Why I love sketching on-site

Sketching from reference photos is such a useful thing that has its place and I do it often (especially when drawing animals or people), but whenever I have the chance, I always prefer sketching on site.

It helps solidify memories

It helps solidify memories. Spending time in a place observing it to represent it in a sketch causes me to experience it differently than if I am only looking or taking a photo. And in the end, I remember being in that place better than, for example, the landscape photos I take while quickly passing through.

I notice more

I observe more details than if I were just taking photos. The best example of this is when I sketch a plant or flower. I end up looking at it from more angles, really focusing on where the highlights and shadows are, where it curves, where the colors merge and transition, etc. It becomes a study of the flower instead of snapping a quick photo and moving on.

I can't be a perfectionist

As with the gestural drawing I talked about the other week, I can't (or don't want to) spend as much time trying to get every detail correct. When I'm sketching outside, the light is changing and subjects might move into or out of the scene so I want to work quickly to get it down on my page. It might even start to rain and force me to stop and accept imperfections, as was the case with the sketch in Katmai that I wrote about last week.

How about you? Have you ever tried sketching on-site? How do you feel about it?