Drawing Attention June 2017

President’s Message

I write to you this month with a heavy heart as I think of all the victims of the bombing last week in Manchester. My heart goes out to all those innocent people and their families and friends. As you know, Urban Sketchers hosted its 7th International Symposium in Manchester in July 2016. The warm welcome we received from the host team and from Mancunians around the city was legendary. The nearly five hundred sketchers who attended the symposium, and thousands more around the world, join me in sending our condolences, love, and warmest wishes to our friends in Manchester.

If you are moved to help, here are two reputable places to donate: British Red Cross and the crowdfunding effort set up by Manchester Evening News.

We are a global community of people engaged in on-location sketching. In addition to that, we sketchers develop strong friendships through sharing online and meeting in person at workshops, 10×10 classes, sketchwalks, and the annual symposium. We will continue to engage globally to build understanding, especially in the face of such terrible efforts to drive wedges between us. Take care, everyone. Be good to each other, and let’s continue to support each other in one of the best ways we know how, through sketching and sharing our lives–the good, the bad, and the hopeful for the future.

_______________________________________________________________________

Volunteer Fundraising Team Members

USk is seeking volunteer team members to help fundraise. We are looking for people who can help negotiate Symposium sponsorships, organize grant writing, and set up tracking studies. We need help from everywhere, but would appreciate representation of volunteers in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and South America. Please contact Joel: berman@urbansketchers.org

_______________________________________________________________________

Volunteer Grant Writer

The Fundraising Committee is looking for volunteer Grant Writers to help prepare applications for funding provided by an institution such as a government department, corporation, foundation or trust. Experience with foundations preferred. You are detail-oriented, enjoy doing some online research and have excellent written communication skills. 4-10 hours/month. To apply email a CV and letter of interest to Joel Berman: berman@urbansketchers.org.

_______________________________________________________________________

Volunteer Instagram Aficionados

Join the USk Volunteer Instagram team! USk is seeking two temporary volunteer Instagram Aficionados to help with our social media needs during the symposium in Chicago July 29-29, 2017. Attendance at the symposium is required. Applicants must already be Basic Pass holders.

To apply, please contact Brenda@urbansketchers.org. Please briefly describe your personal experience with Instagram and with Urban Sketchers.

_______________________________________________________________________

Volunteer Twitter Aficionados

Join the USk Volunteer Twitter team! USk is seeking two temporary volunteer Twitter aficionados to help promote the upcoming International USk Symposium in Chicago on July 29-29, 2017. Attendance at the symposium is required. Applicants must already be Basic Pass holders.

To apply, please contact andrewbanks87@gmail.com. Please provide your Twitter handle and briefly describe your personal experience with Twitter and the Urban Sketchers group.

_______________________________________________________________________

10 Years 10 Classes

To celebrate our 10th anniversary, the Education Committee launched the 10×10 Program. Thirty-two cities from around the world are participating (so far) each committing to organize 10 classes–that’s 320 classes! We want to see as many people sketching as possible!

Click HERE to participate in a class near you.

If your regional chapter would like to participate in the 10×10 program, it’s not too late!

Contact Mário Linhares at mario@urbansketchers.org

_______________________________________________________________________

Sketch Tour Portugal

In celebration of our 10th anniversary in 2017 Urban Sketchers, in partnership with the Tourism Office of Portugal (TP), have organized a sponsored sketching trip called Sketch Tour Portugal.

From June 19-26, USk and the TP will send Jenny Adam from Frankfurt, Germany who will sketch with Portuguese host Alexandra Baptista in beautiful São Miguel and the Pico islands, Portugal.

The sketchers will sketch a minimum of 6 drawings per day. The TP will use sketches made during the trip to promote Portugal in different events such as at fairs, in postcards, on social media, and at exhibitions.

We wish Jenny and Alexandra happy travels and happy sketching!

USk Executive Board of Directors

_______________________________________________________________________

Bring a Workshop to your Chapter

Meet Rob Sketcherman

Urban Sketchers organizes workshops taught by our top instructors in collaboration with USk chapters around the world. If you would like to bring an official USk workshop to your chapter, start the conversation with our Education Director, Mario Linhares at education@urbansketchers.org.

_______________________________________________________________________

Upcoming
Workshops

USk
is pleased to announce new workshops coming in 2017!

June 30 – July 2: Evoking a Sense of Place

with Simone Ridyard and Pat Southern-Pearce, in Canterbury, UK

Pat Southern-Pearce: Lettering Layout and a Sense of Place

This workshop is about capturing the essense of a place, drawing buildings in a fluid line against the sky, catching the energies and reflections in windows and water, confidence building in lettering and experimentation with sketching.

Simone Ridyard: An Urban Sketcher’s Guide to Figuring out Perspective

This is an energetic and lively workshop focusing primarily on the basic principles of one and two-point perspective through demonstrations, tips, techniques and exercises that were covered in my book Archisketcher.

For more information about this workshop, click HERE

_______________________________________________________________________

July 13-15, 2017

A Stage & its Stars!

with Róisín Curé, Miguel Herring and Inma Serrano, in Galway, Ireland

Inma Serrano will concentrate on the dramatis personae – the quick, lively sketch-portraits that bring any sketch to life, and their urban settings. Róisín loves to exaggerate colour and show the light conditions to their best advantage…through the use of shadows, light source and a bright, fresh palette. Miguel Herranz will focus on the script – the art of storytelling. With his expert draughtsmanship and eye for detail he will show you how to pick out the elements that will bring excitement and interest to your sketching practice.

For more information about this workshop, click HERE.

_______________________________________________________________________

August 23-26, 2017

Urban (E)Scapes

with Isabel Carmona, Inma Serrano and Miguel Herranz, in Rotterdam, Netherlands

In this workshop, we want to explore the city’s vibrancy and cultural richness and diversity, we will look into its past to understand its present. To do so we consider the moving environment, as much of people in the city daily life as of buildings in the changing fabric of the architectural and urban environment. We aim to introduce time into our sketches and stories.

For more information about this workshop, click HERE.

_______________________________________________________________________

­­­­­­­­­­­

Click on the video link above for more information.

June 21-24, 2017
Life Stories – Pushing Your Sketching Boundaries

with Isabel Carmona, Swasky and Miguel Herranz, in Bristol, UK

For more information about this workshop, click HERE.

_______________________________________________________________________

September 8 – 10, 2017

Puzzling out the Picture

with Veronica Lawlor in New York City

Many times, when a sketcher arrives at a busy urban location, there is a sense of being overwhelmed. So many people moving in so many different directions; so many buildings towering above; so many shops; so many cars; so many signs; so much of so many! This workshop will teach you how to puzzle it all out, bringing the pieces together in a wide picture full of dimension and graphic expression, which ultimately can tell the story of a place.

For more information about this workshop, click HERE.

_______________________________________________________________________

A Change of Plans…

by Brenda Murray

Sometimes our best laid plans go awry. That is the case this summer with USk instructor Majid Modir who happily accepted USk’s invitation to teach at the Chicago symposium but his visa application was denied.

Iranian-born, Majid lived for 30 years in Sweden (and has a Swedish passport) but now lives in Italy. No clear explanation was given for being denied entry and USk worked hard to assist him but we were unsuccessful.

Majid is an artist, photographer and graphic designer, who graduated in Graphic Design & Illustration (MFA) at The Swedish University College of Arts, Crafts and Design (Konstfack). As creative director he runs his own design studio and teaches motion graphics at The College of Design (Beckmans) in Stockholm. He is a member of the Swedish Artist’s Association (SKF), the Swedish Center of Photography (CFF) and is a jury member of the European Broadcast Design Award (BDA & Promax). Majid has been showing his watercolors and other works in a number of separate and group exhibitions in Scandinavian countries for the past 30 years. Just last month Majid taught a USk workshop in Volterra, Italy called “Frame the World Differently” and has co-taught workshops with Simo Capecchi in 2014 and 2016.

Plans are in place to celebrate Majid’s work at the Chicago symposium with an exhibition that will be held in the Goodman Centre, the main venue.

“Sketch by Majid Modir”

Fortunately Maru Godas from Barcelona has graciously agreed to step in and replace Majid at the symposium and everyone who registered for Majid’s workshop has been informed.

Maru will be teaching a workshop called “Gouache like a child” and her beautiful sketches and illustrations may be viewed HERE.

USk is committed to our global community. Over the past 10-year history of Urban Sketchers, strong bonds of friendship have been formed between USk sketchers online and in person that cross barriers of all sorts. We have learned from each other and are better for it. We hope to see Majid at future symposiums and we will be keeping an eye out for one of Majid’s workshops.

_______________________________________________________________________

Sketch by Eduardo Bajzek

Eduardo had been in Fátima ten years prior, but this time he felt overwhelmed by the immense crowd of devotees. “My focus of sketching is on architecture [but] it was impossible not to sketch people!” “Pilgrims were coming into the sanctuary on their knees, on their elbows. I had never seen that kind of devotion before.” Rob confesses. His focus on his first sketch in Fátima was of a little girl expressing her faith alongside adult pilgrims by crawling on her knees. “People around us were focused, so they weren’t bothered at all with being sketched” Fernanda tells. Being catholic and a native of Portugal, Fernanda has been to Fátima many times before and, being the host, she researched on the subject to keep the visiting sketchers up to date. She ended up learning about and sketching, for instance, that an angel appeared to the children a year prior to the Holy Mother, and where they used to live and keep their sheep.

Sketch by Kasia Szybka

Kasia’s art comes very close to illustration. “I like to play with the lines” she giggles. While being most comfortable sketching architecture – her black line sketches of the basilica of Fátima displaying her talent – Kasia committed to sketch people. Her raw linework effectively turned bunches of heterogeneous pilgrims into a single many-faced character, and in her laid-back, humorous sketches, one can sense the common purpose of the people visiting Fátima. “Nowadays it’s so hard to believe in something, and I really admire and appreciate their faith.”

Sketch by Fernanda Lamelas

The sketchers didn’t manage to get near the Pope. “Although I’m not catholic,” Rob shares, “there’s a particular warmth and powerful humanity about Pope Francis, so I was excited about his arrival.” When the Pope finally arrived, Kasia was moved by the silence that suddenly took over the crowd. “I was amazed that one guy could make so many people quiet”. Movie and rock stars have the opposite effect, Rob smiles. “Such a respectful silence! Such patience! It was very profound!”

Sketch by Rob Sketcherman

Rob took a few days to travel around and concludes “Portugal
is a sketcher’s paradise. It’s got this unique mix of not being too dense,
being extremely walkable, and having amazing things around every corner.” Of
all the destinations in the Portugal Sketch Tour, Fátima is unique in that it’s
a metaphysical experience, as Fernanda concludes that, even to non-believers
“It is impossible not to be touched by the Fátima experience”.

Click these links to see the sketches by Rob,
Kasia, Fernandaand Eduardo.

_______________________________________________________________________

Hosting the Symposium: Singapore’s Story

by Lauren McVittie

When Tia Boon Sim, affectionately
known as “Madam Tia”, was considering hosting the 2015 USk Symposium in
Singapore, her first thought was “if not now, when?”

Singapore was celebrating 50 years
of independence that year. Funding, sponsorship and support was generous, and
Tia knew this would be the best time to host a symposium.

The chapter was experienced in
organizing talks, exhibitions, workshops, and other community activities, so hosting
a symposium was the next step. Volunteers were encouraged to take their
experience up a notch and become workshop leaders and conduct classes. “What I
treasure most is not how many sketching stars we have but the unsung heroes
behind the scenes keeping this chapter alive since November 2009,” says Tia.

After hosting the symposium, the
Singapore chapter noticed more and more international sketchers wanting to join
them to sketch and many even plan their trips to coincide with the regular
sketchwalk on the last Saturday of the month.

Tia is proud of the chapter’s
contributions to the region and the progress they have made. This summer, they
are hosting USk10x10 and ASEAN50, a weeklong event with 10 workshops to
celebrate 10 years of Urban Sketchers and 50 years of ASEAN (Association of
Southeast Asian Nations). In addition to workshops, there will be an exhibition
of sketches, sketchwalks and other fringe events. The week will culminate in
Global Community Day, a celebration of cultural diversity.

“People are drawn in by our sketching,” says Tia. The chapter is often invited by public agencies to take part in community outreach and events. “The joy of sketching and the spirit of Urban Sketchers is infectious.”Tia’s tip to symposium organizers: “Build the team, exercise empowerment and trust for volunteers – we were all volunteers in the team as host for the 6th USK Symposium. Give them time and space to carry out the tasks they have to do on their parts. “

_______________________________________________________________________

See Your sketch on the Website Flag & Facebook Cover

Urban Sketchers Singapore member and correspondent Don Low sketching at Joo Chiat Road in Singapore.

If you’re interested in
submitting a sketch to be considered for the USk website flag and USk Facebook Page cover photo, check the submission guidelines HERE (scroll to the bottom of the page) and send your sketch
to shiho@urbansketchers.org.

_______________________________________________________________________

USk New York Featured in Hearst Publication

by Ann Schwartzwald

Urban Sketchers love to draw and explore the unexpected gems at the heart of our cities. One such place is the Hearst Tower in New York City. Mark Leibowitz, Admin of USk NYC, describes it as “an intriguing landmark in NYC… a combination of old and new architecture. The outside is interesting but all the architectural reviews raved about the interior space and the innovative design. The problem, as an Urban Sketcher, is that the building is not open to the public.”

The six-story base of the building was commissioned by the founder, William Randolph Hearst and completed in 1928. This original facade is preserved in the new design. Because of the Great Depression, the rest of the tower was never built, but nearly 80 years later, there is now a contemporary version of that tower. It has the distinction of being the first “green” high-rise office building in New York City, incorporating a number of environmental innovations.

NYC Urban Sketcher Leslie Sim, who works as a creative director at Hearst, knew the right people to ask for access to the building. Leslie explains, “they seemed delighted to have us come admire and record their NYC Headquarters. The one condition was that we had to agree to show our completed work to our contacts at Hearst. They became so enthused about our efforts that they initially wanted to have a show of our work in the lobby. They suggested making large prints that would be on display. At a later meeting someone suggested that as a renowned publisher a more natural way to share our work would be to create a book, a promotion piece that would be available to visitors and staff.” 

And so it was that USk NYC came to Hearst Tower on Feb. 11, 2017. The NYC sketchers who have work featured in the book are: Leslie Sim, Sonia Idelsohn, Suzala, Peggy Roalf, Joan Tavolott, Ruth Westfall, Andrea Peláez Martínez, Shawne Cooper, Laura Gardner, Donald Han, Brad Marshall, Juan Matiz and Mark Leibowitz.

This unique publication is not for sale, and is meant to be distributed free to visitors. The books are on display in the lounge area where visitors wait to be escorted up to meetings in the building. Participating artists received copies starting April 15, with much gratitude to the Hearst Corporation for this exciting experience.

_______________________________________________________________________

Share Your Chapter’s News with Our Readers

Contact us to share your chapter’s news, special
events, joint meetups, and exhibitions with our readers. You don’t need to
write the story yourself. We will assign a super cool DA writer like Lauren McVittie to cover your story. Contact us at uskdrawingattention@gmail.com.

 _______________________________________________________________________

Fred Lynch: Sketching Vignettes and Visual Lists

by Meagan
Burns 

The Urban
Sketchers’ Manifesto clearly defines what is Urban Sketching, but there are
countless ways to communicate our personal style of sketching. Fred Lynch, a
Boston-based professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, and Urban Sketcher
since 1999, helps stretch the ways in which we share our observations of the scenes in front of us, with his Manchester workshop,
“Vignettes and Visual Lists”.

In Fred’s
workshop, which also happens to be a part of his RISD curriculum, two age-old
vehicles of visual communication are considered: the vignette and the visual
list, which focus on the parts before us rather than the whole, and allow for
us to talk about things differently.

A vignette is
an irregularly shaped image on a page that isolates and draws attention to a
particular subject before us. Vignettes interact with the white of the page
(negative space) and respond to viewers’ need for a sense of gravity. A visual
list is a page with an arrangement of vignettes or objects that make a
singular statement. Imagine a page filled with sketches of taxicabs, pub signs,
or public sculptures. A list can reveal more than a single scene. It’s an
interesting alternative for describing a place or sharing an interest.

Both
vehicles create interest in a subject and clearly communicate this interest. If
this is a new approach to sketching, “draw what you are enthusiastic about,
rather than drawing what you anticipate others will like. Be personal and
self-serving. Drawings should come from the heart and head, as well as the
hand.”

Fred is a
professor of Illustration at (RISD) the Rhode Island School of Design. He was
for a long time, a professor and department chair at Montserrat College of Art,
and continues to teach for their Summer Studies Program in Italy.

When not
teaching, Fred creates artwork and illustrations that are published and
exhibited all over the world.

Click HERE to meet Fred and click HERE to read Fred’s 2016 Vignettes Symposium Workshop Notes.

_______________________________________________________________________

Read
the May edition of Drawing Attention.

_______________________________________________________________________

Drawing
Attention Mandate 

Drawing Attention, the official monthly
newsletter of the Urban Sketchers organization, communicates and promotes
official USk workshops, symposiums, sketchcrawls, news and events; shares news
about USk chapters; and educates readers about the practice of on-location
sketching.

_______________________________________________________________________

Thanks
to this month’s Drawing Attention contributors

Managing Editor: Brenda Murray

Copy Editor: Lauren McVittie

Mailchimp layout: Suzi Briggs

Website layout: Joann Sondy

Writer: Meagan Burns

Writer: Ann Schwartzwald

Writer: Lauren McVittie

Writer: Amber Sausen

Writer: Pedro Louriero

Contributor: Parka

_______________________________________________________________________

To subscribe to Drawing Attention click HERE.

_______________________________________________________________________

Drawing Attention circulation: ­­­­5,582
(May 2017)

_______________________________________________________________________

Urban Sketchers is a 501(c)(3)
nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering the art of on-location drawing.
Consider making a donation today. Click HERE to make your
tax-deductible contribution via Paypal.

_______________________________________________________________________