Australia Post At Sydney - Google Maps Urban Sketching

I did a urban color sketch for an Australia Post location at Sydney. This post will share the behind-the-scenes of the sketch.

My Way of Doing Urban Sketching

I know I can easily ask ChatGPT or other generative AIs to create a building sketch for me. But as an artist I'm only asking ChatGPT for a set of latitude and longitude. I still enjoy finding my own reference pictures and working on the sketches myself.

So ChatGPT came up with this random coordinates: -33.8675, 151.2070. This brought me to an Australia Post location in Sydney. The building is heritage and looks really nice.

Reference Image (from Google Maps Street View)

Australia Post Urban Sketch

Inspiration - Which Building To Sketch?

I have been seeing people doing some building sketches. I have always wanted to try but I don't want to spend too much time to find a building. So here's my rule. ChatGPT can help me to come up with random coordinates. Then I can just copy and paste the coordinates on Google Maps to locate the building. No matter what building ChatGPT sends me, I will have to sketch it. This eliminates the potential of wasting too much time to find the "right" building.

Reference Image (from Google Earth)

The only option I have is to choose which side (elevation) of the building I want to sketch. In this case, the Australia Post building is in a long rectangular shape. The longer edge looks nice with the clock tower. However, it's too long and too complicated for the sketch I'm aiming for. It's also hard to get a complete look of the elevation of the long edge from Google Maps or Google Earth. So I had to decide to do a sketch on the elevation of the shorter edge.

Goals - What I'd Like To Achieve Through This Sketch?

Before I started the sketch, aside from gathering some reference images, I set a few goals:

• to practise line work

• to learn how to simplify

Painting Process

Australia Post Urban Sketch - Digital Painting Process

Challenges

Although I already chose to sketch on the shorter edge, there are still too many details. I ended up taking more time than expected to do the draft and inking. The sketch was supposed to be quick, so that I can complete the practice earlier. Maybe next time I should ask ChatGPT to give me coordinates for a smaller building.

AI As A Tool

I'm grateful that ChatGPT sent me to such a great building. As an artist, I don't mind using AI as a tool to help my creation and to stop me from wasting time on unnecessary searches. AI also provides some help for my art business, like digging up some marketing resources, and comparing differences between multiple softwares, etc.

With the power of generative AI, anyone can create nice artwork. AI does make things easier and more convenient, but there is at least one thing AI can never provide to us. That's the joy we have when we are creating something from scratch. The process is what matters the most. Also the fulfillment we get when we complete the creation is irreplaceable.