faces from around the world

November 10, 20135 Comments

I’ve not been sketching much lately, so not posting much…but I realized, I still haven’t quite finished posting from Barcelona! My people sketches, for one thing. The view form my hotel room as well, which is above, sketched in purple. So anyway, here finally are my people sketches, mostly from the evening drink’n’draw sessions at the CCCB and dinners with old sketching friends afterwards. So many great sketchers from around the world, old friends to catch up with such as Gerard, Jason, Liz, Lapin, Omar (and many more!!!), so many that I was meeting for the first time such as Stuart Kerr (who is a great character, love to hang out with him more some day), the french urban sketchers (I’ve been following for a while so was great to meet them all), and the Spanish urban sketchers, many of whom I met in Lisbon but I bumped into many across Barcelona. Plus the sketchers who had travelled from Asia, quite a big Singapore contingent, including Tony Chua and Parka, whose work I recognized as soon as I saw their sketchbooks. I wasn’t part of the Symposium itself, and how well that worked out for me I’m not really sure about (I was a little disorganized), but it was great to catch up with so many old friends, though all at once was quite overwhelming. So here are my sketches!

Below is Sue Pownall, the excellent artist from Britain who travesl the world, currently living in Oman, and I had the great pleasure to meet her again in London. Kumi Matsukawa was there too, from Japan, we met in Portland in 2010, I love her work. Another sketcher I was meeting for the fiorst time was Debo Boddiford, who I know from Flickr, and who has a wonderful southern accent. It’s funny to hear people’s voices having only read their words online. People probably think that about me!

On the Friday evening I went for dinner with the French and Belgian sketchers. I’d only met my friend and sketching hero Gerard Michel and his nephew Fabien Denoel before, and had a great time meeting and chatting with them (though I kept forgetting to speak French, though I can understand it). Gerard is sketched above; below are some of the others there that evening.

On the Saturday there was an end-of-sketchcrawl meeting, at which I caught up with many others. There’s Marc Taro, urban sketcher from Montreal, Eduardo Bajzek from Brazil, Stuart Kerr form Scotland, Rita Sabler who I met in Portland in 2010, Parka from Singapore (wow what a sketchbook he has!!), Simone Rudyard from Manchester, Amber Sausen from Minnesota, and Julie Blaquie and Martine Kervagoret from France.

These final few were form the final gathering at CCCB (into which non-badged sketchers were initially barred from crossing the barrier, unlike previous symposia); Mark Leibovitz from New York, Daniel Green from Minnesota, and Matthew Brehm from Idaho, who I know from previous USk symposia, a great guy and a great teacher.

Below was at a nice meal on the Saturday evening, attended by Paul wang (Singapore), Omar Jaramillo (Germany, orig. Ecuador), Yara (Germany, orig. Brazil), Nina Johansson (Sweden), Liz Steel (Australia), Jason Das (USA), Suhita Shirodkar (USA, orig. India), Virginia Hein (USA) and me (USA, orig. UK). What a worldwide line-up!

And finally, my wife Angela, eating paella on the Sunday afternoon. I love Barcelona!

the incredible sagrada família

September 17, 2013September 17, 20135 Comments

Another one checked off the life-long wish-list! This is the famous and magnificent Sagrada Família, the ongoing masterpiece of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí. I love to sketch a cathedral. Of course this isn’t technically a cathedral, it is a “Basilica and Expiatory Church” – there’s no bishop, you see. It’s also only really half a church, because as you probably know it is not quite finished yet, stunning and unbelievably detailed though it is. It is over a century and a quarter in the making, entirely funded by donations, and naturally is a huge draw for tourists. It is expected to be finished by 2026, with a massive central spire still to be added. I quite prefer it like this. It is quite something to think that this will look really different the next time I go to sketch it. Finally however I have sketched it, this building I have always wanted to see and draw.

This was done on my last day in Barcelona, when my wife and I took the metro out on a bright Sunday morning. We found that lovely spot across from the pond looking up at the Sagrada Família, and as I sketched there were other urban sketchers from southern Spain also there capturing the view. Always nice to meet the Spanish sketchers, I’m a big follower of the various groups around the country, and learn from them a lot. Once they were gone, I was joined by a group of elderly Catalans; the old woman sat next to me chatted away to me in Catalan, tried to teahc me a few words, and they kept me in good company while my wife went off to take photos. This is the Nativity Façade, which pre-dates the Spanish Civil War, sketched in the Stillman & Birn ‘beta’ sketchbook.

I didn’t go inside this time. The queues are fairly enormous, and our time was limited. I’d love to in the future. There will always be another trip to Barcelona.

la boqueria

September 15, 20135 Comments

I was really excited about visiting the Boqueria market off La Rambla in Barcelona. Its full name is the Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria, and on a Saturday afternoon it was a colourful vibrabt place. I knew I would need to sketch in here, though finding a good spot where I was out of the way was not necessarily easy. I wandered the whole market, taking in all of the colours and smells – fresh fruit, fresh fish, chocolate, wine, olive oil, all sorts of goodies. I had some delicious snacks from a place called Rostisseria Ramon, breaded mushroom and spinach things, I forget exactly what they were called except they were tasty. I eventually found a spot next to a market stall that was closed for vacations, and sketched the scene ahead of me. The butchers opposite were very interested and kept checking my progress excitedly. I added a nose and mouth for the third butcher as he felt left out, and he was well pleased to be included. It is fun talking to people as you sketch these types of scenes, even though my Spanish and my Catalan is really non-existent. I coloured it all on site and went off to draw the sign.

The market dates back many centuries, in various iterations. The current roof structure dates back about a hundred years. Below, there I am with the Stillman & Birn sketchbook. I really enjoyed sketching this one! Markets, now there is another sketching theme I am really warming to…

under dreaming spires

September 11, 2013September 11, 20136 Comments

This is Barcelona Cathedral. Not the Gaudí one you’ve all heard of (and not the Camp Nou, which is also a kind of cathedral, of sorts), but the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, built between the 13th and 15th centuries in the old town. The neo-Gothic façade wasn’t built until the 19th Century, so all in all this makes the Sagrada Familia seem like a rush job. These sort of epic buildings take time. It’s all quite stunning. This was on a warm Saturday afternoon, and I was on my way to the final sketchcrawl meeting at the end of the Urban Sketching Symposium. This took me less than an hour of quite rapid sketching, which for all the details I was quite impressed with. I added the colour later on, as I had to get a move on. I do wish I’d had time to go inside, I understand the interior is quite lovely. I sat in the shade to sketch this. I love sketching a cathedral. Cathedrals, pubs and fire hydrants, that’s me.

més que un club

September 10, 20134 Comments

As you may know, I like football. My team, miles above anyone else, is Tottenham Hotspur. however ever since I was a kid I’ve always had a soft spot for FC Barcelona. Back in the 1980s, my favourite striker Steve Archibald went there, and a couple of years later Gary Lineker (a hero to a ten year old) signed for them too. I loved their simple stripes, and was always in awe and disbelief when I would see pictures of their stadium, the Camp Nou (or Nou Camp as it was sometimes called). I used to get butterflies coming into White Hart Lane as a kid, seeing all those people, hearing the roar, back before it was all-seater and when the stands were much smaller. The stands at Camp Nou however, they had three tiers. THREE TIERS! Wow, that must feel like the stadium goes on forever! I always wanted to go there, and so I would occasionally follow them growing up to catch a glimpse of that enormous stadium with its roaring crowd and its three tiers. Barcelona were special, refusing to have any sponsorship on their kit until only a couple of seasons ago, and being governed primarily by and for the fans. This was a proper club; no, it was more than a club. That is their motto, més que un club. I liked Italian football too and particularly liked Sampdoria (it was their unique shirts, plus Mancini and Vialli), so the 1992 European Cup Final at Wembley, when it was still the proper European Cup, was one of my favourite non-Spurs-related matches. Barcelona wore an orange kit, and changed into the home kit for the celebration at the end. I used to go down to Soccerscene on Carnaby Street and find those two kits and just look at them, feel them, dream about pulling one of them on and walking out at the Camp Nou. Of course, that all paled next to my love of Spurs, but it’s been a lifelong ambition nevertheless.

Cut to 2013. If I was going to Barcelona, I was going to the Camp Nou, goddamit. On the second day there I put on my 2012-13 Barça shirt, took the Metro out to Collblanc (after another massive chocolate-filled pastry), and paid my money for the ‘Camp Nou Experience’. It isn’t cheap, but this is the Camp Nou! They need that money to buy Neymar. There were a lot of other people there, so the museum was pretty crowded. There was an enormous trophy cabinet stretching the whole length of the museum, which may well have been even bigger had Franco not bombed the stadium during the Spanish Civil War and destroyed many of the cups (lots were saved by a quick-thinking employee). The entire history of the club was on display, from its foundation by Swiss immigrant Hans Kamper (aka Joan Gamper), who chose the ‘blaugrana‘ colours based on his team FC Basel back home, through the days of repression by Franco, through the period of the legendary players Kubala and Cruyff, through the ‘Dream Team’ of the early 90s, right up to the modern super era of tiki-taka, Messi and the Champions Leagues. A special cabinet was made for the four European Cups (the three later ‘Champions League’ trophies are slightly bigger than the first 1992 cup), and there was another special area devoted to Lionel Messi and his ballons d’or and golden boots. I couldn’t sketch too much, being crowded by so many people, but also there was so much to see I just wanted to see it all.

I toured the stadium, taking the stairs up up up to the top of the highest tier, and back down again. I came out and looked at the stadium, as impressive as I’d imagined it, though not filled with supporters and noise. In these days of super stadia, the Camp Nou still felt like a huge cauldron of magic. I sketched as best I could, as hordes of young kids on outings, some not much older than my own son, made noise and threw bottles and things all around me. I didn’t mind, and they all left me alone to sketch, in fact they were kind enough to take pictures of me holding my sketchbook afterwards. There I am look, one happy sketcher. Lifelong dream of visiting (and sketching) the Camp Nou – check.

Another room featured a massive interactive area where you could see video clips of goals and events from all of the club’s history. I saw a great Lineker hat-trick vs Real Madrid, the moment where Maradona had his legs sawn off, Archibald knocking one in against Juventus, Messi’s first match, Iniesta with more hair, the 2006 vistory over Arsenal, and of course, the thunderbolt free kick by Ronald Koeman at Wembley. I didn’t get one of those cheesy photos they offered of me lifting the Champions League trophy. I’ll do that next time. I did spend a great deal of time in their two-floor superstore, the FCBotiga, Before I knew it, it was well after three o’clock, and I’d somehow managed to spend all day there. There was still a lot more sketching to go that day, surely! And this was all I’d managed. I didn’t mind. I’d finally been to the Camp Nou.

rambling free

September 6, 2013September 6, 20134 Comments

Back to Barcelona… I was impressed with all the shop fronts in Barcelona. On a future trip, I will organize myself better, and spend a whole day sketching ONLY shop fronts. As it was I managed just a couple, on the big bustling thoroughfare you’ve all heard of, La Rambla. Also called Las Ramblas. La Rambla is bustling alright, full of tourists rambling up and down, lots if interesting sketchable buildings, and absolutely no other reason to stay there whatsoever. It’s not really my thing, all those people. Pickpocket paranoia on overdrive. Ok, I must confess, what actually bugged me were those guys walking about making the bird-whistle noises with those little plastic kazoo things. It sounded like Sweep (of Sooty fame) being beaten up. Annoying noises aside, the architecture and shop fronts were a sketcher’s delight. I loved the one at the top, Viena, which I sketched in the Beta book. A group of young Australian lads who were staying in the hotel next door chatted to me excitedly about this place while I sketched, saying they had amazing breakfasts. There were lots of groups of excited young lads from other countries in Barcelona. It a popular place for stag parties (bachelor parties). My friend Francesco came here for his one several years ago, went to an FCB game (I couldn’t come, I was in America). Definitely a good-time city.

Above is Farmacia Nadal, which I sketched on the last day when strolling back to my hotel. Below, a much quicker sketch, the warm evening sky with La Rambla going left to right, looking down Carrer del Carme, Catalan flags waving from balconies. I bumped into a few urban sketchers while sketching this one, on their way back from their USk workshops, including Matthew Brehm; it was his workshop in Lisbon back in 2011 that inspired me to try this sketch out.

els quatre gats

September 5, 2013September 5, 20132 Comments

After eating some delicious paella up at a place next to Lesseps Metro station (see the sketch included below for reference) I decided I needed to see the Sagrada Família at last. It’s been a long wait for me, and I was astounded when I got there, as it truly is an epic undertaking, and not one that I will talk about in this post, because I didn’t sketch it that day. After squeezing through crowds and peering through trees in the park opposite for the best possible view, I found a spot I liked, sat down, got the Stillman & Birn ‘Beta’ sketchbook out and felt the first “plop” of warm summer rain. Now I’d heard somewhere that the rain in Spain fell mainly on the plain (which may be true but I don’t wish to be inaccurate) but either way it meant sketching this cathedral would be much more difficult, robust and hardy though the Beta paper is (and it really is; it’s an excellent book to travel with, and the pages fold very flat). So I decided to up sticks and do one. After spending a bit of time in the FC Barcelona shop next to the cathedral (mmm, football shirts) I metro’d it to the Barri Gotíc. About a hundred million people were out shopping; Barcelona is a shopping paradise, even I was getting sucked in (I saw some wicked adidas trainers), but this day was getting away from me and I had to sketch stuff. A couple of Gaudís, a bowl of paella and some flags wasn’t going to cut it for my first full day in Spain. It was still raining, so I stopped outside the famous restaurant Els Quatre Gats (“4 Cats”; I imagined the Two Ronnies in here giggling about headwear for cutlery). A professor back in my department in Davis had told me about this place, its connections to Picasso and the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc, and I’d promised I’d sketch it. I popped my head inside, and one day would like to sketch the interior, but I stood outside and sketched the entrance. I had to squeeze tight against an opposite wall to stop rain from hitting my page, a small narrow balcony about me providing my only shelter. The streets and alleys here are narrow, I remember being told that when it’s hot these narrow streets are a great place to cool down, they are so shady. Not much rain cover though! But I managed it, and here it is, Els Quatre Gats.

I didn’t eat here though, sadly. I was still full from my paella from earlier on, and here it is. Looks tasty, doesn’t it! It was ‘Paella del Señorito’.

Incidentally…you can buy a print of this Quatre Gats sketch at my Society6 site… http://society6.com/PeteScully/Quatre-Gats-Barcelona_Print

homage to catalonia

September 4, 2013September 5, 20134 Comments

More Barcelona. My hotel was on the Ronda Sant Antoni, an excellent location, and on the first morning I got up early and had an incredible pastry. The morning food in Barcelona, the pastries I like to start my day with, are unbelievable. I got a delicious looking pastry which looked like it may have some sort of nutella filling. It did; it had about four jars of nutella stuffed inside. It was incredibly chocolatey. I was bouncing around all morning. Chocolate in fact began its European adventure here in Barcelona, and we’ve been bouncing around ever since. Good thing too!

I sat down in the street to start my sketching adventure, and sketched this official looking building. You could tell it was official, because it had the Spanish flag outside. That isn’t a flag you see much of in Barcelona, capital of Catalonia. I wasn’t massively surprised, given the very independent nature and the long and proud history of the Catalan people, but it many ways it hardly felt as though I were in ‘Spain’ at all. I have read about the long, proud and often troubled history, and local calls for secession have been growing in recent times. The Catalan flag (or ‘Senyera‘), from the classic straight yellow and red bars to the variants used by the nationalists (with the blue triangle and white star added; see the sketch below, from up in the Lesseps area) or the socialists (with the red star), flew from windows and balconies all over the city. Even the doughnuts were decorated with yellow and red stripes (though some were decorated as Cookie Monster too, so I wouldn’t read too much into it). The Barcelona FC blaugrana shirt was everywhere, all over the shops, market stalls, bars, cafes, but NEVER the Spanish national shirt. Now that did surprise me; Spain are the World and double-European football champions but the only time I saw a Spain shirt was on some Chinese tourists. Very interesting. The Catalan language was highly prominent everywhere (as it should be, since it is the region’s first and main language), with Spanish often down below alongside English. I speak neither Spanish nor Catalan, something I really need to remedy.

Further up the street was an amazing toy store which sold mainly two things – racecars and Playmobil. My son would have loved it. Around the entire shop was constructed a huge Scalextric racetrack of several lanes and many chicanes, with cars and Scalextric of all sorts of varieties everywhere. the other wall was devoted to Playmobil, which as you may recall I love. It’s much cheaper here too; if I could have, I’d have gone mad. In the end I just bought a few figures, two of them being little football players. One of them being a Spain footballer. I felt oddly guilty. Perhaps I should paint the Barcelona stripes onto it.

barcelona!

September 3, 2013September 3, 201386 Comments

And so finally to posting my Barcelona sketches! Sorry for the wait. I hope it is worth it. We will start off at Parc Güell, the famous Gaudí designed park north of the city center, but first a bit of backstory.

Ever since I was a kid I’ve wanted to go to Barcelona. I grew up looking at pictures of Gaudí buildings in books in the local library, and following the famed football team FC Barcelona with all its illustrious players of the time, the Linekers, the Archibalds, the Koemans, the Guardiolas, the Laudrups, the Romários, the Stoichkovs. Ok, so football and Gaudí were the main reasons Barcelona was always top of my wish-list of cities to visit but they are pretty good reasons. I never got around to going; “it’s not going anywhere,” I always figured. Then I moved to America, and suddenly Barcelona was much further away.

Then Urban Sketchers announced that the fourth international Urban Sketching Symposium would be held in Barcelona. It’s a sketching mecca, with an incredible sketching community (as does Spain in general, I’m a huge fan of the Spanish urban sketching community. I couldn’t miss out on this one. I did apply to lead a workshop, but wasn’t selected (there were a lot of applicants). Then on the day it came to register as a participant, the symposium was so enormously popular that all the places sold out before I was even out of bed. I had missed out! But this was Barcelona, I had the new football shirt, there was no way I was not going. So, I got on the waitlist. Then I realized, ah, erm, I actually can’t afford this trip. I had the equivalent of two little figures sitting on my shoulders, one telling me to be sensible and go some other time, the other (wearing a Barça shirt and waving a Catalan flag) yelling “DO IT! DO IT!”. I couldn’t really commit so I decided to tentatively plan to go, but not to attend the symposium and not take up a place from the waitlist, just in case. Lots of other people were in my situation, and so the symposium organizers were encouraging us to come anyway and there would be social drink-and-draws in the evenings to meet up with all my urban sketching friends, and public sketchcrawls for those not going to workshops. This way I’d – theoretically – not be rushing about so much, as I had done to my exhaustion in Portland and Lisbon. I had to fit this in during a busy family trip to London, so this plan made a bit more sense this time around.

And in the end I made it! I’m going to skip past a lot of other stuff and get straight to the first of those sketchcrawls which was held in Parc Güell, in the Gràcia district. I missed the start of the sketchcrawl itself, having taken a bus from the city center which took a fair bit longer than expected. I did meet a couple from Umeå in Sweden who were visiting the city, and I was excited to finally be here. By the way, I brought with me to Barcelona the Stillman & Birn “Beta” series sketchbook, thick pages perfect for watercolouring, and I must say that it was a joy to use, though I hadn’t used the paper for much location sketching beforehand, and it was a slightly bigger format than I am used to. I would certainly recommend it.

My plan was to fill the whole sketchbook over the course of the next few days, and while I didn’t manage to do so I gave it a good shot. Barcelona of course was characteristically overwhelming, and my tourist side jostled with my sketcher side. On this day in the Parc, crowds of people from all over the world strolled about taking photos and grinning, and sketchers were dotted here and there nodding over at each other in respectful recognition. I found where most of them were congregated, on the large open terrace, bordered by a twisting colourful Gaudí serpent, overlooking the hazy Barcelona skyline. It was a sunny day and the rays were beating down but sketching had to happen. I had a big hat, and a white shirt. Every corner of the serpent was occupied by sketchers or tourists. Eventually it got a bit too hot so I continued in the shade below, where I met some other sketchers from around the world, before heading off on my own again to see more of the city. It was getting quite massively crowded by that point, but wow, Parc Güell – what an incredible place. Worth the lifelong wait? Yeah!

back from london / barcelona

July 28, 20131 Comment

Sorry for the lack of postage lately, it’s been that time of year when I go somewhere far away for a couple of weeks or so of disruption to my usual daily routine. Airports…I cannot stand them. When will we develop teleportation technology? But I love London, and I love Barcelona! I am not overly fond of the mountain of scanning that appears when I return from such sketch-filled journeys, so I’ll post gradually. As you can see above, I fulfilled a lifelong dream to sketch the Sagrada Familia, and I also fulfilled another Barcelona-related lifelong dream too, to visit (and sketch) the Camp Nou. More of that later. First though I am scanning my London sketches, which include this one below of Trafalgar Square in the early morning hours.