4th International Urban Sketching Symposium: 08/10/13

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Recent sketches...channeling bcn

G-Mex approach, Manchester

I'm having a few technical issues posting on the main Urban Sketchers homepage (which I'm hoping will soon be resolved) but thought in the meantime I would post here, as my recent work has definitely been inspired by Barcelona. I had a drawing expedition Thursday afternoon into Manchester city centre. Firstly a quick warm up sketch and then a couple of more ambitious cityscapes. Anyone who did James Richard's excellent workshop at bcn will probably recognise I'm channeling Placa Catalunya with the G-Mex drawing...I drew the foreground first then added the buildings behind. The square was crowded with Manchester City fans as G-Mex was hosting a pre-season launch event. Very gloomy dark Manchester skies and a lot of rather sombre Victorian buildings in brick and sandstone meant I found myself using a very limited colour palette throughout, what turned out to be, a very productive afternoon of sketching.

St Peter Square, Manchester

Here's a sketch from another miserable afternoon (weather-wise!), sketching with the Manchester group at the Whitworth Art Gallery. At the end of the session there was just time for a quick sketch and seemed a great opportunity to use non waterproof ink...thanks again to Norberto Dorrantes for a fabulous workshop!

Oxford Road, Manchester

Such a brilliant time in Barcelona, and I'm aware I only scratched the surface, so many people to meet, so much to inspire....so many new sketching friends. Until next time I wish you all well.

Candide in Barcelona

panoramic view - Virginia Hein's workshop

The USk Symposium in Barcelona was a real achievement thanks to the perfect organisation of our spanish hosts. Many USk France peoples were registered to the workshops and even more attended to the sketchcrawls. But the frenchies can be proud of another kind of performance : to be the only nation to have their bag stolen !

Are frenchmen especially naive, like Candide ? The character of Voltaire who travels the world and believe that the human can't be inherently bad, even in the worst situation ?

I am one of the two unfortunates who lost a whole bag of art supplies and a complete sketchbook by robbery. After this bad experience, that was quite hard to swallow, I took a new start, with the material that the sponsors have offered to the participants, with the warm support of all my fellow sketchers and with the advices and instructions of our talented teachers.

For that reason I would like to thank you sincerly, from the heart, organisators, friends, instructors, all the Urban Sketchers. This big annual gathering allowed me to meet many great people I won't forget and regret that the symposium didn't last longer, now I'm looking forward the next one.

I love you.