Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Barcelona Urban Sketchers' Symposium 1

My final drawing on Noberto Durantes' Dynamic ink workshop
 I have to start by writing a big THANK YOU to the organisers of this year's symposium. What an amazing event they achieved in Barcelona this month!  Also, I'd like to thank everyone involved from interpreters to instructors and especially everyone who participated. The symposium was an amazing experience! The best part, for me, were the participants: meeting face-to-face and sketching with people who have been bloggy friends and contacts for years; re-meeting the Barcelona sketchers I drew with last year, and making new friends.

Pre-symposium sketchcrawl. Watercolour & ink A5
I arrived in Barcelona the day before the event, very stressed by the events of the last few months,  dumped my bag at my hostel, and dashed to Sagrada Familia to join in the pre-symposium sketchcrawl. On arrival - I froze! I drew there last year with +Nina Johansson, and some of the Barcelona sketchers, so in theory the structure shouldn't have been terrifying but seeing the mass of sketchers and the quality of their sketches and paintings made me panic. I started chatting to +Simone Ridyard whose work I've recently started following and sat with her to do a bad watercolour sketch (see above).
Dynamic ink: Carrer Comtal for Norberto
The first morning, I was still really very nervous, especially seeing everyone (so it seemed) sketching all around me at registration, so my sketchbook stayed firmly in my bag. My first workshop was with +Norberto Dorantes whose work I really admire and was the first workshop I wanted to do when it was originally listed at the beginning of the year. Norberto was amazing, explaining everything very well. I had some pen issues - my non-waterproof ink was actually waterproof and the cartridge I tried still wouldn't bleed - but got lent one to use.
Dynamic ink people.
I enjoyed every minute of the workshop, once I had a pen that worked, and wanted it to be longer. I also wanted to experiment more with Norberto's non-waterproof ink technique.

To be continued...

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Sketch Muscat for charity - the results

In April, my annual sketching event raised funds for the Awladna Campaign for Kids Road Safety. I handed over a total of 205 Omani rials ($531 / £350 / 410€). I recently received an email stating that the money was used to purchase 50 cycle helmets. These photo shows a few of them.
Thanks to everyone who participated and donated to the event.
Photos courtesy of charity founder Amal AlZadjali.