The first morning at the Urban Sketching Symposium is always full of excitement and anticipation, or at least I assume it is, I am always late for most of the morning messages. I had not yet found the shortcut to the hub and followed my phone directions in a strange route that didn’t seem quite right, but I got there in the end and caught the tail end of the morning greetings. At least I didn’t miss the first event, which I was really excited to hear about. Elizabeth Alley, who I first met at the 2010 Symposium, was giving a talk about her adventures as an artist on a boat expedition to the Arctic Ocean. “Sketching In The Arctic Circle“. It was utterly fascinating. I sketched and took notes, and was so impressed by the whole adventure. It was on a ship filled with other artosts, not just sketchers or painters but writers, performers, even a game designer, all there to document the Arctic and our impact upon the whole natural environment. The audience was captivated. She mentioned polar bears, something I’ve not yet encountered as a sketcher! This post Elizabeth made on her website talks a bit more about the experience. Here is her post before she left showing her sketching materials. After the talk, it was time for the first workshop…

I like the chaos, the very well organized chaos, of the mustering for the workshops at a Symposium. The volunteers holding the signposts make themselves well seen, so it took no time at all to find my group. I was taking a workshop called “Vignettes” with one of my favourite urban sketchers Fred Lynch, whose work I followed since the start, but only met once in 2016 in Manchester. I used to love his monochrome travel drawings with their precise detail and values, I remember his drawings from Italy, Viterbo I believe. Here is Fred’s website, fredlynch.com. He made a joke to the group about not being anyone’s first choice for workshop; he didn’t believe me, but he actually was my first choice, I was very keen to see Fred teach and was not disappointed, he had a great way of explaining his concepts to make them simple and enjoyable, and very relaxed. My various sketches of him (above and below) appear to show four completely different people but I assure you they are all of Fred Lynch, this is just my quick people sketching in a hurry. We were to be sketching in the little park next to the old brewery. I would find myself walking through that park a lot on this trip, it was part of the shortest route home to the hotel (though a bit dark at night, when I’d prefer to walk around).We found a nice shaded spot where Fred explained what we’d be doing that day.

I enjoy this part of the Symposium, when a presenter tells us their stuff and I get to draw them and write down ideas and phrases as quickly as I can. “Always remember, people are READING your drawings.” I liked that. “Illustration is Writing with Pictures.” He spoke a lot but was remarkably concise – you can tell he has many years teaching experience, it really comes across. He is also very funny. He said something about some drawings looking slick but boring, “sometimes the fancy car has no engine.” That always strikes a chord with me. I enjoy capturing these moments quickly like this, because there is personality there and a capturing of the moment, which is what quick sketching should be all about. I didn’t get the official correspondent role for the Symposium (I may have been too tired anyway) but I love the idea of going from workshop to workshop and trying to document them in this way. I enjoy this more than the actual drawings I do for the workshops!

We went out to draw some quick observations. I drew the brewery, and it was ok, got that done, everyone drew it at some point. I did a quick one of the orange leaved tree near the church at the edge of the park, and of another sketcher sketching (Ute Plank, I think from Germany), and then sketched a couple of my fellow workshop attendees Ewa Broll from Poland and Hyan Chong Yun from Korea. We then went out to do a slightly longer sketch, vignettes from around the park. I didn’t have many ideas but produced probably my strangest sketch of the Symposium, below. Ok, all around the park are these funny looking metal shapes. There must have been about 17,000 of them. Maybe not that many, but a lot, all along the paths, spaced fairly evenly, all about 3.5 feet high. I had no idea what they were for, but they were the perfect height to put my watercolours on while I painted. Why can’t these be everywhere in Davis, instead of me holding my paint set? These were perfect. It turns out they are lamps, just not very tall ones. Great for seeing the path or your feet, not really for seeing faces. Perhaps this was useful in the Cold War when meeting spies. Either way they made an interesting subject to draw over and over again from different angles. I say interesting, everything is interesting if you take an interest in them. I’ve already given them a spy thriller back story. Anyway my angle was that I would draw a person in each sketch along with the funny metal lamp thing, to show people enjoying the park on this sunny Thursday lunchtime. I wonder how many other sketchers drew these on this trip. Surprisingly few, from the sketchbooks I looked at. This is a very me thing to draw, but showing it at the end, I was a bit embarrassed about it, spending all my time essentially drawing the same thing over and over and over. That’s so unlike me.

I had a great time at the workshop though and saw some other great styles. Then it was time for lunch, and the mall had some great options in the food court, a lot of other sketchers were up there so I sat and chatted with people I had never met before and heard about their workshops, it’s fun getting to be a sociable person for a few days of the year. I went back to the hotel for a rest (old Symposium me was not doing that! I was Go Go Go back in 2011) before the rest of the day’s activities. See you in Part 3.