Smartphone Sketches

Met up with my local Urban Sketchers group, eager to try out the S Pen on my new Samsung Note 5. I was running late that day, so didn’t really have time for more than the one sketch shown above. I used S Note, an app that comes pre-installed. Overall, I was very happy with how it came out, but I will need to look into some of the various drawing apps if I want to pursue digital sketching on a regular basis. S Note makes switching between different brushes, brush sizes, and colors a little bit cumbersome for sketching from life. It’s not terrible by any means, and I had a real blast playing with it, but the reality is what it is. There are also improvements that could be made on getting the most out of the S Pen’s pressure-sensitivity. It’s an awesome feature, but it only applies to one or two brushes. I looked at Sketchbook from Autodesk, but the free version does not seem to support pressure-sensitivity which is a deal-breaker for me.

In the end, the S Pen is amazing, convenient, and fully eliminates any excuse for not keeping up with your sketchbook drawing- even if you only use it as a backup to your actual paper sketchbook.

Story Starters With YA Author Lamar Giles

Last weekend, I attended a local SCBWI event (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) in Richmond, Va. Among the three excellent panelists was YA author, and 2015 Edgar Award Nominee, Lamar Giles.

Lamar did a super-fun Mad-Lib-style exercise with us called Story Starters, where he and the audience create a unique opening line by committee. Once the line’s created, the writers/illustrators in the audience have 15 minutes to write or sketch whatever that line inspires.

The sentence we came up with was "Alice never wants to hurt anyone again, but the robots won’t end the experiment."  Here's what I came up with in 15 minutes: 

I liked the sketch so much, that I went ahead and did a more finished version at home:

The cool part was that Lamar was pretty excited to share what everyone did on his blog, so I happily sent him both the sketch and the finished piece. Much to my surprise, not only did he post my images, but wrote up a pretty great review of my work as well. You check it out here: http://www.lrgiles.com/story-starters-scott-dubar-illustrator/ And for everyone interested YA fiction, definately check out Lamar's books Fake ID, and Endangered.

Urban Sketchers Gallery Show at the VCA

I got to participate in a local Urban Sketchers gallery showing at the Virginia Center for Architecture in Richmond, which marked my first galley showing in a pretty long time. The event was organized by Jessie Chapman, a Charlottesville-based architect and who is a long-time board member of UrbanSketchers.org, an international organization that promotes sketchbook drawing. 

The exhibit features our Charlottesville Urban Sketchers as a group, along with work from Andrew Moore, Don Gore, and Washington Post news illustrator Richard Johnson.

Above: Me standing next to my profound thoughts on the value of sketchbook drawing.
Oddly, none of the sketches pictured are mine. Below: A few of the panels that feature some of my work, along with Stephen Haske, Jessie Chapman, and others.

 The show will be up through July 5, so anyone in the RVA area can drop by. Check out www.architectureva.org for more details.

Smartphone Sketching

Now I can finally justify my smartphone. Did these using Samsung Memo. I have to say, my favorite thing about this is that I now have no excuse to not do some sketching whenever I'm out and about.