Workshop Announcement – Naples Italy May 30 – June 2
May 30 – June 2, 2013
This second edition will offer a deep immersion in the city of Naples to all the sketchers that have always dreamed to visit South of Italy. Locations will be selected among private houses and gardens that normally are not open to the public where we will meet local activists and artists that have a story to be recounted. Participants will be guided to discover Naples by different approaches to urban sketching. Field sessions will be leaded in turn by Simo Capecchi, an architects that likes to paint; Laura Scarpa, a comic artist that has always kept a graphic diary; Caroline Peyron, an art teacher and artist; Lapin, a french illustrator and indefatigable urban sketcher.
Goal of these Neapolitan days is to experience that, while we draw from real, we should go beyond a simple aestethical or naturalistic result. Psychological and social investigation, but also personal sensibility and imagination can enrich location drawings that depict, reflect and elaborate reality. We observe to understand and to create.
Watch this past edition slideshow.
workshops / instructors
Urban perspectives with Simonetta Capecchi
Vintage cars and dinosaurs with Lapin
Ligh and shadows with Caroline Peyron
Tell the story with Laura Scarpa
TO REGISTER, OR FIND OUT MORE: check the USK Workshops blog (HERE)
USK:MTL Dim Sum Sketchcrawl
Met with the Montreal Urban Sketchers for Dim Sum (and sketching), followed by some drawing in Chinatown. It is *almost* warm enough to draw outside in Montreal. I have high hopes for next month’s sketchcrawl.
Sketches are in the moleskine, pencil noodles, color in pelikan gouache (pans), and a little ballpoint pen accent. About 15 minute drawings outside then colored over a bubble tea and bbq pork buns.
Summer Workshop: Watercolor Sketching in Historic Montreal
I am happy to announce our Urban Sketchers Workshop: Watercolor Sketching in Historic Montreal. This summer, August 2-4, 2013, Shari Blaukopf and I will take up to 30 artists on a tour of some of Montreal’s best sketching spots. We’ll each be doing two ‘paint-along-with-us’ demo paintings, Friday and Saturday, and an afternoon of mentored group sketching on Sunday. I hope you’ll be able to join us!
Check out the details (and how to register!) on the Urban Sketchers workshop page HERE. A percentage of funds raised will go to supporting urbansketchers.org and the USK Symposium (this year in Barcelona – where we will also be demoing 4 times in two days!)
You can head over HERE for an after-action report from last year’s workshop in Portland.
Centaur Theatre 45th Season
Centaur Theatre has just announced their 45th Season of plays. As part of this seasons theme “Centaur Plays in Color” I was invited to do a colorful drawing of the theater’s home in the old Montreal Stock Exchange. This was breaking new ground for me. It’s not something I’ve ever allowed myself – to go completely wild with the color. I have to say it’s a lot of fun :) I took my inspiration from fellow UrbanSketchers.org artist Tia Boon Sim.
You can download the season brochure (PDF), featuring a lot of my splashy watercolor. This year’s plays include three world premieres, proving that live theater is going strong in Montreal. I hope you’ll check out a performance. I’m particularly interested in Annabel Soutar’s “Seeds” – a play about the battle between Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser and the agri-giant-corporation Monsanto.
Creating a spontaneous mural at the CCA Nuit Blanche
Just back from this year’s Nuit Blanche at the Canadian Centre for Architecture where we spent the night drawing on the walls.
Over the course of an 8 hour drawing session Montreal Urban Sketcher Shari Blaukopf and I improvised a 10 foot composite drawing based on our past year sketching on location in Montreal.
Our live drawing demo, going on during the CCA’s Nuit Blanche Drink and Draw party, was our contribution to the exhibit “ABC:MTL – A Self Portrait” which brings together artists from across all media. (Quote from the CCA: “Over 90 contributions including photography, music videos, sculptures and installations, drawings, models, workshops, lectures and performances have been selected…These now form a lexicon of the CCA’s home city and a platform for its creative talent.)
We met a lot of people during the project – hopefully some of you will come out to our USK:MTL Sunday Sketching!
Good news! As a last minute bonus, we were able to arrange for my show of 20 original drawings from “Innocence Lost: A play about Steven Truscott” to go up at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa during their production throughout March.
I’ll leave you with my final set of sketches of Innocence Lost. These were partially at the dress rehearsal, and partially during a press preview, where selected scenes were run for the benefit of the media. I was working surreptitiously so as not to distract the journalists, so these were done in near darkness in a little notebook. I’m working with a water based pen, so I was able to go in afterwards and make painterly washes out of my furtive scribblings.
If you are in Ottawa, I hope you’ll stop by and see the sketches – ideally after seeing Beverly Cooper’s emotional and thought provoking play. Innocence Lost is at the National Arts Centre from February 22 to March 16.
Several of the paintings are still available for sale – contact me in the comments if you’re interested in purchasing an original.
Christchurch Cathedral
Yes, it was the Metro Sketchcrawl today – but we did go above ground for a quick visit to Christchurch Cathedral. Beautiful woodwork in the beams, and plenty of stone carvings worth going back for someday.
Snow in Mount Royal Cemetery
Right now, I really want to be out there painting big huge paintings. But February in Montreal is more like moleskine and pencil weather. Last Tuesday was overcast, fairly warm, (around -3c), with a strong wind – which meant we had perfect conditions for big fat flakes of snow sticking to every surface.
On these days every tree becomes a sculpture, and every sculpture becomes a ghost. A perfect day to park the car in the cemetery and do a slow, sustained drawing.
Samurai Armor at the Pointe-à-Callière
This winter the Pointe-à-Callière (Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History) has been hosting Dr. Richard Béliveau’s collection of Samurai Armor. This is fascinating stuff to draw. Each one of these sets of armor calls on masters skill in metalwork, embroidery, fabric dyes, wood work, scrimshaw.
There’s so much complex artistry in these artifacts. They really call for sustained drawings. I’d love to have a month to paint one of these….Perhaps. Perhaps I will. More on that later.
This just in: audio interview!
Here’s a short (4:48 min) audio interview by freelance radio producer and reporter Sarah Deshaies, about the Innocence Lost sketching project. She managed to get some super nice comments from Trevor Barrette (playing Steven Truscott) on what it’s like being sketched.
Have a listen: S.Deshaies Innocence Lost radio interview
Citizen Sketcher 