sketching

Pluralsketchings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of sketch.

   The artist was sketching the harbor as the boats came in.

   Sketching quickly, she captured the dancer's pose before it changed.

   Note

   The -ing form does two jobs: after be it builds the progressive (she was sketching), and on its own it names the activity (sketching relaxes him). Because sketch can take an object or stand alone, both sketching the harbor and plain sketching are idiomatic. The verb also reaches beyond pencil and paper to brief verbal outlines, as in sketching a plan for the committee.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A drawing made quickly and roughly, showing only the basic outlines or shapes of its subject.

   She framed a delicate sketching of the old stone bridge.

   His travel journal held dozens of hurried sketchings from the marketplace.

   Similardrawing, study

   Note

   A countable noun in its own right: it takes an article and a plural, so a collection of Chinese sketchings is a set of drawings on paper, not a pastime. The plural is the quickest test. If sketchings fits the sentence, the word means the drawing itself. If it does not, the word is the activity of drawing, which names an action and has no plural.

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