Drawing Attention January 2018 by urbansketchers.org

DRAWING

Attention

The official zine of Urban Sketchers JANUARY 2018

Drawing Attention Mandate Drawing Attention, the official monthly zine 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.

Managing Editor: Brenda Murray Mailchimp layout: Jane Dillon Wingfield ISSUU layout design: Anne Taylor Writers: Mark Anderson; Ann Schwartzwald; Jane Dillon Wingfield; Meagan Burns; Pedro Loureiro; Leslie Akchurin. Contributors: Parka; Maria Regina Tuazon; Amber Sausen; Jean Edwards and Christina Wald. Front cover image: Liz Steel Subscribe to Drawing Attention. Read the December edition of Drawing Attention. Circulation: 7,496 (December, 2017). Web: urbansketchers.org Urban Sketchers is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering the art of on-location drawing. Click here to make your tax-deductible contribution via Paypal.

Ah, New Year’s resolutions – you know, those, often overly ambitious, commitments you make to eat better, exercise more, sketch every single day. Do you make a habit of setting resolutions at the start of a new year? How well do you keep them? A week? A month? Are you one of those dedicated people who can keep their resolutions throughout the entire year? Resolutions aren’t for me. Instead of a creating a list of “do this” and “don’t do that” goals for myself, I like to set a theme for the year. It’s a word or phrase that I set to pop up on my calendar each day to remind me how I’d like to live out the day, week, month, and year.

our mission. Promoting this mission and connecting people around the world who draw on location where they live and travel, is the heart of what we do. We sketch. We educate. We build community. These suggest to me that a possible theme for our year could be derived from C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, “onward and upward”. Or from the Japanese philosophy of kaizen, which focuses on continuous improvement in our practices.

For the Urban Sketchers organization in 2018, what theme would you set?

Whether you make a new year’s resolution or set a theme, I think we could all agree that Urban Sketchers should continue moving in the direction of greater success – in helping sketchers build new skills, connect broadly with our sketching community, and share the joy of sketching on location wherever we are.

To raise the artistic, storytelling and educational value of on-location drawing. This is

Happy Sketching - and Happy New Year! Amber, USk President

Welcome to the new and improved Urban Sketchers’ zine. We hope you will enjoy the stories and pix and have fun scrolling over the many interactive elements throughout. We invite you to send us your feedback. What is your opinion about our new layout? What other content would you like to see in Drawing Attention? We’re looking forward to hearing from you. Cheers, Brenda Murray, USk Communications Director, drawingattention@urbansketchers.org.

CONTENTS 4 USK NEWS & EVENTS 6 NEW CHAPTER: SYRACUSE 8 NEW CHAPTER: HYDERABAD 10 DIGITAL URBAN SKETCHING

rob sketcherman

16 PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE

deborah rehmat

22 LOST AND FOUND STRUCTURE

liz steel

30 THINKING DIFFERENTLY ABOUT COLOUR

lynne chapman

34 VIDEOS & ENDNOTES 10

6 8

22 30

JANUARY 2018 3

USk News & Events

USK NEWS & EVENTS

USK WELCOMES NEW TREASURER

Urban Sketchers would like to welcome Gail Wong to the Executive Board as our new Treasurer.

SYMPOSIUM NEWS MARIA REGINA TUAZON

December 15, 2017 was the deadline for proposal submissions. Thanks to all who took part and submitted. On average we receive 50-80 proposals. In 2017, we received 72 and 26 were selected. The Education Committee is busy reviewing all the proposals. They look for a balance of diversity in workshop themes, select at least 20% new instructors, and set aside standby workshops to be included depending on the number of registrations. Full Symposium Programming & schedule will be announced on 1 February 2018.

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The Treasurer is a key member of the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Executive Board and will be involved in strategic planning as well as the day-to-day financial operations. Gail is an architect who runs her own Architecture and Architectural Illustration business. She has been involved with USk since 2009, as one of the USk Seattle Administrators and she helped launch the USk Workshops program. She currently serves on the Education Committee.

USk News & Events

BRING A WORKSHOP TO YOUR CHAPTER

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.

USK WELCOMES NEW CHAPTERS COORDINATOR Urban Sketchers would like to welcome our new Regional Chapters Coordinator, Kip Bradley from Savannah, Georgia. Reporting to the USk Chapters Director, Kip will lead a team of volunteers responsible to coach new chapters through the chapter application process. Kip also manages the USk Flickr group and is the Studio Programs Manager at the Telfair Museum in Savannah, Georgia. JANUARY 2018 5

USk News & Events

FOLLOW URBAN SKETCHERS ON TWITTER BY JEAN EDWARDS & CHRISTINA WALD

Many USk chapters share their chapter news via Twitter. HERE is a list of USk chapter Twitter accounts that you may wish to follow. To add your chapterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Twitter handle to this list please contact cwald@ christinawald.com or jeanne.edwards70@gmail.com or tweet us @Urbansketchers on Twitter. Twitter is a great tool for sharing your urban sketches and chapter activity with other urban sketchers and maybe even recruiting new members. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s some ways of using Twitter as an urban sketching chapter:

FOLLOWING OTHER TWEETERS

We suggest that you follow @UrbanSketchers and other chapters that you are interested in. You could also follow any of your members who are on Twitter, local places where you sketch, local organisations that support urban sketching and other urban sketchers whose work you are interested in.

USING HASTAGS#

If you include #UrbanSketchers and #UrbanSketching when you tweet, we will see it and retweet it to a worldwide audience of followers. You might make your own hashtag for an event (like we did for #uskdayinthelife) and this will allow anyone to collect all your tweets in a stream and look through them. Tweet it to us so we can share it more widely. 6 DRAWING ATTENTION

New Chapter

Doors continue to open for USk Syracuse WHEN THE SKETCHING COMMUNITY OF SYRACUSE, NEW YORK FIRST FORMED, THE INTENTION WAS TO BRING THE GROWING NUMBER OF SKETCHERS TOGETHER, UNAWARE OF THE IMPACT THEY MAY HAVE IN THEIR LOCAL AND STATEWIDE COMMUNITY. MEAGAN BURNS REPORTS ON THEIR INCREASING PROFILE.

Bill Elkins, a retired architect and life-long sketcher, is one of the admins for the group, and the idea was presented to organize as an official chapter just over a year ago, after receiving a positive response from the sketching community. The growing group has enjoyed their monthly outings to various cafes, parks, libraries, and theaters – the places where life happens – and was approved as an official USk chapter October 2017. In the past year the group caught the attention of the local Syracuse newspaper and an article was published, highlighting the Syracuse movement of urban sketchers. Not long after the article appeared, Bill was contacted by a journalist from NBC Evening

News in New York City. As of our print time, an interview has been scheduled for January, 2018 about the international Urban Sketchers “movement”. “It’s an exciting time to be part of the Urban Sketchers community and always an honor to be interviewed about our “old fashioned” medium called sketching”. This network interview may not make it to the nightly news, but regardless, the Syracuse Chapter is enjoying the interest garnered by organizing their Urban Sketchers community. Stay ready for your close-up!

CONNECT WITH SYRACUSE

JANUARY 2018 7

New Chapter

The Vision of USk Hyderabad PEDRO LOUREIRO Faraaz Farshori and Ishak Ziaee are two enthusiastic admins of the USk Hyderabad chapter, announced officially in December. The group is the fifth official USk chapter in India and was jumpstarted by Ishak, who prefers the term “initiator” to “founder”. He met the people from USk Mumbai while stationed there and immediately fell in love with the idea of a community of sketchers. Back in Hyderabad he felt that there should be something similar there too. “We started small – four, five people used to join us every weekend, and slowly it started building up. That is our journey.” Having done illustrations, cartoons and comics in his early years, Faraaz – who Ishak

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describes as “the main engine of USk Hyd and a great evangelist for USk” – had left the art world for a while, until he got a call from Ishak saying “I need you to be there with me.” Faraaz answered the call, lending his vision and enthusiasm to the pair. Now, when looking back at his decision, he sees that “people appreciate the passion, they see the energy!” Having a marketing background, he considers that “there can be a lot of noise out there, but we are still able to get that momentum of people joining people”. When looking for locations for the next sketch meeting, Faraaz says “we’re like kids in a playground”. There are many monuments to choose from in historical Hyderabad, from the iconic Golconda Fort to the magnificent tombs, but USk Hyd also gets

CONNECT WITH HYDERABAD

together in rap and zumba shows in the rising urban and music scene of the city. There’s two parts to Hyderabad: the old city filled with monuments and historical buildings, and the new hi-tech city. For the recent Global 24 Hour Sketchwalk, which a record of around 40 sketchers attended, they had the idea of splitting the action between both parts of the city. Although very young, USk Hyd is extremely dynamic. Their mid-December sketch meeting was their 32nd in a row of frequent events that they’ve held since about 18 months ago. They are even considering taking a shot at hosting an Urban Sketchers Symposium in the near future, showing that even young chapters can aim high, if their passion and vision are true.

“L

ooking for locations for the next sketch meeting, we’re like kids in a playground.” Faraaz Farshori

JANUARY 2018 9

Feature

DIGITAL URBAN SKETCHING WITH ROB SKETCHERMAN ROB SKETCHERMAN IS A PROFESSIONAL HONG KONG ARTIST OF AMAZING TALENT KNOWN FOR HIS USE OF THE IPAD AS HIS CREATIVE MEDIUM. HE TOLD ANN SCHWARTZWALD ABOUT HIS PASSION.

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Digital Urban Sketching

Rob Sketcherman does illustration commissions, sells digital prints of his artwork and is a highly sought-after workshop teacher. Concern over storage of “art stuff” is what first led him to try electronic sketching. It was love at first sight, as he tells it: “When the iPad Air debuted, I went full digital and never looked back”. Rob now uses the iPad Pro exclusively for all his work. His expertise at making art with

technology is inspiring and his enthusiasm is contagious! Rob shares, “I discovered the Urban Sketchers movement in early 2014 and am now one of five administrators of Urban Sketchers Hong Kong. Shortly after joining my first couple of sketchwalks, I knew I’d found my people. Urban Sketchers has changed my life, and I’m constantly amazed at how the seemingly simple activity of recording our lives through drawing what we see, creates deep positive change in lives

around the globe. On top of that, Urban Sketchers are some of the absolute best people in the world – I suspect the values learned through practicing urban sketching contributes greatly – and I’m so grateful to count many as wonderful friends.” Rob first led an activity at the 2015 Symposium in Singapore, then he led workshops in Manchester and Chicago, all teaching iPad urban sketching. He emphasizes that his students learn using “baby steps”. He describes his workshop, “Procreate 101 for iPad Urban Sketching, is designed for those with no digital sketching experience. Students learn to understand how to use Procreate without needing to know anything beyond downloading the app. Participants learn to customize the interface to suit them, collate tools they use regularly and most importantly, begin to understand the thought process required to really take advantage of the tools available for digital sketching.” This approach gives participants technical instruction and then encourages them to expand their artistic mindset in all the marvelous ways opened to them by the magical tools, the iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil.

READ ROB’S WORKSHOP NOTES MEET ROB SKETCHERMAN

VIEW OF ALFAMA, PORTUGAL 2017

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Feature

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PAINTED LADIES, SAN FRANCISCO 2017

Digital Urban Sketching

YUEN PO BIRD GARDEN

JANUARY 2018 13

Feature

YUEN PO BIRD GARDEN

JANUARY 2018 15

PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE DEBORAH REHMAT, AN URBAN SKETCHER FROM YORKSHIRE, DESCRIBES HOW URBAN SKETCHING HAS BEEN ESPECIALLY EMPOWERING FOR SOMEONE LIKE HERSELF LIVING WITH A PHYSICAL DISABILITY. SHE POINTS TO THE POSITIVITY AND FEELINGS OF CONFIDENCE THAT INCLUSIVENESS CREATES WHEN A SKETCHER IS ABLE TO PARTICIPATE AND SOCIALIZE. BY MARK ANDERSON.

JANUARY 2018 17

Feature

“U

RBAN SKETCHING LITERALLY CHANGED MY LIFE.”

We’ve all had those moments when it seemed impossible to make a sketch. But consider what it would be like if your body rebelled against the act of walking down the street, of grabbing a pen and making a simple doodle. Meet Deborah Rehmat, an Urban Sketcher from Yorkshire in Great Britain living with a condition known as ME/CFS. ME, or more specifically Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, is a complex disorder characterized by extreme fatigue which can be aggravated after physical or mental activity. For the past three decades, Rehmat has struggled to find a balance between the demands of professional art career and the effects of ME. Not only is ME widely misunderstood by the public at large, but the restricted mobility when one cannot get out into the community can lead to anxiety and a tormenting sense of isolation. Enter Urban Sketching. “Urban Sketching literally changed my life,” claims Rehmat. Online participation helps her to experience the USk movement on her own terms and at her own pace. And for her, pacing is critical – sketching is the perfect way to step out of it all and move at her own speed. “I can easily take little breaks or

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retreats during a period of activity, making it much more possible to do things I wouldn’t otherwise manage.” For those sketchers whose mobility may be limited or who confront the restrictions of a chronic condition, the welcoming and inclusive world of Urban Sketching may provide unique opportunities. In fact, it may well be that what one thought was impossible is, in fact, very possible indeed. Even though her participation is restricted to small sorties, Rehmat describes Urban Sketching as being especially empowering for both her and the community of sketchers around her. She points to the positivity and feelings of confidence that inclusiveness creates when a sketcher is able to participate and socialize. Sketching in public has other advantages: “Now I know how to explain this way of managing my condition to other people, and can make them understand what I can and cannot do. This empowers those around me because they don’t feel reluctant to interact with me and we know how to be mutually supportive.”

Physically possible

JANUARY 2018 19

Feature

20 DRAWING ATTENTION

Physically possible

JANUARY 2018 21

USk Instructor

Lost & found structure

URBAN SKETCHER AND ARCHITECT LIZ STEEL FROM SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, TAUGHT A WORKSHOP IN CHICAGO CALLED “LOST AND FOUND STRUCTURE,” WHICH INTRODUCED WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS TO WAYS OF SIMPLIFYING COMPLEX BUILDINGS. BY LESLIE AKCHURIN.

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JANUARY 2018 23

USk Instructor

Liz Steel, an architect from Sydney, Australia, has been active within Urban Sketchers almost since its inception. And each time she teaches a workshop, she likes to focus on new topics or techniques that suit the location and that reflect her own evolving practice. At the Chicago Symposium this summer, she taught “Lost and Found Structure,” which introduced workshop participants to ways of simplifying complex buildings by identifying underlying volumes, abstracting shapes, bringing out darks, and alternating between line and color. Liz says the weather was unexpectedly wonderful for the symposium and that Wrigley Square, at the top of Millennium Park, was “the best location ever” for a workshop. It provided ideal views of the surrounding skyscrapers in classroom-like quiet… except for the morning she had to shout over a jazz band!

Although Liz now supports herself entirely by teaching drawing and watercolor painting, whether in corporate classes, for workshops, or online, she still struggles to find time to do her own on-location sketching, a situation she finds a little ironic. When she does manage to get away, she still loves to sketch beautiful buildings but has become increasingly drawn to quirky street scenes with less obviously striking architecture. She mentions urban sketchers around the world who have inspired her in this regard, for instance the sketchers of Singapore, who demonstrate such love for their locales and enthusiasm for documenting their city and everyday scenes. And she finds that her evolving on-location practice—which involves sketching alternately with both watercolor and pen instead of coloring in her pen drawings, as she did originally—helps her to capitalize on the ever-changing visual interest of this new subject matter. She finds the more she sketches an “ordinary” place, the more she wants to sketch it again.

At the conclusion of each of three workshops, she was very impressed with the abilities of her students, who had gamely followed her fairly advanced instructions and produced impressive results.

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READ ABOUT LIZ’S WORKSHOP ON HER BLOG

JANUARY 2018 25

USk Instructor

26 DRAWING ATTENTION

Lost and found structure

10 X 10 EDUCATION PROGRAM In 2017, cities around the world began offering 10x10, a series of 10 courses telling the stories of our surroundings. This education initiative was launched in celebration of the 10th anniversary of USk. In 2018, Urban Sketchers has a new creative plan for long-term workshops. Look for spring, summer and winter classes WHAT? WHERE? HOW? WHEN? WHO? Stay tuned for more information in February, 2018!

JANUARY 2018 27

USk Instructor

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Lost and found structure

PLACE YOUR AD HERE ...and reach

thousands of artists & art lovers

For more information about ad placement sizes and costs for corporate sponsors, email omar@ urbansketchers.org.

JANUARY 2018 29

USk Instructor

thinking differently about colour

AWARD-WINNING ILLUSTRATOR, LECTURER AND SKETCHER LYNNE CHAPMAN OF SHEFFIELD, UK TALKS ABOUT HER WORKSHOP AT LAST SUMMER’S SYMPOSIUM, RHYTHM AND BLUES: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COLOR AND LINE AND HOW SHE DESIGNED THE WORKSHOP TO GET PEOPLE TO “THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT THE WAY TO APPROACH THE THINGS YOU DRAW”. BY JANE WINGFIELD.

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Thinking differently about colour

JANUARY 2018 31

USk Instructor

way of mark-making th a s a r o l o c at enhanc “use e After twenty years an award-winning illustrator and lecturer Lynn Chapman of Sheffield, UK has taken a major turn in her career. “I don’t know where it’s going to lead,” she told me excitedly. In 2015/16 she spent 10 months as sketcher-in-residence at the Morgan Center for Everyday Lives, the results of that project were on display during the Manchester Symposium. She continues her sketch work with researchers in Australia and Yorkshire. She finds she loves the vibrancy of being out in public more than the isolation of studio work. As more research sketch opportunities come up, “Everyday will be an experiment.”

s what you’ve already done...

n be ‘wrong a c s k r a ...m

color as an undertone before adding line. She wanted sketchers to understand that success is not “creating a version of what is already out there.” Rather, she said “having fun, exploring and creating something…THAT is success.” LYNNE’S TIPS: Squint at your subject before you begin, to help you to see areas of deepest shadow. Pay more attention to the tonal values than to the edges of things - this will help to keep your sketches loose.

Her workshop at last summer’s Symposium, Rhythm and Blues: the Relationship between Color and Line was held in the Lurie Garden, adjacent to the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. Workshop attendees sketched to the sound of opera rehearsals while cooling their feet in the stream that ran though the garden. “It was perfect”. She designed the workshop to get people to “think differently about the way to approach the things you draw”. Instead of laying down the line and coloring it in she wanted to get people to “use color as a way of mark-making that enhances what they’ve already done. Marks can be ‘wrong’, beautiful and exciting!” She started by instructing students to use torn paper to apply random color before any line. The exercises gradually moved from applying random color to applying tonal 32 DRAWING ATTENTION

READ LYNNE’S WORKSHOP NOTES

g’, beautif u

Title

l and exc iting!” Lynne Chapman

MEET LYNNE CHAPMAN JANUARY 2018 33

Videos

PARKA REVIEW BY TEOH YI CHIE

2017 CHICAGO SYMPOSIUM LECTURE Click HERE to view Hugo Costa’s lecture at the 2017 Chicago Symposium called “A Fresh Drawing Every Day”.

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Teoh Yi Chie is an infographics journalist who joined Urban Sketchers Singapore in 2009. He’s probably better known as Parka from Parkablogs.com a website that reviews art books and art products. This month Parka video reviews Wayfarer Mixed Sable Watercolour Travel Brushes by D’Artisan Shoppe. Check it out!

Endnotes

USK INDIANAPOLIS

SHARE YOUR CHAPTER’S NEWS WITH OUR READERS USk is pleased to announce seven new Regional Chapters. The newest groups to join the family are: USk Indianapolis, US; USk Navi Mumbai, India; USk Indore, India; USk Heidelberg, Germany, and USk Novgorod, Russia. Welcome to the Urban Sketchers family!

USK VOLUNTEERING OPPORTUNITIES

You don’t need to write the story yourself. We will assign a lovely DA writer like Leslie Akchurin to cover your story!

Are you passionate about urban sketching? Do you have some spare time and skills that you can contribute? USk is currently seeking:

• Volunteer Finance Committee members • Volunteer Education Committee members For more information click HERE.

JANUARY 2018 35

Our Manifesto • We draw on location, indoors or out, capturing what we see from direct observation. • Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel. • Our drawings are a record of time and place. • We are truthful to the scenes we witness. • We use any kind of media and cherish our individual styles. • We support each other and draw together. • We share our drawings online. • We show the world, one drawing at a time.