Go Museum to Sketch (After Coronavirus is beaten!) / TIP 270

Hello Design Sketchers!

Please, go Museum to sketch when the Coronavirus will be beaten.
At this time, I recommend you to stay home and sketch!

I am publishing this article with about 3 weeks late.
I was in quarantine for 14 days with a limited connection in a military camp in Vietnam – since I crossed the immigration border of Cambodia / Vietnam at Moc Bai.

No worries.
I’m 100% healthy.

That day the restrictions increased.
All European passport had to choose between go back to Cambodia,
or go through the quarantaine to enter Vietnam.

My 76 years old dad is living in Ho Chi Minh.
So I completed the 2 weeks with success, and I am finally back home.

So today,
I can write and publish this article I started to prepare in Cambodia for you!

When I was a teen,
I remember seeing in Paris young people sitting in the museum holding their green portfolio for artists.

Years later,
I became a student of a Design school.

And during my first year,
every thursday our teacher bring us to a new place in Paris.

We practiced sketching out of school to raise our sense of observation.
The 2 main ingredients of success are good proportion and focus.

We had 4 hours to sketch without any distraction.
(TIP: If you can, go out drawing without your phone)

Sometime some visitors looked at our sketches above our shoulders.
It was pretty flattering hearing their positive comments on our beginner drawings!

What was actually clumsy on paper, was impressive for casual pedestrians.
It actually gave us extra motivation to progress more.

Week after week, we covered the Centre Pompidou, Rodin, Palais de Tokyo, Musée du Quai Branly… and my favourite one was Le Louvre.

A designer life is a forever “school time”

Now I am graduated. And I try to keep the great activities we had in school. Same as my student time, there is no reason we should only sketch at home or an office as a designer.

We do not have any teacher anymore to tell us what we should do.
So, take initiative to provoke all these fun sessions of sketching!

The whole world is a “playground for designers.”

When I travel,
I love spending time alone to sketch.

It could be:

• urban sketching drawing streets and people
• products in the shops
• or also museums – such as here in Phnom Penh in Cambodia
• …

Sketching at the National Museum of Phnom Penh

National Museum of Phnom Penh

Even though I am French, and have Chinese roots.
My parents were born in Cambodia. They could escape the war and genocide in 1975 when 20% of the population died (about 1,7 million people).

After visiting the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum, I went to the National Museum of Cambodia.

I saw beautifull statues.
I stopped, took out my Ipad with its iPad pencil and started to sketch standing in front of the statue.

Sketching with my iPad Pro and Pencil

Sketching with the app Procreate

I added below a quick time lapse of the sketch I made on Procreate.
Remember to always start with the main shapes, then go into details. 

Remember that if you wanna learn how to sketch, you will need Passion but also discipline. Don’t take it as a restriction. But a respect of your own choice.

Especially at these days of quarantine, you have the choice on how to occupy your time. The choice to upgrade yourself and get better at sketching!

As I also avoid to go out often, and mostly stay home by now, in the upcoming days, I will publish more videos for you!

So let’s live this journey together :).

Cheers,
Chou-Tac