August 28, 2017

Symposium Day 3 - The Bean and Symposium Check-In

Once again I had a whole morning with no one to look after but myself. For days I had been looking at other sketchers' posts of their sketches of "the Bean," aka Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor*. And though it looked intimidating, I decided to give it a try on my free morning. It was a lot less difficult than I thought it would be, and I ended up pretty pleased with my sketch.


I headed over to the Symposium meeting spot to check in. Since I didn't have to spend all morning registering people, I spent all morning talking to people and visiting with old friends. I even went to the sketch crawl very late because I was so busy visiting. This small mash-up of buildings and people, and the Chicago-style hot dog are my only sketches from the afternoon.
























The second sketch on this page is from Gabi Campanario's keynote speech. Gabi founded Urban Sketchers ten years ago, and he told us how it came about and took off.



After the opening speech we headed over to the Exchequer bar for the drink and draw. Looks like there was more drinking than drawing!


Hello from Chicago!


* Cloud Gate is by Anish Kapoor and the nearby Crown Fountain is by Jaume Plensa. I told someone at the Symposium they are both by Plensa, and then later realized my mistake :)

August 25, 2017

Symposium Day 2 - Sketching the Robie House

Here are about 30 sketchers on our way to Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House!


Not working on the Symposium meant I could do whatever! Luckily I was invited to sketch at the Robie house with a group of instructors and symposium staff, because I might not have known what I wanted to do otherwise.

All of those instructors were there - talk about intimidating! So I found a far spot and used the "painterly sketching" idea I taught at a Flicker Street Studio workshop in June - I put down a light wash of color first to establish the shapes, then I put ink and more color on top.
























We went inside to sketch with pencil only - I used my red and blue Mitsubishi pencil. Those bricks were mesmerizing.


The sideways thing is a crazy shower.

These windows!

After all of that sketching a few of us went on the river walk and saw more of the city. Back at the hotel I ran into a group going to get a drink so I went along and ended up at a rooftop bar.

Had to sketch a bit of that view!

Bonus: cool floor.



August 24, 2017

Symposium Day 1 - Traveling to Chicago

Since the second Symposium I attended, in Santo Domingo in 2012, I've been sketching maps of places I visit to give me a sense of where things are before I go. As a map it's pretty useless though :)


This was the easiest traveling I've ever done for a Symposium. A one and a half hour flight in the time zone seemed like cheating.


I took the train from the airport to my hotel. Easy peasy.


This was my first site after getting off of the train, as if the city was greeting me.


August 04, 2017

Symposium Sneak-Peek and Big Post-Symposium Change #1

I did this sketch in Mike Daikubara's workshop Sketch Now, Think Later. Mike's take on sketching is to make the most of your sketching time, which includes not mixing watercolors! I am also interested in doing whatever I can to get myself to put pen or paint to paper. So Big Post-Symposium Change #1 is reworking my watercolor palette (again) to eliminate or at least limit color mixing.


More on the Symposium as soon as I can get two sketchbooks-worth of sketches scanned, as well as more information about (probably) Big Post-Symposium Change #2 and (possibly) Big Post-Symposium Change #3.

(Click for larger images)

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