Memories from BCN - part1

All good things eventually come to an end... After months of preparations and expectations, it took only three days of an explosion of senses and now we have all come back to different parts of the world. We back to our jobs and our families, our routines. But nothing can stop us from taking out our sketchbooks every day, and for one tiny moment we all feel connected through simple magic of sharing the same passion of sketching which bonds us together again and again.

I'll try to upload here little by little my impressions from the Symposium.

First of all I want to say a big THANK YOU to all the organizers and volunteers for their amazing work and sleepless nights preparing this event!

Being this time one of the instructors, I felt very excited and a bit anxious. I was lucky to be instructing together with my friend Ea Ejersbo, she calmed me down and our energies were well balanced.

It was a really great experience!

I'm so happy that participants took risks and moved out of their "security zones", freed themselves and weren't afraid to make "bad" sketches. They  successfully "hunted' the "heroes' of their stories, composed them in their sketchbooks, using well the spread and white spaces, and went wild with watercolors and watercolor pencils putting it all together!  At the end their sketchbooks were full of great stories from colorful La Boqueria! 

Here are some of the sketches from La Boqueria I managed to make:

Indeed, teaching is the best way of learning. When you're trying to describe your approaches and methods, you can finally understand yourself a bit :-)

Stay tuned, it will be continued!

Greetings from Israel!

Hello fellow sketchers, greetings from Israel! One month left until the USk Symposium starts, and I can’t wait to meet you all in Barcelona! 

Two years ago I've participated in 2nd Symposium in Lisbon, and came back totally overwhelmed by its wonderful experience. Sketching among more than 200 sketchers from all over the world, finally meeting in person people behind the sketches, exploring together the beautiful city of Lisbon, chatting & eating together, switching tools & sketchbooks and, again, sketching, sketching and sketching...

I feel privileged and very excited to be one of instructors at coming Symposium, and together with Ea Ejersbo, look forward to sharing our approach to sketching. At our workshop we’ll focus on looking for stories in everyday situations by opening our eyes wider, finding our heroes, trying to figure different ways to tell stories though our sketches and, maybe the most important, on enjoying the process!
Sketching for me is first of all a way to enjoy the pleasure of drawing for its own sake and a very fun way to go to a journey every day without getting far. It’s great to sketch in exotic spots, but finding stories in everyday places and situations – that’s what I love most about it! 
Here some sketches from the place I live – maybe general views are very different, but we also have beaches:

colorful markets:

and people enjoying themselves in coffee shops:

I can’t wait sketching beautiful and effervescent Barcelona together with you all! See you soon!

Drawing People in Action: A Character Sketching Crash Course (Workshop N)

Instructor: Marc Taro Holmes (Montreal, CANADA)
Location: Rambla del Raval

The main thing to remember about drawing people in action is this: They are going to move before you’re ready. It’s inevitable. Real life never holds a pose.

Once you are ok with that, urban sketching begins to open up for you. If your drawing process requires subjects to sit still, you will never be able to draw anyone outside of a subway car or cafe.

We want to unlock the ability to draw anyone, doing anything. To tell any story.

This workshop is based on capturing everything you need quickly – in mere seconds – and completing the sketch before your visual memory fades.

It helps to have a plan – a systematic approach – to avoid dithering about what to draw next, or how to draw it. We’re going to practice a method of working where each step adds information to the step before, always moving toward a finished sketch.

Your subject can walk away at any stage in the process, but you’ll be able to finish based on whatever you have captured so far.

Learning Goals

We will practice four simple steps, in this order: Gesture > Line > Blacks > Color
You can also think of this as: Pencil > Pen > Brush (Pen) > Watercolor

• The Gesture aka “The Cloud Scribble” aka “The Ball of String”: An instantaneous “single” line capturing volume, posture, costume hints, and narrative . A gesture is so fast, you can capture any subject, no matter how active. It is the scaffold you will build on. It’s the map you will follow.

• Line Drawing: The Line Drawing is done right on top of the Gesture. We will practice an exercise called the 7 Line Figure, which is just mind game to prioritize the important stuff first. Your subject is probably walking away about now, unless you’ve chosen someone who can’t escape. (Workers are good, street performers, people playing sports).

• Spotting Blacks: Properly Spotted Blacks are organized to focus the eye and indicate mass or weight. Darks should cluster around the area of interest and fade out to the edges. As well, small cast shadows indicate volume and ‘contact’ with a surface. After this part, you have a solid drawing, so you can go back and erase some of the gesture if you like a cleaner sketch.

• Color Washes: This is the easy part – because this is most likely done after the subject is long gone. But you have your drawing to guide you. Now you get to have fun and make the sketch come to life! Go outside the lines. Use a big brush. The drawing is the scaffold, holding everything up. The color can be playful and it all still works. This is also the time for some opaque retouching with gouache if you like.

Materials:

• You need a paper that can take watercolor. Standard Moleskines are ok (if you don’t mind the coated paper and smallish size). Basically anything over 80lb up to 140lb paper. I like loose sheets of Strathmore Bristol in the smooth surface, and Canson Montoval watercolor pads.

• Gestures are best done in Mechanical Pencil. You’ll want a Kneaded Rubber Eraser as well. 

• Line Drawing over top of the gesture requires a fine line ink pen – Ballpoint Pen, those little nylon tipped Microns, or a Lamy Fountain Pen. (Lamy brand cartridges are water soluble, which allows for special effects later).

• Spotting Blacks is super easy with a Brush Pen (Pentel GFKP is best). Or you can be more artistic with Brushes and Ink. This can be messy but real brushes are more expressive. I carry ink and water in Nalgene bottles. They never leak. Always have Paper Towels to blot inky brushes before polluting your water supply. 

• Color Washes can be either watercolor or gouache (I carry both). Tube Color is best. (Windsor and Newton or Holbein, any artist-grade really). And of course Brushes (Say, 4-5 sizes, from small enough to draw lines to big enough to one-stroke skies), Water Bottle, and Folding Pallet. Yes, lots more stuff to carry, but this is the fun stuff! You can opt for Pan Colors and maybe a Waterbrush if you’re packing light.


Workshop Schedule: 


Part 1

Gesture - I’ll demo a few Gestures, and you’ll do a quick once around the block grabbing some of your own.


Part 2

7 Line Figures - I’ll demo what I mean by 7 Line Figures, and you’ll work over your first batch of Gestures. Then well do a longer chunk of capturing (40 min) sketching people in action using both steps.


Part 3

Spot Blacks and Color - I’ll demo Spotting Blacks, which is the core of a solid sketch. How to Focus the eye and give things mass. You’ll try it out on your sketches so far and then right into:


Part 4

Color Washes and Discussion - We bring it all together. Finishing all the sketches you captured in the first half, and seeing how the process has helped us get all these spontaneous drawings of people who wouldn’t sit still for us.

More sample sketches

Urban Life: Describing City Spaces Through the Life Lived There (Workshop K)

Instructors: Marina Grechanik and Ea Ejersbo
Location: Mercat de la Boqueria

The workshop will provide an introduction to a number of ways the subject may be approached. We will look at a selection of examples, illustrating various artists’ ways of exploring and incorporating urban life in their sketchbooks.


The workshop will focus on describing city spaces through the life lived there. Focus will be on people and activity, and we will explore various ways to capture the sense of life and activity.


We will cover ways to animate a scene, deal with the changing scenes of people coming and going, and make use of the sketchbook spread in composition.
We will show our approach to sketching as sinking into an environment, understanding it, and becoming a part of it.


John W. Gardner  said that “Life is the art of drawing without an eraser”. Urban Sketching is perhaps the closest you can get to this “real life” form of art - we sketch life while it is happening. Our sketches capture not frozen moments, like in the movie “The Matrix”, but moments and actions as they are happening; so our sketches include many moments that occurred over a period of time, forming together a kind of static animation.




Structure


Approximately 15 minutes - introduction

Exercises - 3 exercises of 30 minutes to 1 hour duration each

30 minutes to conclude - sharing our sketches and insights



Exercises



1. Looking for the story and capturing its heroes
The exercise will include 2-3 quick sketches in monochrome only (pen, brush pen, graphite pencil) (10-15 minutes each)

• observe the place you are going to sketch
• choose your "heroes"
• characterize the people: who they are, what their stories are, the mood, what they are doing, what they are up to
• observe and give a name to your sketch - general impression, a message that you want to capture and express
• choose which object or person to give detailed care and which parts to use loose sketching
• choose which parts of the scene you will include - what to draw and what to leave out of the frame

2. Room in your sketchbook - making use of the space/spread and leaving room for imagination
2-3 sketches using medium of your own choice (15-20 minutes each)

• focus on composition
• make use of the sketchbook format, incorporating the gutter, letting the format of your page/spread dictate the composition
• incorporate empty spaces and unfinished parts in your sketch
• stick to indicating, rather than minutely describing, minimum one element in your composition - inviting the viewer to participate with her/his imagination

3. Capturing the moment with watercolour and watercolour pencils
1-2 sketches (40-60 minutes in all)
Use a combination of watercolours and watercolour pencils. Try to apply the principles we’ve learned in previous exercises. We will try out some new approaches to working with watercolours.

• examples of use of watercolours and watercolour pencils will be demonstrated
• focus on using shapes and lines together to build a form - avoid drawing contours and colouring them in afterwards
• be expressive, show it in the way you sketch - different strokes, shapes, splashes, etc.
• tell a story trying to apply the principles we’ve learned in previous exercises and using the “new” approach to watercolour



Learning goals


The workshop aims to give participants the skills to approach people-sketching and urban storytelling with confidence.

• To gain an understanding of urban sketching as a way of life, an activity that can be a part of our daily routine
• To improve observation ability
• To learn how to find stories in everyday situations
• To acquire new techniques and approaches to sketching people
• To become more aware of how the sketchbook format can be used in composing an image
• To gain insight in how watercolour and watercolour pencils may be used together in quick sketches
• To enjoy an activity that gives us the possibility to experience urban life in a very deep and authentic way

Supply list


Participants will need a sketchbook and a selection of drawing tools in minimum 3 different colours/types - e.g. marker, colour pencil, graphite, brush-pen. For the exercises in non-traditional use of watercolour medium, participants will need a set of watercolour and watercolour pencils.

More sample sketches

Channeling Picasso (Workshop D)

Instructor: Melanie Reim (New York City)
Location: Pla de la Boqueria, Rambla

Mention Pablo Picasso and the variety of reactions to his art is as varied as his art is. One could hardly think of being anywhere in Barcelona without having the aura of 
Mr. P surrounding us. It is a city where he spent much time making art.

This workshop will use the unique mark-making, compositions, effusiveness of character and moody values of Picasso’s more graphic works to emulate and integrate those aspects of his works to capture the great light of the city as well as the intricate markings of the architecture and animated characters of Barcelona.

Learning goals

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• utilize a variety of new and varied marks to create reportage drawings.
• execute with black ink and brush with enough control to create
• well-designed silhouettes.
• create a reportage drawing that infuses life and character into capturing people in an animated setting.
• design a reportage drawing with astute composition.

Supply list

Black waterproof ink, dip pen and/or cartridge pen, felt- tip, two- three cups for water, watercolor brushes, (numbers 1-3 or 4), paper towels or rag

Designing Barcelona (Workshop C)

Instructor: Veronica Lawlor (New York City)
Location: L'Illa de la Discórdia

Barcelona’s discord is our design playground! Join reportage illustrator Veronica Lawlor in a playful approach to reportage and picture making on one of the most celebrated streets in Barcelona, the Illa de la Discórdia.

The “Illa de la Discórdia” (in English: the Block of Discord), is one of the most celebrated blocks in Barcelona’s Eixample district: so named because it showcases four buildings by four of Barcelona’s most important Modernist architects, in four very different, sometimes clashing, styles. These diverse architectural styles give the participants of this workshop an opportunity to play with and explore four different graphic approaches, drawing each building’s personality and bringing its unique identity to life. This approach also brings the artist’s unique experience of location to life!

The drawing fun here is to improvise, play, and do things you would normally not do - go beyond ‘realism’ to explore the design intentions of each architect. And of course we’ll apply those same approaches to drawing the people who weave this collection of mixed graphics together. The focus is on your personal interpretation – your Design of Barcelona!

Workshop Schedule

The workshop will begin with a short demonstration by Veronica of core elements of picture design: linear calligraphy, marks (texture) and patterns, and color shape and line. Picture dimension will also be discussed. The participants will spend the first hour in experiment and play - making small thumbnail sketches of the four buildings through four different approaches – black and white marks and pattern, black line, brush and calligraphy, color shapes, and colored line. This includes interpreting people this way. The decision each participant makes is a choice of graphics – which building lends itself best to calligraphy, which to marks and pattern, which to color, etc. – to reflect the personality of the artist as well as the architect.

We’ll then have a short critique of the drawings, and a demonstration by the instructor of picture proportions and graphic choices. The participants will spend the last hour and a half working on one large drawing of the all four buildings on the street together, using the calligraphy, marks, patterns, and colored shape and line that they just played with, in various picture percentages. We’ll talk about how much to put into a drawing – and how much to leave out – the graphic feeling you want, and the design decisions you make.

The famous buildings of the Illa de la Discordia are: Casa Lleó-Morera, designed by Lluis Doménech Montaner, Casa Mulleras by Enric Sagnier, Casa Amantller by Josep Puig I Cadafalch, and the Casa Batlló by Antoni Gaudi. In addition to learning about your own sense of design, you will have the chance to study and appreciate the architecture of these important figures of the Modernist movement in Barcelona, through an exploration in drawing.

Learning goals

• By example, demonstration, and experience, participants will explore various methods of picture making and personal graphic expression of calligraphy, marks, shape and color: the elements of picture design.
• They should walk away with a better understanding of picture proportion and graphics – how much to put in or leave out of a picture.
• Through experimenting and allowing themselves to try unusual combinations they will take away with some new drawing language to continue playing with on location when they return home.

Supplies

Please bring a medium sized sketchbook as well as a fountain pen (or cartridge pen), a disposable brush pen or calligraphy marker, 2 or 3 medium to soft graphite pencils, and a small assortment of colored pencils along with either colored markers, caran d’ache crayons, pastels, or a small watercolor kit. (To have the option of both line and shape with your color.) Additional supplies you may prefer would include a dip pen or bamboo pen with a small bottle of ink. This is a mixed media drawing workshop so please feel free to experiment.

Bring a portable stool if you like, to sit on while working.

Sample sketches