Sketches serve multiple purposes for an artist. I regularily go to figure drawing sessions to help my eye and hand. It's been said that if you can draw the human figure, you can draw anything. These exercises, combined with voracious reading are my main training outside of actually painting. Sketches are also a great way to absorb the scenery while travelling. If you snap a bunch of pictures, you probably only look at them for a couple of seconds each, but when you sit and sketch a scene for 10 or 15 minutes, the architecture, mood and subtleties of the scene are much better appreciated. And lastly, before I even touch the paints, I do some cutting and pasting of any reference photos on my computer, and draft out a value sketch as a final plan to transfer to the canvas. Here, I show a few examples of these uses for sketching.