SANTI SALLÉS

Santi Sallés: ‘The Drawing is the Same as the Person’

BY JANE WINGFIELD

sketcher spotlight

There is a school of urban sketchers whose style is characterized by a playful and very graphic approach. They are design-driven and there is a compelling immediacy about their work. Santi Sallés is a perfect example. His direct, graphic style – slanting buildings, visible pencil and brush strokes, color swatches, and integrated text – displays a freshness and vitality akin to the vibrancy of his hometown of Barcelona: “I like my drawings to have movement with loose, sloping lines.”

Santi’s style is not only playful and humorous but also orderly. An example is his repetitive designs: a variety of leaves on one page, an extension of the same artichoke from various angles and scales, and a page of several boats in different sizes and colors. He says it comes from his experience as a graphic designer. “I’m a bit obsessed with repetition. I love that.” He seems to be having a lot of fun: “Yes, I enjoy it a lot. I think the drawings reflect the character of the person. Remember that I’m orderly. I like the aesthetic that is created.“

He showed me a page from a sketchbook with very small-scale shots of the historic villas he visited with the Sketch Tour Portugal Reload, a project sponsored by Turismo de Portugal. Twenty sketchers and 10 writers were invited to visit 10 different areas of Portugal and record their experiences. Santi’s group assignment was the center of Portugal. “It was a very interesting project because it was an opportunity to mix work and drawing”. He describes how he arrived in Lisbon, traveled for four hours to the center of Portugal, and started drawing immediately. Then they changed locations and started again. “For six days... every day... carrying luggage, being filmed, drawing and drawing.” It was a stressful experience but also very comforting because “you visit different places and meet magnificent people and different customs. And the food… I love the food in Portugal.”

Santi began his urban drawing adventure around 2012 when he was working on a book, Un Passeig per Sant Gervasi, a walking tour of his neighborhood. The Barcelona City Council sponsored several sketching workshops open to the public. It was a very exciting moment. It was those sketching outings that got him going as an urban sketcher. Then, in 2013, “I had the opportunity to collaborate and participate in the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Barcelona.”

In addition to his lively urban scenes, one of Santi’s favorite subjects is nature. He is known as an expert on greens and teaches workshops on the subject. In 2019 he published the book Verde al Natural. Técnicas de Dibujo para Ilustrar la Naturaleza, available in Spanish and French. His advice and techniques are widely acclaimed, as evidenced by the many workshops he is called to do around the world. He also gets a lot of positive feedback for his drawings of food and people around a table, another of his favorite subjects.

SANTI’S TOP TOOLS He loves to draw with an oilbased graphite pencil (Pitt Oil Base by Faber Castell). Faber Castell’s bright, vibrant and resistant polychrome watercolor pencils, which add an interesting texture and painterly quality to his work. Favorite sketchbooks are a Stillman and Birn brand A4 (Hardcover Beta model) and a smaller Canson brand Art Book Inspiration A5, a 90gsm softcover sketchbook that is lightweight and portable and holds up well to watercolors.

SANTI’S PROCESS Santi starts directly on a page without any preliminary work, sometimes using watercolor first, occasionally strong pencil lines. “I try to draw fresh, have fun, pay attention to composition, and sometimes I change my technique.”

If he decides to tell a story (reportage), he uses thumbnails. He likes to use color swatches and text as integral parts of the drawing.

SANTI’S TIPS:

CHOOSE A GOOD SKETCHBOOK (I USUALLY USE DIN A5 AND DIN A4 SIZES). TAKE FIVE MINUTES TO CHOOSE A GOOD LOCATION. BE CLEAR ABOUT WHAT MATERIALS YOU ARE GOING TO USE. MOST IMPORTANTLY, ENJOY, EXPERIMENT, AND DRAW WITHOUT FEAR.

STAY TUNED FOR EXCITING NEWS ABOUT BARCELONA’S 10-YEAR SYMPOSIUM ANNIVERSARY!