Porto USk Symposium - part IV (Portugal trip)

I could stay and sketch in beautiful Porto forever, but as every trip, ours had limited time, and in our plans was to end Lisbon, to which I had special sentiments. Here are sketches done during our way from Porto to Lisbon - we did several stops. These are from colorful and very authentic Coimbra - city with very old University and breathtaking panoramas:

These from Medieval town Obiedos - very special place, still keeping his antique look:

And one - I couldn't resist - from the local Portuguese beach:

Wait for the last Portuguese post - from Porto!

Porto USk Symposium - part III (post Symposium)

So, the Symposium was over, and after the last evening with a lot of hugs, kisses and good-buys, I woke up at the next morning, finally having time to explore the city on my own. Many of urban sketchers were still staying in the city, so I had a calming feeling that the party is not over. We went with my friend Rachel to a sketching walk.
Are you familiar with this phenomenon? All the busy days during the symposium, I was "eating" with my eyes beautiful views of Porto, thinking to myself: "If I just had half an hour!" Now, when I had a free day, suddenly I couldn't find a spot to sketch at...
Anyway, here is the first "after-symposium" sketch, done after we crossed the river from
Jardim do Morro:

 One more while meeting some friends-sketchers for the dinner:

And more sketches staying in Porto few more days, after my husband Marcos arrived to accompany me at the rest of the Portugal trip:

Porto USk Symposium - part II

I'm continuing sharing my experience from the Porto USk Symposium (here is my first post).
The next day Symposium has started, but before that, I met my wonderful colleagues -  another two correspondents, with whom together we were supposed to cover everything. I din't get to know them yet, I din't know what an amazing experience of being in one team with Rita Sabler and Paulo Mendes is waiting for me! And so they flied - four unforgettable days! A lot of faces, hands and sketchbooks, a lot of colors and monochromes, a lot of laughter, exclamations and quiet intimate conversations, sardines,vine and extremely tasty pastéis de natas ... and all these running up and down hilly and breathtaking beautiful Porto.
You can see my posts on the main Blog, covering workshops,  demos,drink&draws, opening and closing receptions, and etc...:   day 1   day 2    day 3    day 4

Here are few sketches I didn't share - one very fast sketch of one of the amazing panoramic views on Porto, done after having a lunch in a nice company of Lapin and Richard Briggs.

Here are some from the very last drink&draw, when we realized that in the restaurant we're sitting for a while is no food to serve, just drinks :D

 and some more drinks....

It's always like that - waiting for this  whole year and it ends just when you enjoy the most!

So, just to summarize - being a Symposium correspondent was for me a terrific experience - really challenging and tough, but really rewarding and fun! I miss you, Rita and Paulo!

exhausted but happy - with collaborative sketch during the closing reception

Will be continued - more post-symposium sketches from my Portugal trip!

Porto USk Symposium - part I

It have been a while, since I got to post on my blog... Busy summer was planned and busy summer it was indeed! A lot of sketchbooks piled up waiting for scanning, but other projects postpone developing them. Finally, all my Portugal trip sketches are ready to post!
I was so exited toward the Porto USk Symposium - meeting the world wide family of sketchers again! and in addition to this, taking this time new for me job of correspondent of the symposium! A lot of butterflies of expectations, excitement, joy and fear were flying inside my stomach :)
This time I was coming to the symposium in a company of my good friends-sketchers from Israel, which was especially fun. Here are some of the "Israeli team" on the plain to Porto :) :

 I arrived a day before the beginning, so I could to afford to myself morning alone - just to absorb the city by myself, before the madness of sketchers everywhere begins.

Later at the same day I took a part in the Faculty Tour to Pocas Wine Cellar - meeting finally my old friends-sketchers and officially starting to my job . You can see my first post as correspondent on the USk global blog.

Memories from Manchester

One of the biggest questions I asked myself while packing tools for the Manchester USk Symposium trip was which sketchbook to take. I decided to prepare an accordion sketchbook - format I love, but use for special occasions only. This format allows to tell stories in continuations, as if invites you to build narratives. So here it is - two-sided accordion from Manchester and London - some great memories from such a great trip!

It's almost impossible mission - to find the right balance between sketching, socializing, teaching, travelling... I wish I could sketch all I experienced, saw, felt.. Sometimes I felt greedy - "if I only could sketch this building/view/person!", and forced myself to put the sketchbook aside and to enjoy the moment without sketching it. So, here it is, the rest will remain in my memory.

You can see my entire sketchbook on Flickr.

Notes from the USk Symposium Manchester 2016

It was a very hot and busy month! Only now I finally starting to put together my impressions and thoughts and finishing to scan my sketches from the Manchester Symposium's trip.
So, after the long period of preparations, planning and expectations it is over!
Manchester was for me the forth time I participated in the USk Symposium, third time as an instructor. No doubt, it felt like an annual reunion, and of course it was different experience - in different place, different time and many new people.

Being Symposium instructor is a big responsibility - people are coming from all over the world to learn and to get an unique experience, with a lot of expectations and some fears. You never know who is coming to your workshop, the level and the background of the participants is different, the outside conditions are unpredictable, and so is the general energy and the atmosphere of  the each workshop.
This year my workshop was different from my usual people-sketching program. It's true, that people is my favorite subject, but his time I wanted to try to understand the whole process. How it works? What differentiates between the exciting and communicative work and the boring one? What attracts us to a particular subject? How we make decisions? How to create works with impact and meaning? Being by myself very spontaneous and expressive sketcher, I tried to freeze every step in my process and to force myself to analyze my decisions, which wasn't easy at all. Finally, I got to my last workshop, named "What and How" and dealing with two one-million-dollar questions: what do I want to say and how can I best say it?
The process of drawing even the tiniest sketch involves making countless decisions - it's impossible to touch all the steps, so I was needed to choose the most essential. Our first exercise was dealing with "what" - idea, message, feeling. By getting the same list of subjects and trying to find them around, the participants learned to observe their surroundings differently, and maybe to understand that there are no boring spots – it is all about the point of view.

Following exercises tried to touch at different "hows" - composition rules and the tools choice.

choosing the format

trying static and dynamic compositions

limiting the use of tools

all we have is lines and shapes

In the last and longest exercise we tried to apply what we learned in the previous exercises, but didn't forget to improvise, to be spontaneous and to enjoy the process!

After all, the secret is probably in keeping balance between the considering the rules and breaking them in order to be spontaneous, and to leave room for chance and "mistakes", because that's the beauty of sketching from observation!

You can download my workshop's flyer here.

I'll be happy to hear from you - please tell me about your experience!

Singapore USk Symposium - part 3 - A Collective Reportage

I owe to myself one last post about Singapore USk Symposium. Unfortunately, I din't have a time to take many workshops, because all my mornings I was busy by teaching. The only one that I managed to take, was Simo Capecchi's "A Collective Reportage" workshop. I'm interested a lot in reportage and storytelling aspect of urban sketching, and it was a long time I wanted to take Simo's workshop, one of the specialists of reportage drawing.
It was very interesting to hear Simo's introduction, in which she told about different approaches to the reportage drawing and showed a lot of examples - her own sketches and also other artist's works. Then our mission was defined and we went to make our reportage about the Chinese Temple at Waterloo Street.
I had with me my self-made accordion sketchbook, which construction dictated me the character of my reportage - repetitive compositions, with minimal texts, capturing all kind of people - vendors, temple servers, security guards, and, of course, the prayers.

It was a great experience, the small conclusions and comprehensions will continue to drop-down in my mind all the time, while I'm sketching.
I miss Singapore and its terrific atmosphere, but all this great experience will continue to echo inside me!