Mike Yoshiaki Daikubara - The Urban Sketching Handbook Color First, Ink Later: A Dynamic Approach to Drawing and Painting on Location

In 2017, I released my first book on sketching called Sketch Now, Think Later, which captured fifteen years of my sketching knowledge and brought Urban Sketching into busy lives with the use of minimal tools, techniques, and time. This technique focused on quickly capturing a scene with a pen and adding color later on.

I still use this technique daily, but Ive also started to incorporate another approach when I have just a little more timean hour, to be exact. In these situations, I take the exact opposite approach: I start with the color first, and then move on to inking. This approach still utilizes minimal tools, but I was surprised on how much more color and dynamics it brought to the overall sketch.

Now whenever Im about to start a sketch, I ask myself: Should I sketch NOW or COLOR first?

Im still on this journey of exploring the world of on-location sketching, but one constant with all the sketches I have done is that they all provide me with pure joy in making them. I hope to be able to share this joy with everyone, and I hope you can give it a try for yourself, too.

Like a true Urban Sketcher, I used a small video camera attached to my sketchbook to create all the detailed on-location demonstrations in this book. The small camera allowed me to take snapshots of my entire process, so I was able to review footage later on to select the photo that best captured each step. This process allowed me to fully concentrate on my sketch without thinking about documenting each step along the way. Since I wasnt concerned about recording each step precisely, I was able to select the images of what I actually sketched as opposed to how I thought I sketched. I call this the difference between in practice (how I actually sketch) and theory (how I should sketch). In this book I focus my attention as much as possible on the in practice approach.

The results of the sketches shown in the book may not be perfect compared to sketching indoors in a controlled environment, but I believe these sketches convey both the challenges and the joy of sketching on location.

In Sketch Now, Think Later, the process is:

In COLOR First, Ink Later, its:

You might be thinking, Whats the big difference in switching the order of tools used? I actually had the same thoughts in the beginning until I found the wonderful results that came from using the COLOR First approach.

If the Sketch NOW approach is about capturing the moment, then I believe the COLOR First approach is really about capturing color and dynamics.

Despite the addition of a few new tools, a majority of the tools used are the same in both approaches. Here is the basic overview of the tools showing what is used in each approach. The following pages offer more details about each tool.

After years of sketching on location and switching between the Sketch NOW and COLOR First approaches, Ive noticed some subjects were much more suitable for the latter:

• Still subjects, or ones that dont move too much
• Outdoor subjects as opposed to indoor ones, since its much easier to clean up an outdoor mess with watercolor
• Subjects in a safe, secure area, since this approach requires an hour of sketching on location

Here are some of my favorite categories:

ARCHITECTURE Places of religious worship (see sidebar below) Buildings (commercial or residential) Barns Cityscapes Building interiors

Places of Religious Worship

I love drawing religious architectural buildings, and usually try to get in a sketch or two whenever I travel.

What makes this subject especially interesting is the level of detail given to the construction. These structures are typically very ornate and full of meaning, making them perfect Urban Sketching subjects.

I have also had numerous amazing conversations with religious followers coming to talk to me about what Im sketching. I love those conversations.