Sketching from Photos

It is good practice to sketch from photos.  You can sketch without thinking about composition and where the light is coming from.  You can concentrate on your drawing.  It is a bit different to copy in color with pastels or paint as you have to decide on how to get the colors in the photo or painting.

I have been sketching from life for the Scavenger Hunts and it is not as interesting to me personally, even though I can see advantages for practice to sketch from photos.

I sketched from Jenna's  photo on wetcanvas.com in the Southwest and Western Art Forum.  This is in the Quick Draw (http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1349842) for May, June and July.  There aren't many sketches in it the thread, but there are some great photos to sketch from.  I suppose this time of year artists are out working in their yards and painting plein air.  You are supposed to sketch something from the photos or any objects fitting the theme of the thread.  Jenna put up photos she took and I liked the cowbirds.  This is just about a 5 minute sketch with the Prismacolor Premier 03 on the corner of the page in my sketchbook.  Such a quick sketch probably doesn't count for much practice.

Jenna inspires us in the forum to work more.  She lives up Wisconsin and was in a real deep freeze this past winter.   Jenna sculpts with wire, does sketchbord, draws and paints. She is an author.   Oh, and is a photographer as well.  Check out her work on her blog http://thecozyred.wordpress.com/