Wild Yard Birds, Ybor City Stillman & Birn Beta Journal 11 x 8.5 inches, Full Spread Watercolor and Ink

 I would love to tell you that I sketched these wily critters out in the wilds of Ybor City, a historic area just outside of downtown Tampa, but I didn't. I sketched and then painted them in my studio. First off, we were in a busy parking lot and second, it was lunchtime.

Detail, Wild Yard Birds, Ybor City Stillman & Birn Beta Journal 11 x 8.5 inches, Full Spread Watercolor and Ink

Sketching anything live is like hitting a moving target. Looks easy…until you try it. Besides, it was lunchtime. Instead, I gave myself a time limit of one hour.* Now you may wonder why I chose to sketch this so quickly…how about I share my reasons? (*And that one hour included drawing, painting and lettering).

The main reason I sketch quickly is because it guarantees that the sketch won't become too precious. (Insert Gollum's voice here.) You know what I'm talking about…things are going so good you become afraid of putting down the next mark for fear that will be the ruination of your sketch, your day and quite possibly your life.

Detail, Wild Yard Birds, Ybor City Stillman & Birn Beta Journal 11 x 8.5 inches, Full Spread Watercolor and Ink

Next, it's almost always guarantees I'll make mistakes. Why in the world would you want to make mistakes, Laure? Glad you asked. Because mistakes happen when we're out in the field. They happen when we're in the studio, too. Mistakes are going to happen, so why not go ahead and push the envelope? The sooner we get comfortable making mistakes and learning to either recover from them or move on, the happier we will be in our sketchbooks.

There's also a thing called time. Maybe you've heard of it? If I asked most of you to sketch something quickly, you would, but you would take as much time as you needed.

Now I ask you, how often do you have all the time you need? If your life is anything like mine the answer is seldom. So it pays to learn to sketch in an allotted amount of time rather than taking all the time we want.

Wild Yard Birds, Ybor City Stillman & Birn Beta Journal 11 x 8.5 inches, Full Spread Watercolor and Ink

Challenge yourself to paint something in an insane amount of time. If it would normally take you an hour, give yourself twenty minutes and see what you can get done in that timeframe. I can almost guarantee you'll be surprised at how much you can accomplish.

Give yourself permission to make mistakes, to be sloppy, to sling paint with abandon, to have fun, to play, to fail and to have lunch. Did I mention lunchtime? Make sure you get some lunch. Ybor City is one of our favorite places to go for lunch as there are a number of quirky restaurants.