Sunday Taste of Sketching Workshop
Sunday August 19 2018
10am and everybody has arrived to start our Workshop, especially designed for those keen to learn some simple tricks and techniques of quick sketching.
Kirsten is assisting me today and we chat about what our art experience has been, and what we hope to learn today.
One student is off to Morocco very soon and is thrilled she's learned enough to start her Travel Sketch Journal. Others have dabbled but want to know how to get 'that thing out there' onto this little bit of paper. That's what we learn here. Taking ownership of what you see and how much you want to sketch.
Nerves begin to settle once those first lines are down, and something begins to look recognisable. Of course we are all amazed at how differently we all sketch the same thing but with a totally different outcome.
Off to the park we go. Our tree subject is our favourite Crepe Myrtle usually bursting into green tipped leaves with pink blooms to follow. But what a shock to see a painted mark on the trunk! Our Crepe Myrtle has died. She will be cut down. Clearly she hasn't been able to get enough water. However we sketch anyway using layered aquarelle, and putting in the green leaves normally there.
Rumbling tummies could be heard so it definitely time for lunch. By now there is a very cold wind so we're grateful to get inside to our table in the warmth. Everyone orders something yummy and a drink, so that we have the energy to keep going.
While we wait for our food, we do the quick 30second coffee cup sketch. Food arrives and we stop everything. We're onto watercolour by now.
We talk about how everything you wish to sketch is whatever you see is front of you. No real need for the big vista.
We end the day with some very happy sketchers, some so excited at the achievements in their books. Another claims it's the best piece of art she's ever done.
That's the joy of being a Travel Sketch Tutor. Knowing that when people walk in the door in the morning, they are not sketchers. But a few hours later, they are. More in September with Kirsten as tutor.
