Light Fixture at Cafe Tratte, Charles St. Boston 8/23/15

Sketching as a Tool for my Painting

I don’t see much difference between a good  pen and ink sketch and a good oil painting.  One is on canvas. The good sketch is determined by really looking hard, and recording what I see with ink. The painting requires the same, and applied with brush on canvas. The paintings which I feel are most successful appear to be loose brushwork applied in an immediate fashion, and captures the essence of the scene instead of depicting tightly what I am looking at. I can look back at an old sketchbook and instantly see which drawings are made on site and have an authenticity which can only be realized when “looking” and “seeing” very hard, and staying true to what I see. There are marks on the paper which are made by capturing something that was seen yet not named…I am sure to like the drawings or paintings where I cannot name each mark I make. These marks are my “proof of seeing”, my faithful attempt to capture reality