Tips, tips and more Tips

In less than two weeks, the new book will be on the shelves of bookstores everywhere! What a dream come true this is…and it all started only a few years ago when the founder of Urban Sketchers and Seattle Sketcher Gabi Campanario, was kind enough to put one of my sketches in each of his two books, the first two in The Urban Sketching Handbook series. I’m forever indebted to Gabi for what happened next.

It was a Seattle Urban Sketchers typically monthly outing, Gabi was sketching near me, and I was compelled to thank him for putting my sketches in his books. What an honor!!! He looked down at me (I was sitting on my teeny stool) and simply said, “You should write a book. Do you want to write a book? Should I put you in touch with my editor?” After literally picking my jaw up from the ground, I think I nodded and mumbled, “Sure.” But I was thinking, “Me? A book?”.

True to his word, a few days later I got an email introduction to his editor, Mary Ann Hall, who said I should write a proposal. That book proposal simply spilled out of me, and in 20 minutes or so, it was done. Off it went to Mary Ann, she showed it to the powers that be, and voilá…the rest is history.

I’m going to do a few post to feature some of my favorite parts of the new book. These are tips I’ve acquired from many years of teaching college, and later workshops and on Craftsy (now Bluprint, which is having a half-price sale right now, by the way.) I have learned so much from teaching, especially from the most challenging students. I had to figure out simple, relatable ways to describe complex subjects (perspective can be pretty complicated at first!), and many of these tips have made their way into the book.

Here are two of my favorites (plus bonus tips in the boxes–I hope you can read these!):

That’s right, think EYE LEVEL, not Horizon line…this will help you in so many ways. There is an entire chapter in this book devoted to ways your eye level line can help you sketch. And basically, the famed Horizon Line is ALWAYS at your eye level. I like to say, “The road really DOES rise up to meet you!”