Sketching Symposium - I'm Off to Santo Domingo!

Remember how giddy I was when I got back from the 2011 Urban Sketcher's Symposium in Lisbon? Well, when they announced a couple of weeks ago that the next one was to be hosted by the Dominican Republic, I sighed and thought that, after the extravagance of India, I'd have to pass this time round. 


But not so, as I have been supremely lucky...

Lots of the Urban Sketchers international correspondents, including me, submitted workshop ideas for possible inclusion in the 2012 symposium. Last week, I had the really exciting news that mine has been chosen. Which means that, come July, I get to go to Santo Domingo to lead the session! My workshop idea is called 'Quick on the Draw' and will feature tips and techniques for speed-sketching.

Only limited details have been announced so far, but the dates of the symposium are 12th - 14th July. If you are interested to find out more, you can register for email updates on the sidebar of the symposium announcement.

Yahoo!

Dr Sketchy - Victoriana at the Greystones

I had real fun on Tuesday evening. I had to rush home from a library event and dash out again with barely time to draw breath, but it was worth it.

It was my 2nd time at a Dr Sketchy event. Last time was really interesting, so I was keen to give it another go. It has relocated since then: they've got themselves a much bigger space, which is miles better than before, with a proper stage for the models, so everyone could see better.

The theme was Victoriana and three models dressed up in various get-ups in keeping with the era, posing for us to draw them. They were all short, sharp poses - anything from 5 minutes to 15 minutes. 

I mainly used the Inktense watercolour pencils I've got so keen on lately, as there was so much colour both in the outfits and in the lighting, it seemed a shame not too (although it was a bit of challenge for the really quick poses!). The red-headed Ieva Dubova was a real gift and so beautiful (far more so than my drawings suggest):

As you can see, some of the gear was truly surreal and I especially liked the mad basque / beard combo worn by Fanny Divine:

Like before, we had a suitably themed soundtrack playing all the while: mostly music-hall numbers (I was surprised how often I knew the words: 'Boiled beef and carrots, boiled beef and carrots...').

I noticed with relief that I wasn't the only one, as one or two people couldn't resist singing along here and there.

The organisers did the usual competitions and several of our SketchCrawl team won something. I won a very nice design book for the drawing of Foxie La Roque at the very top. One of the competition challenges was to do a 10 minute drawing with your left hand - very tricky! This was my effort:

If you fancy giving it a go, the next event in Sheffield is in April, but they also do Dr Sketchy sessions in Nottingham and London, as well as in other countries I believe.

Picture Book Co-Editions - Spot the Difference

I came in Monday afternoon, to find one of those notes from the postman, telling me I'd missed delivery of a package and he had hidden it in my paper recycle-bin.  I wasn't expecting anything, so when I ripped it open, this German edition of Bears on the Stairs took me totally by surprise.

I had completely forgotten that, back in September, my royalty statements showed up that we'd sold a German translation. Since I speak German (well, sort of), I was especially curious to see it, but then, like so many things, it slipped soundlessly from my mind, never to be thought of again. And now here it was!

I thought I'd show you, as there are a few interesting differences. Firstly the title: to mimic the fun rhyming of Bears on the Stairs, they have altered the title, and it translates as (forgive me if I'm slightly out): 'if there were not the bears there'.

The keen-eyed amongst you will also spot a few visual differences, over-and-above what was strictly necessary for the translation:

1) The text: the lovely red title will have cost them more than just using the black of the other translated text, but it's much more fun. As German takes up more room, they have moved our names to the handy spot on the stairs.

2) They've added the new idea of paw-prints onto the green (now why didn't I think of that?).

3) The main image is very slightly smaller, so not so much is cropped off, but the bears are slightly less punchy (this is nearer to my original design, which is why there was enough bleed available on my illustrations). They may have done this to create the right shaped space for the names.

There are even more fundamental differences on the back cover. They've extended the lime as a wrap-around of course, but I have no idea why they decided to lose the original image and substitute the alternative, taken from the inside: 

I suppose it's funnier, so maybe their market responds better to 'funny' than it does to 'cute' (cute is pretty much king in the UK).

If anyone is interested in how I illustrated Bears on the Stairs, you can follow it's progress on this blog, from the first little sketchbook character drawings back in June 2009, through all the roughs and pastel artwork that passed over my drawing desk, then on through scan-work, digital text overlays, proofing and final publication and publicity. It all here on the blog, if you look in the archive on the right, and dominates the posts between June and October 2009.

A Masked, Curried SketchCrawl

On Saturday we had another SketchCrawl in Sheffield... 

After last month's Mad Hatter's Tea Party, we thought we ought to get out and about again, so we met at Highfield Library: an interesting and rather imposing building from the street. However, we were all glad to be sitting inside instead, as it was a really wet and horrible morning. 

We mingled with the 'normal' folk, and tried to behave ourselves, though the library was pretty quiet at 10.30 in the morning, so 90% of the people in there were sketchers:

We stayed for an hour or so, drawing the views from the windows and the other unsuspecting punters:

Next, we walked 5 minutes down the road to the rather unusual Rude Shipyard cafe / bookshop. To call it either a cafe or a bookshop is to understate it: the cosy space you can inhabit is divided between three rooms, furnished as if it were still the Edwardian house it probably once was (and all of course crammed with books).

There is a miscellany of lovely old chairs and sofas to sit on, and various interesting things on the walls or in nooks and crannies.

It was as I was just finishing this mandolin, that I got a call on my mobile: Wendy, who had cooked us all lunch, was stranded outside my house with various pans of curry, with nobody to let her in - I had forgotten about her!!

I zoomed back to the house (thanks for the lift Dee), let Wendy in, then zoomed back to the cafe, to show the rest of the team the way to my house (phew) where there was quite a treat in store... 

Wendy and Matthew had between them prepared quite a feast! Matthew, who loves to draw food, had even created 3 recipe cards, like the one above, depicting every single ingredient in each dish he'd made. 

It looked amazing and tasted even better (I was glad I didn't give in to cake-shaped temptation at the Rude Shipyard). As rather a reluctant dinner-party cook myself, I am incredibly grateful to both Wendy and Matthew for volunteering to feed 12 people.

As you can see, we all wore masks for the meal, just to make things interesting then when we had all filled our boots, we laid out servings of the various dished to draw:

The original idea had been to let our lunch go down by sitting around in our masks, sketching each other, but it was immediately obvious that sketching whist wearing a mask is near impossible. 

So instead we took it in turns to model our masks, while the others sat round and sketched, a bit like a life class. Jo set a stopwatch on her phone, which allowed us 15 minutes a sitting. 

Time was getting on, so we teamed up. By chance little Maya came as cat-woman, which went perfectly with the father-and-son Batman duo:

This is Maya's drawing of me in my devil-bull mask:

...and under here is Matthew, one of our two chefs:

A fabulous day. Thanks again to Matthew and Wendy for all their hard work. If you would like to see more photos or a selection of other people's sketches, or if you would like to come along with us, join our Facebook group SketchCrawl North.

 

Sheffield: Part of the International Sketching Community!

Last week, I got another of those lovely packages - you know, the ones that come in jiffy bags, so can't possibly be a gas bill? Yes: it was my copy of the brand new, hot off the press, Art of Urban Sketching. And by golly, it's gorgeous!

Lucky little me got sent a complimentary copy, because I am in it (yes, look closely on the above page and you can just about make me out). I can't take credit for all the sketches in the Sheffield section though: many are by fellow SketchCrawlers in Sheffield. You might recognise some drawings from our very first, city centre SketchCrawl.

Sheffield Sketchcrawl has been so active over the last year, we attracted the attention of Gabriel Campanario: the man behind Urban Sketchers and the one who made the book happen, by pulling together the best Urban Sketching from around the globe.

I am really proud to be one of the  many correspondents who regularly post sketches from all corners of the globe. In the new book, we talk about how we work and what we like to sketch in our very different locations.

It's so interesting to compare all the different sketching styles and also see the different sketching kits we each take out and why we've chosen certain tools. This is my train-sketching gear above.

If you would like a copy, you can get it here on Amazon. The RRP is £17.99, but it's currently on at £11.87 with free delivery. It's a fat book, bursting with artwork, so that seems incredibly good value.

Talks about Children's Book Illustration

People sometimes ask me when I am doing events which are open to the general public, rather than in schools. Well, I have several coming up really soon: on Tues Feb 21st in Oldham, on the evening of Fri Feb 24th in Batley, and two on Sat Feb 25th: in Holmforth in the morning and then Huddersfield after lunch.

At 1pm in Oldham Library, I will be giving a 1hr lecture, 'A Life in Pictures', on children's book illustration and how I starting out. I'll also look at some of the other illustration work I've done before finding my way to books, and look in detail at my recent book Bears on the Stairs. It's like an extended version of the short film on my website. 

This event is linked to the exhibition of children's book illustration currently in Oldham: Picture This! If you would like to attend, please contact Oldham Library on 0161 770 8014.

The other 3 events are all a talk plus a workshop: a 30 minute lecture on how I create a picture book, followed by a practical illustration workshop, suitable for adults and older children. 

Details are below. All require tickets: adults £2 / £1; children 50p. NB: numbers are limited to 25 per event, so please book online or contact the venues ASAP if you want to come along. 

Feb 24th: Batley Art Gallery 7pm - 8.30pm (tel: 01924 325 040)
Feb 25th: Holmfirth Civic Hall 10.30am - 12.00pm (tel: 01484 222430)
Feb 25th: Huddersfield Art Gallery 2pm - 3.30pm (tel: 01924 324 501)

Hope to see you there!

Kerala - Sketches and Sniffles...

Despite never having smoked a single cigarette in my life, on Friday I woke up with a real hacking smoker's cough. By the evening knew I was in for another cold. And the school-visit season has barely started!

I needed to get better fast, as I had to travel to Sunderland this morning, so I spent the weekend mostly trying to force myself to rest. I'm not much good at that. After a bit, I figured that scanning in sketchbooks was not particularly onerous, so I tackled more of the Kerala drawings.

One of my favourite places we visited during our Kerala adventures was Fort Cochin, famed for the Chinese fishing nets above. I'd never seen anything quite like them. They're constructed from wooden shafts lashed together and counter-balanced by boulders hanging from ropes. Apparently the locals have been plucking passing fish from the estuary in the same way for hundreds of years.

I loved the little, square park immediately in front of our hotel. I would get up slightly early and dash out to watch the community waking up, and get a few sketches in before breakfast.

The park was dotted with these massive trees. They are known locally as 'Sleeping Rain Trees' - great eh? 

Fort Cochin is very much a fishing community and, every morning when the catch was brought in, men loaded fish into crates which they put onto the back of motorbikes, to take out to the surrounding villages to sell. Cats appeared from nowhere to gobble up tit-bits and occasionally steal whole sardines when a back was turned!

There were so many different things going on in the park and along the adjacent river front, I hardly knew what to draw next! I drew lots of the traders and, before I left, managed to find somewhere to take photocopies of my sketches to give to them. As usual, the drawing provided a lovely means of communicating with everyday people; so much more respectful than taking a photo.

If you want to read more about my trip, these are all the posts so far. You can see more sketches from Kerala and from my various other adventures on the sketchbook section of my website. There's also a short film of me talking about why and how I keep sketchbooks.

Impromptu SketchJam at the Gardeners Rest

Lifedrawing at KIAC on Wednesday evening was particularly cold. Mind you, having said that, it was even colder last week. The poor models have been positively goosey and, even in multiple layers of jumpers, boots, 2 coats (!) and drawing in fingerless gloves, I've still felt very chilly on my extremities. Luckily they ply us brave souls with free coffee at half-time to warm us up a bit.

Even more lucky, when we are done we always hot-foot it (cold-foot it?) down the road to the Gardener's Rest pub, where all is cosy and warm.

It's a lovely, friendly pub. They exhibit artwork on the walls and often have live folk music. We were indeed in luck, as some great musicians got cracking almost as soon as we arrived.

Like last time, I whipped out the sketchbook and tried to capture what I could. There's something rather special about drawing to music, especially something with a bit of a beat. I often find myself bopping up and down while I sketch!