Drawings from Amsterdam

Drawings from a week spent in Amsterdam at the end of July, during the USk 2019 Symposium. Although I didn’t attend the workshops, it was great to meet up with many Urban Sketchers around the city. I used Stillman and Birn watercolour paper to make the sketchbook and really enjoyed working in it although scanning it was slightly problematic, hence the varying sizes of the images. 

Porto patterns and typography

Last of the posts from Porto, a selection of photographs from my week's stay in the lovely city.

Workshop with Fred Lynch

Of all the artists whose workshops I’d booked at the USk Porto Symposium, Fred Lynch was the person I knew least about. I knew he made beautiful tonal drawings and wrote knowledgeably about the history behind the places he drew but apart from that, not a lot.

It turns out Fred is actually a Professor of Illustration at Rhode Island School of Design and is the font for all illustration knowledge, which he was happy to share with the group.

This is the link to his website if you would like to see his beautiful work 

https://www.fredlynch.com/

He started the workshop by asking us to finish the following sentence:

'Porto is so visually interesting because...'

I wrote '...the hills both sides of the river mean that you can see the buildings stacked up on both sides'

Then we set off to draw what we had written. Mine is above.

For the second exercise he read us a quote from writer Mary McCarthy:

‘Any Portuguese town looks like a bride’s finery. Something old, something new, something borrowed something blue’.

We then set off to draw 'a bunch of ideas' inspired by the text, which we would show to the group and then decide which one to pursue with. He emphasised that an illustration didn’t necessarily have to replicate what was in the text but could compliment it and add to it.

Fred was an excellent communicator and full of energy, with a great sense of humour and I really enjoyed this last workshop of the symposium.

Workshop with Veronica Lawlor

One of the best things about the Urban Sketchers Symposium is that you get the chance to be taught by some of best drawers in the world! Veronica Lawlor from New York City is an amazing reportage artist, teacher and author and I was lucky to get a place on her workshop in Porto. This is the link to her website if you’d like to see her work - http://www.veronicalawlor.com

The workshop was entitled ‘Reportage - Memories of a city’ and Veronica started by saying that the translation of the word reportage is ‘to carry back’ and talked about how we can show Porto to our family and friends in our drawings on our return. She talked about how, early on in her career she had travelled to the Vatican, made lots of great drawings but on her return, when talking to her family about what the place was like, had realised that she had not drawn the essence of the place. And she needed to go back and draw some more!

We started by moving around making ‘thumbnails’ on our sketchbooks, to give each of us an idea about what we might be interested in drawing.

Next, we focussed on one particular topic, I was interested on the people working behind the scenes.

Lastly, we spent a longer amount of time doing a larger drawing. I think my smaller studies were more successful than the larger one as I got a little caught up in the actual setting rather than the people themselves. Veronica was a great teacher, giving lots of encouragement and positive comments to all the group. A great workshop!

Workshop with Simo Capecchi

We crossed the river by boat to the area where the ‘rabelos’, the traditional boats used to carry the barrels of port downstream, were moored. Simo talked about the commission she works on for the Italian travel magazine “Dove’. She illustrates the back page every month and has done for the last three years. She has built up a good relationship with the art director over that time. She uses her own location drawing when possible and works from reference photographs too. She emphasised the fact that the text needs to be written from a very personal viewpoint, saying that the sketch was one thing, the writing a second and together they made a third new element.

I’ve always found writing in my sketchbook so difficult and the exercise she set was always going to be challenging. She asked us to tell the story of port in a single page reportage. Many of the other people at the workshop seemed to have thought about this quite a lot beforehand and had great ideas, lots with a personal spin and I felt I should have done my homework!

Initially, we made thumbnail sketches of how the page might be laid out. As I hadn’t really thought of a personal angle, I made several and Simo pointed out one which might be good to take further. I drew a rabelo which had its sail blowing in the wind and started to think about my story. As I’m not a great drinker I hadn’t tasted the port and decided that this might be something I could use – the fact that visitors could enjoy the city even if they didn’t taste its famous wine.

Most people didn’t finish the project on site, so Simo asked us to send her the final versions when we got home. I tried a couple of layouts, which you can see below. 

Final version

Workshop with Imna Serrano

My first workshop at the USk Porto Symposium was with the very talented Imna Serrano. Her work is full of life and energy! Check out her website if you are not familiar with her work – http://inmaserrano.es/

Imna gave all of the workshop participants a gift at the beginning of the session, containing a bamboo pen, wooden stick, a length of paper, business card and badge. She talked about the feeling you have when using new tools and encouraged us to ‘play’ with these new materials.

We warmed up by making marks with the bamboo pen and wooden stick, using Indian ink which she supplied. We then drew a large foreground object/person with a small background element, followed by the two elements drawn a similar size. She said that she often used a large foreground element, cut off by the bottom of the page, as a way of drawing the viewer into the picture. We then drew each other, front on and then from the side, but as if it were one drawing.

The first large drawing exercise was called “The Pathway’. She encouraged us to sketch with long lines, keeping the pen on the paper. Then we added details, shadows and finally repeated the same colour across the picture helping the viewer to read the pathway. She suggested with my drawing that I might have made the foreground figure much bigger to improve the composition. 

I used Photoshop when I returned home to see how it would have looked if I’d drawn it like this! 

For the second exercise, we put down large shades of colour to define elements before moving in with pen line.

It was a cloudy day so we weren’t able to complete the third exercise which was about “The Big Shape’ - putting in the shadows as big, black shapes but I tried it by myself in the afternoon. Mine is probably a little cartoony but I think it’s something I could try again.

She emphasised the importance of keeping the joy of using new materials and capturing the essence of the scene in front of you.

Porto sketchbook pages