Rewind! Santo Domingo Symposium July 2012

September 4, 2014 | Leave your thoughts

As it is too hard to post to my blog while I am in Brazil, I thought it would be a good chance to revisit the previous Urban Sketchers (USK)Symposiums – I have been to all of them. These Rewind! posts are my own reflection on what I got out of the events at the time and/or the impact on my work now. It is not a full description so please excuse the lack of links to the names referred to. Please look up the Archive section on the side bar to read the full descriptions that I wrote at the time 

 
A smaller group for the third symposium and all the workshops were held in a small area – the historic zone of Santo Domingo. There was a real family feel to this one and I met nearly everyone there!

I feel extremely honoured to have been chosen to teach this year alongside Frank Ching.
Teaching at a symposium is a completely different experience – rather than being focused on my own work I was focusing on others – was sharing with them and their work – and this made it a far richer experience.

The two workshops that I did when not teaching were completely different techniques/approaches to my standard way … and it is interesting that when I got home from SD I wanted to change and mix it up! So I suppose my takeaway from this event is the desire for change!


Because I was teaching I made sure I arrived a few days early so that I could sketch the city and not feel deprived during the event. This is the exterior of the cathedral – the subject matter for our workshop


And here is a internal perspective of it – I am amazed that I managed to do this sketch – just off the plane with very little sleep.


During the workshop I tried to create journal pages out of the instruction I was giving by mixing up my pens. It is amazing that I can still remember who I was talking to with some of these little diagrams.


One of the workshops that I attended was Eduardo’s working with markers. No lines, straight to masses and using a tool I hadn’t used for years. When I got home I went crazy and spent a number of months markering!


The final workshop I did was with Swasky and Freehand. Doing very interesting things with foreground and background and different media. I was given directions as I worked on this sketch. I can see how I am using things from this workshop these days!


On the ‘Monday after excursion’ a group of us went up to the markets – what a fun day and amazing city. The people of Santo Domingo were definitely the highlight and I felt sad that I hadn’t recorded them in my sketchbook.


After the symposium I went to NYC for a week.. and well the confidence to go for it was running high as I attempted sketching Times Square on a wet Friday night!

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