The 13th International Urban Sketchers Symposium: Day One

Today, I hope to focus less on incidental details, and more on what I am learning.

Morning Briefing

During this briefing, I learned a bunch of logistic details, the most important being that coffee was not provided.

Lecture: The Hand That Draws The Future (The Cognitive Benefits of Urban Sketching), by Ivan Chow

This was a fascinating lecture, full of scientific citations and fMRI images. The basic message was that drawing activates many deep parts of the brain, the most important being the hippocampus, the seat of memory (and creativity, and decision-making). So, for example, taking notes by hand results in better recall than typing them, and drawing as part of note-taking is even better. So, we should make sure that the human race continues to draw, as we have been doing for (at least) millenia.

Sketchwalk One

After about a half hour of confusion, we were led to an Old Town square in front of a religious complex. (Later, a random Polish man told me Napoleon lived there for a while, “ruling his whole empire”, and then again, when running away from Russia. So, that is something I learned.)

I decided to start off the sketchwalk with some experiments, and the official Symposium set of four colours.

While drawing the close-up of the tower I ended up standing right next to Paul Wang’s workshop group and overheard a bit of his lecture. I hope it isn’t too inappropriate to mention that he asked the participants to make all kinds of marks (bold, delicate, fluffy, “emotional”–and here, anger is apparently easier than happiness) and then to think about which marks they tend to gravitate towards/overuse, and to try to diversify. Anyway, I am sure there is a lot more to it! I was nearby for only half an hour, and not listening too attentively, since it wasn’t my workshop. But it did get me thinking about the marks I make…

I then went to the town square and sat in a cafe (with many other sketchers) to draw some of the colourful buildings.

Lunch/Art Market

I gobbled a very quick lunch, then typed up my notes and visited some of the art market stalls. Note: most stalls let you try things, including almost all the watercolours on offer.

Roman Szmal: I wanted to ask Mr. Szmal about the special Symposium colour, but he was not there when I went, so I simply tested all the yellow earths.

Renesans: This is a Polish paint brand rather overshadowed by Roman Szmal. I tested a few colours and bought a half-pan of Polish Blue, a red-leaning phthalo (PB15:0?) I plan to use in skies.

Daniel Smith: They have a super-cool primatek display with real minerals, and are handing out dot cards like candy. I did not buy anything.

Demo: How Painting First Can Lead to Fast and Confident Progress, by Róisín Curé

Róisín presented her approach, which consists of laying in some aspects of the scene in light Payne’s Grey (which allows her to correct mistakes, since the faint colour will not be very visible in the final sketch), and then using ink to outline and, finally, full-strength watercolour. To add in people, who move about, she often uses only a quick ink sketch in a contrasting colour.

Since I do not do well with passive learning, I ended up asking stupid questions and sketching–but not exactly in her style: I went with pure ink and some highlight colours. Still, I think her teaching gave me confidence.

I also learned several other things, such as:

• Róisín wore a skirt of fake leather, which is nice because water slides right off. Also, it acts as padding if you fall over.
• When sketching people, if you mess up the headshape of a bald dude, you can just give him hair. You’ll be doing him a favour, anyway.
• Having one or two ink lines go awry is not an issue. They might fade into the background once you start painting, and if they don’t, you can strategically cover them with a white gelly roll pen.

Sketchwalk Two: “Green”

This sketchwalk was very aptly named. We were taken to a park where everything was green. After sketching one tree I (and others) rebelled and went to the endpoint of the walk–an old brewery converted into a mall. This was not green, but orange.

Drink and Draw

We ended the day with another very friendly mixer where I got to see many sketchbooks. One thing I noticed is that several experienced people tend to cut off the ground floor of buildings at the level of the cafe umbrellas, because sketching the mess of people and chairs under those umbrellas feels annoying and unnecessary when what you care about is the buildings. I felt understood, because I have been hating those umbrellas in secret.

It was a very intense day. I have not actually shared all my sketches! Will I survive another day of this? Tune in tomorrow, when I will attend my first workshop.