A view of Capela de N. Sra. das Dores in Paraty, Brazil, during the 2014 Urban Sketching Symposium. This will be one of the many sketches that will be sold tomorrow evening in a silent auction to benefit the Urban Aketchers organization. I’ve completed two workshops and have a third scheduled tomorrow morning. Great participants, enthusiastic and appreciative in a beautiful colonial village on the Bay of Paraty.
Category Archives: Workshops
Tacoma Workshop
Gail Wong and I will be offering another Line to Color workshop, this time in Tacoma September 12–14. As in our two Seattle workshops last year, we’ll begin on Friday evening with an introductory sketching session followed by dinner and presentations at the historic Swiss Pub. On Saturday, we’ll work at the Tacoma Art Museum and in the Museum District. Then on Sunday, we’ll work in the Theater District and Antique Mall District. As always, it should be fun. And beginners are certainly welcome!
For more information and a complete schedule, visit <http://workshops.urbansketchers.org/2014/07/join-us-for-our-line-to-color-workshop.html>.
Seattle Art Museum Workshop
Opening tomorrow at the Seattle Art Museum is a special exhibition, Modernism in the Pacific Northwest: The Mythic and the Mystical, featuring the work of four artists central to the Northwest school of modern art—Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, and Guy Anderson. Tied to the exhibit is a special event on Saturday, June 28: A tour of the exhibit followed by a three-hour field sketching session at Pike Place Market led by Gabi Campanario, Gail Wong, and myself. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the Seattle Urban Sketchers site at <http://seattle.urbansketchers.org>.
Washington State University
Thanks to Bob Krikac of the Washington State University’s School of Design and Construction, Gabi Campanario, Gail Wong and I were able to spend this past weekend conducting a series of drawing workshops in Pullman, Washington. It was great to see the energy and desire to draw among the mixed group of students, professionals, and individuals simply interested in urban sketching. After the teaching sessions on Saturday and Sunday morning, we all met at Bryan Hall with its iconic clock tower for a final sketchcrawl. Here are two of the three views that I managed to do.
Savannah
We’ve spent the last few days in Savannah, Georgia, one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the U.S. Savannah’s founder James Oglethorpe developed the original town plan on a grid centered around a series of squares. It’s instructive to see how the grid and series of park-like squares reveal themselves even today after all these years.
The purpose for our visit was to give a presentation and a series of workshops at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I’ll try to post a few drawings from the trip after our we return to Seattle. In the meantime, here are a few photos.
5th Urban Sketching Symposium
I am happy to announce that I have been selected to be among those who will be teaching workshops at the 5th International Urban Sketching Symposium to be held August 27–30, 2014 in Paraty, a historic Portuguese colonial town situated on the lush coastline between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. To be able to meet and draw with urban sketchers from all over the world in such a beautiful setting is a rare privilege.
For more information and to keep up with the latest news, see <http://paraty2014.urbansketchers.org>.
Seattle Workshop: Fall Edition
I want to thank Gail Wong and all of the participants in our Line to Color workshop for a fun and stimulating weekend. For me, it was inspiring to see and feel the energy emanating from the group as we sped through downtown Fremont Saturday morning, settled into Gasworks Park in the afternoon, and then reconvened down at bustling Pike Place Market on Sunday, all the time being blessed with great weather and company. After a workshop it’s always difficult for me to gauge the impact of what two-and-a-half days of drawing can have but I did see a lot of progress and hope all who attended will continue to pursue and enjoy this creative activity.
Being occupied with working with each of the participants, I didn’t have much time to draw on my own. But here a couple of very quick sketches. The first is one of my teaching sketches that I do to demonstrate how to block out a composition on a page.
The second is a market scene where I dabbled with a waterbrush that I borrowed from Daniel, one of the participants, to see how the it might react with the ink lines. I kind of like the effect even though it’s quite subtle. The ease of creating gray washes with a waterbrush might be the first step toward incorporating color into my drawings.
Stillman & Birn
Many thanks to Stillman & Birn, makers of fine art journals who generously donated a number of their Beta Series sketchbooks for our workshop this weekend in Seattle.
Seattle Workshop II
Gail Wong and I will be offering a second Line to Color workshop in Seattle September 6–8. As in our spring workshop, we’ll begin on Friday evening with an introductory sketching session followed by dinner and presentations at the Ballard Pizza Co. On Saturday, we’ll work in the Fremont neighborhood and at Gasworks Park. Then on Sunday, we’ll meet the Seattle Urban Sketchers at either Pike Place Market or Pioneer Square. As always, it should be fun. And beginners are certainly welcome!
Here is a pdf offering a complete schedule and more information.
If you’re interested or have any questions, please contact Gail at gail@glwarc.com.
Halifax, Nova Scotia
On Tuesday, I flew from the west coast of North America to the extreme east coast to arrive in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I’m attending the Festival of Architecture, the annual conference of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. Before my workshop sessions begin, I’m finding the time to walk around the waterfront district and do some sketching. Here are three views: one of the waterfront, another of the Halifax City Hall built in the late-19th century, and the last, a panoramic view from the Halifax Citadel.
