The 13th International Urban Sketchers Symposium: A Few More Thoughts

I have had a few days to think about my symposium experience. I was hoping to have something new to say about it, but I stand by my original description, that it was tiring and inspiring. Still, here are a few additional observations.

First, a few random points I forgot to include in my daily reports:

• The majority of the attendees come prepared to make new contacts, and bring something to hand out that shows their name and (usually) instagram. These items can be business cards, but it is much more common to offer stickers. Many, many people carry whole selections of small stickers featuring various examples of their art.
  And then, collecting stickers is a whole thing. The various Urban Sketchers chapters offer them, too, so you can cover, say, the outside of your sketchbook with them. (Another option was a ‘Symposium Passport’, a small book just for stickers one could buy on-site.)
  Where one gets the stickers made, I do not know.
• Apparently, there is a curse on the instructors: any art they produce during classes and especially demos will be below their usual standard. I do not exactly believe in curses, but this does seem like the sort of thing that would happen. (I did not see evidence of it myself, though.)
• I really like this one tip I got from Andrew James’ class: before painting a building, take a moment to think of a quick description of the building, just one or two words (the church we were painting was ‘spiky’), and then make sure you try to convey that description of the building. He said he picked it up from another artist, who uses it when painting people, to make them more individualized.
  This is obviously related to the more generic advice that when starting a painting one should decide on an element one really likes in the scene being painted, and work on highlighting that. In my example painting above, I did not really describe the building: I was most interested in the light gradient, and I wanted to capture THAT.

And now, a few takeaways for my urban sketching journey:

• In an earlier post I complained about the difficulty of using a proper water-cup while outside. I had plans to try attaching some container to various parts of my setup and my body. Well… I have not actually tried out most of those ideas, because it has not been an issue: I tend to set the water down on a nearby surface. This is most often a banister or a window-sill, because I seem to sketch standing up a lot. I will choose a standing spot with a perspective I like, make my basic sketch, and then find some place nearby where I can rest my water. I have also set it down on benches, and on cafe tables. Or on the ground next to me.
  Many, many people carry small chairs. I actually had one with me, but never used it.
• The sketches I find most appealing are ones that convey perspective in a believable way (it doesn’t have to be exact: the wonky buildings are good enough for me). And while I do understand the basics of perspective, making sure my linework follows them is trickier. I had been assuming that it is a question of training my eye, and then training my hand to follow what my eye sees (something it sometimes refuses to do), so I was a bit surprised to see that some experienced sketchers/architects still like to put in perspective lines, even with a ruler. So that is always an option! Even if it is a bit tedious…
• Making one’s marks confidently is key. Confidently, and deliberately. I feel like these are the hardest skills to learn! I certainly still struggle with them, even at home. (Varying one’s marks is part of being deliberate about them.) I am sure that many people already know this (I did, even if I forget to follow it) but one way to get better ink lines is to put a dot at one’s destination, and then ‘ghost’ over the line without touching the paper a couple of times, to get the motion down.

So, no huge new insights, but hopefully some of these small observations are interesting!

And now, back to the more usual pigment-oriented content…