Port City Sketching Workshop and Sketch Walk in Savannah, GA

Urban Sketchers and the Telfair Museum hosted a sketching workshop, sketch walk, and sketchbook giveaway sponsored by Canson this past Saturday. The workshop, taught by Urban Sketcher Jim Richards, took place in the morning, and in the afternoon we met for the Port City Sketch Walk, which was preceded by a tour of the exhibit Port City: The Savannah Riverfront through Artists’ Eyes for inspiration.

Canson sponsored this event by making the workshop possible and by providing these free Mix Media Books to all participants in the workshop and the sketch walk. Thanks, Canson!

After meeting up at the Telfair Museum, we walked over to City Market for the first bit of instruction from Jim Richards. In true Urban Sketchers fashion, we were stopped by a parade on the way there. Half of us crossed and the other half were stuck on the other side of the street while bands and dancers passed by.

Once we all arrived at City Market, Jim gave his presentation about sketching life between buildings, with tips on capturing the movement and energy of a place by sketching people, and including architecture as a backdrop. Then everyone got to work in their new Canson sketchbooks, capturing the energy of Savannah.

We had our first “sketchbook throwdown,” putting all of our sketches on display as Jim gave more pointers.

We then moved on to Jefferson Square to capture different views of the city, its monuments, and its glorious live oaks. After more instruction from Jim, and more sketching accompanied by the music of a local trumpet player, we took another look at the work that we had done, and ended the morning with a group photo.

In the afternoon we met up again for a sketch crawl, with more participants including a class from Savannah College of Art and Design, and sketched along the riverfront.

It was a great day all around. The only thing lacking, as always, was more time to visit and sketch.

(additional photos by Debo Boddiford and Scott Renk)