One of my favorite sketching books is Sketch, by France Belleville-Van Stone.  The “how to draw content is great but what I really love about the book are the early chapters on her philosophy, the value of art, and how to approach doing art.  Like her videos, there is a clarity and practicality in her words.

France has been doing real-time videos of her drawing process for several years and I have watched many of them.  I haven’t gotten involved because she did them on Sktchy, which for the longest time operated as though there was only one operating system in the world and it wasn’t the one I used.  I don’t think it is that way any longer but their resistance to things Android and Windows still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I actually missed her transition but France now has her own site from which she streams her videos and classes.  When I found this to be the case I signed up for her latest, Showing Up At The Page.    It’s a series of videos where we draw animals, cars, people, etc. and all done in France’s typical style, though with a slightly looser hand that she calls “fuzzy hatching.”

I certainly need more hatching practice and my drawing has become pretty sloppy due a drawing kinda-sorta-hiatus to replace a knee, live through a pandemic, trying to oil paint and all the rest.  So, this should be very good for me.  It also fits my recent goals of  learning to see surfaces/form more than just contour edges.  Here’s my first attempt, done with a Bic ballpoint pen.