Using Thumbnails

More cool ideas from the Urban Sketchers symposium...Reportage artists Veronica Lawlor and Jonathan Schmidt encouraged us to walk the site, observe and generate a lot of small thumbnail sketches, about 2 in. by 3 in., to collect and test visual ideas.  It was really a lot of fun to stroll through the square and streets like a visual junk man, collecting interesting bits and scraps that might be developed into something even more interesting.  I'd used thumbnails regularly in concept sketching, but not in location sketching, and it's a marvelous way to quickly generate a number of visual ideas on the spot.  Here I have a collection of those thumbnails, and the more substantial sketch developed from one of them.

Here a  a number of quick thumbnails, sketched quickly on the spot, and a larger version of one that showed potential.

The idea that intrigued me in this street view was the contrast between the more "touristy" block in the foreground and the rougher, more gritty block beyond.  The view was first doodled as a thumbnail (upper right).  I liked the composition, so found a comfortable sitting spot and developed the larger sketch.