There's something about these little juice cabanas in South Florida that foster togetherness. I pondered the interactions that people had at the ordering window and around the site as they enjoyed their cold drinks beneath the shady tree canopy. Although you can't tell from the picture, at least 3 dozen people of all ages and backgrounds strolled through my viewport for a quick rest or to glance over my shoulder while I worked.

Here are the basic steps I take when I stop to sketch a place:

Take your photo while the light is good so you can come back to it later if you need to. The best times to draw are a couple hours after sunrise, and a couple hours before sunset. "Good" light casts interesting shadows on the surfaces of buildings, trees, streets and other objects. Light at high noon rarely does this.

Planning a drawing in advance saves a ton of time and discouraging thoughts later on. Limiting my time on the sketch to 5 minutes allows me to stay focused on the big picture. I prefer to work in ink so I don't worry too much about getting all of the details right when I'm only focusing on composition and value range.

Draw, baby, draw!

 

This is my meditation time. Since I produce travel sketches only for my own knowledge and pleasure, I allow my mind and my hand to wander around the scene and naturally focus on the things that catch my attention most. This is where the principle of emphasis comes in. I spend the most time on the one or two things that captured my interest in the first place, and I only provide hints for the rest of the scene. In this case, the emphasis is placed on the juice cabana itself.

It's watercolor. Have fun with it. In South Florida, the high humidity will lengthen drying time so I have to jump to different parts of the page while other parts evaporate. I sometimes use this to my advantage and work on two paintings at the same time if I find more than one thing that captures my interest in a single area - a little trick I picked up from David Csont.

Time: About 1.5 hours.

Materials: Canson watercolor block 10" x 14", HB lead holder, Cotman watercolor travel kit.

I use Camera+ on my iPhone to digitally capture my work on-site and distribute it via social media. Here's how I get the image to look like a clean scan.

1. Take the photo as straight-on as possible. I prefer to prop the drawing up at an angle instead of laying it flat to avoid shadows from covering the work.

2. Crop the image.

3. Apply the "shade" filter to brighten it up.

Drawing Utensils: 2 Uniball Micro pens, 2 Micron pens, 1 lead holder, a kneaded eraser, 3 Prismacolor markers (French Grey 50%, 70%, Black) and a Pentel Sign pen. The Pentel Sign melts and bleeds when it gets wet, and I sometimes use it for cool effects.

 

Painting Gear:  3 sable brushes of varying sizes, a Winsor Newton Cotman travel kit, a small watercolor block (I prefer Arches warm press), and a palette knife to split the pages from the block. I keep my brushes wrapped in a standard canvas roll-up case with the bristles protected by hard plastic tubing.

 

Water: For drinking and painting.

 

Adventure Backpack: It's a leather Medici bag I picked up in Florence in 2008. It gets better with age, and it holds everything I ever need.

 

Something to sit on: I have a GCI Outdoor Packseat that I picked up in D.C. for $30. It collapses, folds in half and clips onto my bag. The fabric has survived for 5 years without a tear.