Monday, August 5, 2013

All over far too fast

Arc de Triomf. Pen & watercolour ©Sue Pownall
Waking up on Saturday morning, I couldn't believe it was the last day of the symposium already. After the panel, I gathered for my 5th and final workshop, Barcelona Perspectives with the architects Florian Afflerbach and Arno Hartmann. The group caught the metro out to the Mies van der Rohe Barcelona Pavilion, where, after a demonstration by Arno & with help from Florian, Alissa and I very carefully drew 4 lines in 25 minutes. 

Proud of my 4 lines!
I studied and used perspective back in college and still apply it to some drawings, BUT never with my urban sketches. It was enlightening! Alissa and I did get the basic 2-point perspective finished and I for one felt I'd achieved a lot.

Bottom: mine Above: Florian's 2 minute demo :)
Next, we moved into the building to draw it with 1-point perspective. This was new to me, or completely forgotten, and ended up as my favourite workshop drawing from the whole symposium. It was also the best workshop I attended and left me buzzing to try more. Thank you both Florian & Arno.
1-point perspective of Mies Van der Rohe's pavillion. ©Sue Pownall
 Back at CCCB, I attended Fred Lynch's fantastic talk, then headed for the metro to join WWSketchcrawl #40 and the end of the symposium. I have never seen so many sketchers in one place - it was amazing! The symposium participants and organisers were joined by the off-symposium attendies, and local sketchers. Numbers vary but the paper said there were 500 sketchers!
Urban sketcher Awesomeness! El Periódico 14 Julio
I couldn't wait to start drawing, so once the photos were taken, I attempted the Arc de Triomf itself. Thanks to James Richards, the crowds weren't daubting to draw and I am very pleased with my result (top). There was some great music nearby, so several of us drew the buskers as we enjoyed it. When we gave them some change as thanks (great subject & music), they asked to see our sketchbooks and clapped us as we had clapped them.
Gadjo playing at the Arc de Triomf.
Finally, we headed back to CCCB for the closing ceremony sniff sniff. I'd managed to get a copy of Nina Johansson's book and she kindly signed it for me, which is a fabulous souvenir of both the symposium and last year's trip. Another fabulous souvenir was Florian's drawing of the Mie's Pavilion, drawn whilst I was sat next to him, which I got in the silent auction.