Sketching Boats with a Figure 8

I often practice sketching items from photos that I have to be able to pop into plein air paintings quickly. This includes figures, boats, bicycles, cars, trees, rocks, etc. One rainy day, I decided to do some boat sketching. I first searched YouTube for any new tips on sketching boats, and came across this interesting video on how to make boats from a figure 8.

I pulled out my S&B Zeta Hardbound sketchbook and selected this page spread, which I'd monoprinted in several layers across the spread. (You can click here to go to the post where I explained how I did this.)

I started the page spread by experimenting with the figure 8 boats in the video, facing them in different directions. I tried them slightly larger and slightly smaller, varying the sizes and widths of the loops to find what would work best. What I found was that the figure 8 boat sketches are fun and kind of interesting. But it wasn't long before I saw that it only gave me a certain amount of perspective variation and boat angles, and applies to very few cases of actual boats I'd be painting. However, it did give me a feel for roundness and overall shape that I found useful. Once I'd gained what I found to be helpful from the video, I did some larger boat sketches from photos that encompassed other angles and drawing approaches. I'll probably add a few more to this page spread the next time I want to practice sketching boats.