Thursday, August 2, 2012

Urban Sketching Symposium in Santo Domingo! July 12-14, 2012

Calle Duarte from Capilla
I've attended all three of the Urban Sketching Symposium: Portland, Lisbon, and, this July, Santo Domingo. It's hard to encapsulate the experience; it was just SO expansive. I know from previous years, the Symposium--the things learned and the other artist met--keep expanding and feeding into my ongoing practice of drawing--long after the 3-day event. I'll just give you a peek.

On the left is one of my sketches from  Brazilian artist/architect Eduardo Bajzek's workshop Straight to Colors where I used artist markers for the first time (!) to develop a drawing through areas of color mass and tone, de-emphasizing line. A multi-media enthusiast, I couldn't keep my hand out of my colored pencil pouch to finish this one up.

My husband and I arrived a day before the start of the Symposium. I was able to register, start meeting the early arriving other artists, pick up my treasure-trove goody-bag of artist materials (including the Laloran watercolor sketchbook used below), and start sketching this vibrant, foreign city of Santo Domingo.

Plaza Espana Palms at Dusk

Trying new things, being taken out of ones comfort zone is a goal of the Symposium workshops. And that is what happened for me (see below) with my very first workshop Improvising with line and color: the Urban Sketcher as Storyteller, under the exuberant guidance of Spanish artist Inma Serrano and Dominican artist  Orling Dominguez. Create a drawing that incorporates a smattering of images and impressions to tell a story of place and time. Use words.

Queen of the Plaza
(the candy seller and her colorful cart and the mongrel dog that befriended me in Parque Colon)

It's always exciting at the conclusion of a workshop for all to lay out what they had done. Here's the collective result of Canadian artist Marc Holmes's watercolor workshop Tea, Milk and Honey  at the Ruinas de San Francisco. 

My only regret was that a total of 5 days in Santo Domingo--a day on either side of the 3 day conference was not nearly enough for me to begin to capture the drawings I wanted to do in my usual Neocolor II wax pastels. But I did get this one in on my last full day:

Meson de Bari
Meson de Bari


More workshops, more amazing inspiration from workshop leaders and other Symposium participants alike. If you want to see more, here's my flickr set of photos and all other drawings I did relating to the Symposium. And if you'd like to see more of everyone's results go to Symposium flickr group or the Symposium blog.

Shiho and her rapt admirers
On a final note, I can't resist sharing with you this one photo of Urban Sketcher Correspondent Shiho Nakaza from Santa Monica, California at the Saturday Sketchcrawl in the Parque Colon on the last day of the Symposium. For me it captures, the amazing joy and sharing that happens when we get out on the street and sketch.

Gotta go. Hope you enjoyed my glimpses from the Symposium. I'm now more excited to draw on sight then ever!!  I've got a slew of drawings that are mine to draw of Cedar Falls, Iowa and who knows where else.



17 comments:

  1. Beautiful sketches, Marcia! Thank you for sharing the Symposium with us!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Alex. It is my pleasure to try and transmit the Symposium experience to others who love to sketch. It is a great motivator to keep on keeping on for me. I hope you can feel that, too.

      Delete
  2. Such gorgeous work! I loved following your adventure.
    TY!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Because what I do at the Symposiums is quite different from what I do when left to my own devices, it takes me a bit to embrace my results. So your praise helps me to gain confidence. Thank you! It was incalculably rewarding but also rigorous. My nickname for this one was the Sketch and Sweat Symposium.

      Delete
    2. That's the beauty of trying new approaches and mediums, stepping outside our comfort zone and exploring! Takes a bit of sweat sometimes.

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. Your comment means a lot to me. It's almost 3 weeks since we there. It's taken me this long to figure out how to frame the experience we shared.

      Delete
  4. Marcia, thank you so much for inviting us along! What marvelous work...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There were five other Midwesterners at the Symposium, but I was the only Midwestern correspondent. It is a great pleasure to try and share this international, sketching experience with others in our region. As always, I appreciate your interest and support, Cathy!

      Delete
    2. We're very grateful! It has to be an amazing experience...you make me sorry I'm too dang old. (OK, it's more the knees than the age, but in any case I'm delighted to have the vicarious experience from your perspective.)

      Delete
    3. So far my joints are holding up, but I can appreciate how bad knees would have been a problem at the last 2 Symposium. Lisbon had steep hills and (beautiful) cobbled sidewalks). And then my husband and I rented a 4th floor walk-up flat. Santo Domingo would be knee challenging, too: cobbled, narrow sidewalks and streets, many of them broken-up.

      It was the heat that got to me. It was expectedly hot, being the Caribbean in summer. Leading up to the Symposium it was unrelenting, record breaking, 100 degree heat in the Midwest and I forced myself to get out and sketch in it as preparation. The heat didn't bother me when I was in Santo Domingo even though I was outside for most of the day. I drank lots of water. When I'm drawing and am around the excitement of being with others, I tend to lose track of any body discomfort. Once back in Iowa, it was still record breaking hot. Unlike the lead up to the Symposium, I couldn't bear to be out of my air conditioned home. It took me an uncharacteristic, whole week to get my energy and heat tolerance back. Maybe it's my age--I turn 61 in a few days. I love these Symposium, but I think I'll probably pass in the future if they're in locales that are so much closer to the equator.

      Delete
  5. Great sketches & notes. My fave is the panoramic Palms at Dusk! so cool, m

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for mentioning me, Marcia! I'm so glad we shared a fun time sketching together. Your sketches capture the energy of the Symposium - I especially love your marker sketch!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We were in Eduardo's workshop together, so we were, indeed, sketching alongside each other when I was doing the marker sketch you like. And then again, we were In Simo and Claudio's together for the Panorama. I enjoyed intersecting with you, too! Until next time, wherever that might be. M

      Delete
  7. What a great reporter you are Marcia! love all your sketches and your vitality. Thanks for the mention. See you in the next symposium, sure!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I look forward to intersecting with you at future symposium. In the meantime, we'll enjoy each other through the drawings that we do and share online. All my best to you Inma. You are a gem!

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...