Sketching in the World

Last week I took advantage of a random day off and not surface-of-the-sun temperatures and took a long walk and sketch at the Wolf River Greenway. For the past several months I've either sketched the outside world from my car, or very quickly in my own neighborhood. The difference? BUGS. 
So in the interest of time and bugs, I needed to think about simplifying shapes and marks. I created shapes with the tree silhouettes and then worked specific marks and colors for specific foliage, the river, the ground, etc. It is a methodical way to work, but I like it. I did describe myself as a grid earlier this week.

There are a lot of bridges and I wanted to sketch every one of them, but just settled for this one. And bonus - it provided shade while I sketched!
I ended up walking nearly three miles even though I just wanted to plant myself down and sketch the whole time. But the bugs get to you more when you sit still, and I needed the exercise.

I'm also keeping up with my regular errand sketching, too. Gotta get those groceries, so I might as well sketch while I'm there. I was there earlier than usual and the shadow and reflection on the west side were a bit different.

I haven't sketched the Target parking lot in a while, but I talk about it a lot when I teach because it is one of those places that end up in my sketchbook often because I use parking there as an opportunity to sketch whatever is in front of me. On this day I was lucky because it was raining and I sat in my car and sketched until it lightened up a little.

All of these sketches are in a 5.5" x 3.5" Stillman & Birn Alpha. The first sketch was done with Faber Castell Polychromos colored pencils and the rest with a Sakura Pigma Graphic 1 pen.