This past weekend, Courtney and I went to the Urban Sketching Seminar in Chicago. This was one of those workshops where you take 4 classes in 2 days.
Way back in March, Courtney and I both signed up for some of the same classes, but registration went so quickly that our classes ended up on different days.
My first class was on sketching with a fountain pen - something I've been resisting, because they can be very messy, especially compared to something more self-contained like a Sharpie marker. But the teacher demonstrated some really interesting techniques you can get when you run a wet paint brush over the ink. They gave us a gift card for some art supplies in our registration packet, so I may have to use it to try out a new fountain pen.
My second class was called Sketching Urban Uglies. Our instructor took us to a fabulous spot right under the El tracks. We had graffiti, rusty signs, parked cars, orange cones, construction equipment, cracked sidewalks - you name it. Just about everything "ugly" you would expect to find in the center of a large city like Chicago. I started to sketch a really great parking lot sign with broken neon arrows and rusted bolts, but before I could add any color it started to rain. And, of course, being the Midwest, it poured buckets. But our instructor was prepared and shoo'd us over to an overhang just on the other side of the El. Unfortunately, we were only there about 20 minutes before a security guard came along and made us leave (there are a lot of "no loitering" signs around Chicago).
So we moved a third time to a different covered spot. Since my sketchbook was getting a little damp and there wasn't much time left, I just sketched the instructor's backpack.
Notice the difference between my class photo and Courtney's. She took the same class, but hers was on Sunday. The sky was bright blue and the people didn't look so bedraggled.
My first class on Sunday was on contour drawing - a technique I don't necessarily enjoy (it seems like scribbling to me), but the instructor was really, really good. You do the "scribbling" to get a quick basic shape and then you spend a lot of time shading it to make it look good.
My last class was on people sketching - something I'm really terrible at. For our first exercise, we had to pair up and sketch our partner... in 30 seconds! It's hard to get much detail in that short a time. For our second exercise, we were supposed to sketch 25 people, but we had 30 minutes to do it. The instructor thought we were in a good spot - we were standing at a busy intersection, but all the pedestrians seemed to be in a hurry. They walked past me before I could hardly get started. So I ended up going inside a Starbucks to sketch the people who were sitting down with their phones or tablets (much easier).
Like usual, it was a really great weekend, but it went so fast. Courtney and I didn't get to hang out much, except when we met for meals. I'll have to make another trip back to Chicago so we can use up our supplies and practice everything we learned.
