sketching kind of a weekend, despite the heavy rain and lower-than-I'd-like temperatures. I can blame Michael Nobbs for starting it off- our task for his class in Sketchbook Skool is to take a tiny adventure. I packed my sketchbook, pen and watercolours and headed down to Kohi Beach. A coffee from the Store was essential fortification against the rather chilly wind. I started off by sketching Rangitoto a couple of times, experimenting with how to use my ink brush to show waves and the lovely shimmer of the sun on the water. Then I spotted some kids having a tiny adventure of their own- climbing one of the pohutukawa trees which line the bay. I love the trees, so decided to do a quick drawing. Which turned into a more detailed drawing. Which turned into pulling out the watercolours then adding coloured pencils and being finished an hour or so later (JUST as it started to rain!). I'm not sure if it counts as a tiny adventure any more, but I really enjoyed it!

Sunday went a similar way- popping down to the boatyard to see Jimmie working on Island Prism led to a leisurely hour of drawing her. I've been happy with how my Pentel colour brush pen has been working for these sketches- I like the expressive lines I've been getting and have also got better at using it for fine details. The really wonderful thing is the ink dries quickly so I can use watercolours over the top. 

As I finished painting Prism, the clouds rolled in. There was just enough time for a quick sketch of Jim before the rain started to pour- which did at least lead to some beautiful rainbows on the drive home!