Free music in Golden Gate Park, good friends to hang out with, Strathmore gray sketchbook, an assortment of pens, my tiny folding stool. Saturday done right.
Took VTA to the South First Fridays Art Walk tonight. Perfect venue for InkTober sketching! Lots of people strolling the area. Saw some new restaurants to check out, and was particularly wowed by the show at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art.
The people shaping clay at the Higher Fire potters' wheels were also impressive. They kept their focus even with all the people wandering in and out of their space.
It's a visual feast of approaches to location sketching, with lots of examples for inspiration. I'm honored to be in the company of such amazing urban sketcher friends.
Ask for it at your local bookstore or library.
(And yes, that's the book sitting in my brand-new shed studio -- will be posting some pics of the building and interior soon!)
Before I lived in Connecticut I wasn't really a beach person. Now that I'm living inland, I crave a glimpse of water from time to time. It's a good thing we don't live too far from the ocean.
M. surprised me on my birthday with an impromptu trip to Santa Cruz, the original California surfer town. Our lovely B&B, West Cliff Inn, overlooked the boardwalk and the beach.
Just a few minutes' drive away is Natural Bridges State Beach.
Both of these sketches were done on a Fluid 100 hot press watercolor 8x8 block. I'm really enjoying the way paint behaves on this smooth surface.
It's not easy to draw people playing volleyball (though it's easier than drawing people bowling).
San Jose sprawls from urban to practically rural; I've only just started to explore it. From the hill behind our house you can see a panoramic vista of towering palms and carved-out hills, drought-parched grass and tile-roofed homes.
You can't go to Singapore without eating ... or shopping. Although I didn't get to see Orchard Road (inexcusable, I know - will have to go back), I did make one purchase: a Hero pen with a bent nib, from Straits Art. It's similar to the Sailor bent nib pen I already own, but shorter and heavier. Its nib lets you make thin and thick strokes by varying the angle of the pen.
I filled its cartridge with the super5 ink that we got in our symposium goodie bag. This is my kind of travel souvenir -- something I'll be using for several years that will remind me of a great experience!
After registration and an opening sketchwalk, the symposium's packed schedule of activities and workshops got underway.
This year, I led an activity for the first time. It was called "Putting the 'Urban' in Urban Sketching." The task was to incorporate found materials -- both as drawing tools and as paper/substrate -- into our sketches, in order to tell the story of a place. I was concerned that Singapore's famously clean streets would yield no interesting scraps to use, but I needn't have worried.
I was blown away by the creativity of the activity participants. One found a scrap of cardboard at Albert Mall food center; another used a splayed joss stick to do a great ink drawing.
I used a palm twig dipped in watercolors to draw this -- not easy!
In this sketch, I used a stray price label, a dried leaf, and coin rubbings to evoke the atmosphere of the vendors.
Virginia Hein's excellent workshop, "Light and Dark with a Punch of Color" was a good challenge for me. I'm so used to working with line that it's hard for me to see just value shapes.
In Nina Johansson’s workshop, "Light in the Spaces Between," we learned to look at the areas between planes, to seek out the changes in value between surfaces.
Nina also showed us how to make subtle warm and cool shifts to our watercolor mixes without creating muddy colors.
Melanie Reim's workshop, "Found In Translation: The Influence of Calligraphy in the Figure and Environment," was inspirational. I loved "collecting" faces and figures with economical strokes of the brushpen in and around the Sri Krishnan Temple on Waterloo Street.
The final sketchwalk was at the Singapore Management University courtyard. It was a tranquil oasis of green, with ample space for sketchers to spread out and choose different views. Some sketched the Singapore Art Museum across the road:
I decided to complete my symposium experience with a sketch of the other sketchers.
And who could resist drawing our youngest participant, who patiently held this complex pose?
All the energy from Singapore will carry us through the rest of the year and onward to our next symposium: USK Manchester 2016 here we come!!
Singapore surprised me: Outstanding food, a heady mix of modern and vintage, walkable neighborhoods and infinity-pool views. Apart from the relentless saunalike weather, we had a great time at this year's event. Can't believe I've now attended my fifth USk symposium -- and this time as a participant, activity leader and board member!
We flew SFO > NRT > SIN. I started with a drawing on the airline's food tray placemat:
And then, sketched travelers during our layover in Narita, Japan:
Before the symposium got underway, we got to do a little sightseeing. It was so hot and humid that even my eyes were sweating. We visited Little India and then walked to Kampong Glam, with hipster boutiques in the shadow of the Sultan Mosque.
Dinner was at Lau Pa Sat market, which specialized in satay.
After a traditional hawker breakfast of roti prata and kaya toast dipped in soy sauce-drizzled soft-boiled eggs, we went to the Singapore Botanic Gardens. It's hard to imagine wearing uniforms with full sleeves and rubber boots in that stifling weather.
In the evening, I sketched people hanging out in the hotel lobby.
To be continued ... read Part 2
You can walk the length of the main street in this little coastal town in a few minutes. The stiff breeze didn't stop us from enjoying a hearty lunch at Duarte's Tavern. And of course we stopped in at the little boutiques, visited the goat farm and watched tiny crabs in the tide pools at the beach. Later we feasted on Arcangeli Grocery artichoke bread and fresh Harley Farms goat cheese and tomato sauce.
After leaving Nebraska we made our way up to Cheyenne, Wyoming, for a night, before heading south into Colorado and then west to Utah.
Moab, Utah, was a highlight of the trip. The weather was absolutely perfect, and the intense red sandstone against the azure sky was a revelation.
Moab is a cyclist’s paradise, with its expanses of slick rock and challenging singletrack.
Ely, Nevada, is mostly a waystation on Highway 50, dubbed the “Loneliest Road in America.” I sketched its main drag just before the sun went down and the casinos lit up below the snowcapped mountains.
By the time we got to Eureka, it was raining. While M. went in search of coffee, I tore out a page from the “official guide” to Highway 50 and tried to capture the mood with a white gel pen.
Our last stop in Nevada before crossing the California state line was Lake Tahoe. We marveled at the clear aquamarine water and, after all that rain, bright sunshine!
Moab, Utah, was a highlight of the trip. The weather was absolutely perfect, and the intense red sandstone against the azure sky was a revelation.
Moab is a cyclist’s paradise, with its expanses of slick rock and challenging singletrack.
Ely, Nevada, is mostly a waystation on Highway 50, dubbed the “Loneliest Road in America.” I sketched its main drag just before the sun went down and the casinos lit up below the snowcapped mountains.
By the time we got to Eureka, it was raining. While M. went in search of coffee, I tore out a page from the “official guide” to Highway 50 and tried to capture the mood with a white gel pen.
Our last stop in Nevada before crossing the California state line was Lake Tahoe. We marveled at the clear aquamarine water and, after all that rain, bright sunshine!
After Ohio, we hugged the Lake Michigan “coastline” to check out Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
Lunch the next day was in Davenport, Iowa, where I looked out at the mighty Mississippi River.
Omaha, Nebraska, was a pleasant surprise. It’s a foodie town, with interesting neighborhoods. We stayed near the Old Market, which is packed with shops and restaurants shaded by decorative awnings.
There are vintage signs and distinctive letterforms everywhere. Even the view from our hotel window was eye-catching:
Here's what the drive through the rest of Nebraska looked like:
To be continued...
Lunch the next day was in Davenport, Iowa, where I looked out at the mighty Mississippi River.
Omaha, Nebraska, was a pleasant surprise. It’s a foodie town, with interesting neighborhoods. We stayed near the Old Market, which is packed with shops and restaurants shaded by decorative awnings.
There are vintage signs and distinctive letterforms everywhere. Even the view from our hotel window was eye-catching:
Here's what the drive through the rest of Nebraska looked like:
To be continued...
We are driving our car across the country (well, M. is driving; I'm just riding along and playing DJ) as part of our ongoing move from Connecticut to California.
Our first stop: Cleveland! We stayed at Clifford House B&B in Ohio City and walked to Bar Cento/Bier Markt for dinner. It was Kentucky Derby night, so the place was hopping. I sketched the patrons at the bar while we waited to be served.
The next morning I drew a few scenes in the neighborhood, including one of W. 25th Street with the new Mitchell's Ice Cream outpost -- yum.
To be continued...
Our first stop: Cleveland! We stayed at Clifford House B&B in Ohio City and walked to Bar Cento/Bier Markt for dinner. It was Kentucky Derby night, so the place was hopping. I sketched the patrons at the bar while we waited to be served.
The next morning I drew a few scenes in the neighborhood, including one of W. 25th Street with the new Mitchell's Ice Cream outpost -- yum.
To be continued...
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