Revisiting Liz Steel's Lost and Found Structure Workshop

I am so late in finishing my recaps of the workshops I took at Urban Sketcher's Symposium in Chicago. My last workshop was with one of my favorite artists, Liz Steel. This was my last workshop of the Symposium and I was really looking forward to it. Here is the description of the workshop and the handout Liz provided.

We met Liz and walked to a site near Millennium Park that Liz had selected for its shade and view of several skyscrapers. Liz explained our first exercise, which was to sketch the buildings in scale and in relation to each other - noting the patterns in the buildings - and then demonstrated for us.

Liz explaining concepts and showing examples from her sketchbook

Here's my attempt:

Next, we explored shape by eschewing line altogether and simply painting the shapes of the buildings by using the dominant local color of the buildings. Liz advised us to average out the colors to come up with an overall color for each building.

We then did a line sketch of the volumes and this time add in the darks only. Liz told us to review the two sketches and look for areas where we could merge shapes. Are they in the same place for both sketches?

Finally, we were tasked with putting it all together by starting our final sketch by painting some (not all) of the big shapes using either local color or shadow areas. After a few shapes, she told us to switch to adding structure either in pen or in paint. Whenever possible, Liz advised us to blow out the highlights, merge together the dark areas, and explore ways of fading the detail of the structure/windows. Here's my attempt and the entire group's.

In the end, it was a wonderful workshop and the 3 hours just flew by! I will have to continue to practice what I learned. But, best of all was just spending time with Liz and watching her sketch! She is such a warm and friendly person and such an inspiring artist.

Stephanie Bower's Watery Reflections Demo

During the Urban Sketcher's Symposium this year in Chicago, I was lucky enough to see Stephanie Bower's Watery Reflection demonstration at the Crown Fountain in Millennium Park.

Designed by Designed by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, the Crown Fountain in Millennium Park is a major addition to the city's world-renowned public art collection. The fountain consists of two 50-foot glass block towers at each end of a sha… — Designed by Designed by Spanish artist **Jaume Plensa**, the **Crown Fountain in Millennium Park** is a major addition to the city's world-renowned public art collection.

The fountain consists of two 50-foot glass block towers at each end of a shallow reflecting pool. The towers project video images from a broad social spectrum of Chicago citizens, a reference to the traditional use of gargoyles in fountains, where faces of mythological beings were sculpted with open mouths to allow water, a symbol of life, to flow out.

Plensa adapted this practice by having faces of Chicago citizens projected on LED screens and having water flow through an outlet in the screen to give the illusion of water spouting from their mouths. The collection of faces, Plensa's tribute to Chicagoans, was taken from a cross-section of 1,000 residents.

The fountain’s water features operate during the year between mid-spring and mid-fall, while the images remain on view year-round.

Despite its name, Stephanie's workshop focused on reflections, not just in water - but, also in metals, mirrors, windows, shiny floors, and streets (wet or not). Stephanie passed out a handout that describes how reflections work and different aspects of reflections. With regard to how reflections work, she states that a simple reflection on a smooth surface reflects an image that is the same size and height as the object being reflected and is reflected straight down. She also reminded us that the vanishing point is always at your eye level line - even for the reflected image.

Stephanie showed us some amazing examples of her own work with reflections.

Stephanie's sketch with reflections on a shiny indoor floor

But, the best part of this demonstration, was, of course, watching Stephanie sketch the scene in front of us. She started with a quick value thumbnail sketch.

Though Stephanie says she doesn't usually take the time to always make a value thumbnail, it was helpful for me to watch her do it and remember to concentrate on values!

Stephanie then moved on to demonstrate her sketching method with reflections and reminded us to reserve a lot of white space - which she says is always the hardest thing to do! Unfortunately, I didn't get a great video of her process. Here was her sketch:

It was an amazing demo to watch - and I'm so grateful for Stephanie to take extra time in continuing her sketch for us. I can't wait to add in more reflections in my work. Recently, I thought of Stephanie's teachings when sketching at the Lafayette Reservoir.

My sketch of the Lafayette Reservoir - I think the reflections really does add to the whole sketch

I really enjoyed Stephanie's demo and intend to add more reflections in a lot of my sketches - and not just ones involving water! Stay tuned for my upcoming blog post on the last workshop I took at USK Chicago - Liz Steel's Lost and Found Structures!

Revisiting Marion Rivolier's USK Chicago Symposium Workshop: How to Reach the Sky?

Attending the Urban Sketcher's Symposium in Chicago last month was so inspiring! I learned so much from the other sketchers I met and, of course, from the instructors of my workshops. Now, that I've been home - I decided to revisit each of the workshops I took (with Marc Taro Holmes , LK Bing, Marion Rivolier, and Liz Steel) and the demonstration I attended (with Stephanie Bower) to remember what I was taught and practice!

Today, I am revisiting Marion Rivolier's How to Reach the Sky workshop, which I took on Friday afternoon of the Symposium. I have been following Marion on Instagram for a while now and have always admired her watercolors and urban sketches. I love her use of watercolors without a preliminary drawing, the colors she uses, and the landscape format she so often uses - so, I was very excited for the chance to learn from her in this workshop.

Marion started out the workshop explaining that she wanted to show us the intimate relationship between the sky, the lights, the movement of the clouds, the buildings and the architecture, which are revealed by the sky. She said that we will observe how the sky reveals the colors of the city. First, however, she wanted to check our materials - our sketchbooks and our watercolors as we will be painting in watercolors directly for this workshop without any preliminary underdrawing.

Marion had us practice mixing dark colors in various warm and cool mixtures. Here are my dark mixtures using Daniel Smith's Ultramarine Blue and Transparent Pyrrol Orange; Ultramarine Blue and Pyrrol Crimson; and Indanthrone Blue and Pyrrol Crimson - with varying amounts of each color. Marion reviewed our colors to make sure we could make sufficiently dark colors. She recommended that we make color charts of our watercolors to understand what colors are possible with our sets.

Next, we took the Chicago skyline, our subject, and focused on the sky alone in sketching the sky or negative space around the buildings in a single, dark color. Marion warned us at the outset of the workshop that we may not create any "pretty" pieces of art today as we are going to be more concerned about experimenting and learning today.

using a single cool, dark color to paint the sky / the negative shapes of the buildings

Next, we played with warm and cool values as Marion says that warm and cool values are the key to understanding volume as they allow us to create contrasts that accentuate depth and volumel. We were to choose a dark cool color and add in a warm color for clouds (which we had to invent as the sky was clear at that moment).

negative drawing with a dark, cool sky and warm clouds

Next, we painted the negative shapes of the buildings to indicate the sky and added a warm color for highlights on the buildings and a cool light color for reflections of the sky on the buildings.

warm highlights and cool sky reflections on the buildings

In our next exercise, we ignored the sky and just used a warm color to indicate highlights on the buildings and a cool light cool to indicate reflections of the sky on the buildings.

Next, we took this exercise one step further and added cool and warm dark colors to indicate warm and cool shadows on the buildings after indicating the warm highlights and cool sky reflections on the buildings.

combining warm highlights, cool sky reflections on the buildings with cool and warm dark shadows

In the end, we combined all of these concepts into a final sketch (that I admittedly ran out of time to complete.

Final sketch utilizing all of the concepts from Marion's workshop

Marion showing us her sketch utilizing the concepts she taught us

In summary, I found the concepts of warm and cool color contrasts to be a bit hard to get my head around. In theory, I understand the concept, but it's a whole other matter in practice! I don't think I've trained my eyes enough to see and differentiate between cool and dark shadows, etc. Also, in the beginning of the workshop, Marion kept asking us to give more room for the sky in our composition. I think this tip will be the easiest for me me to implement right away, but I will keep working on trying to see and utilize warm and cool value contrasts.

Today, prior to the partial solar eclipse that turned out not to be viewable where I was in Berkeley, I tried to keep Marion's workshop in mind and sketched the sky with a bit of my view from the Claremont Resort Hotel.

As a side note - I love Marion's use of rich watercolors and coveted her Indigo Blue that she demonstrated in the workshop to make a cool, dark color - so I asked her what brand of watercolors she uses. She said that she uses White Nights watercolors primarily because they are fairly cheap (about 2 euros for a half pan) and she goes through a lot of watercolors. I love my Daniel Smith watercolors, but I was tempted to try Marion's watercolors and bought some White Nights watercolors on Amazon. I've been using them since them and enjoy having a limited palette of warm and cool colors with a couple of convenience colors added in. Here is Marion's palette - which I have some of the colors - but not all of them based on my own preferences.

In conclusion, I have much to learn and practice from Marion's workshop still. But, I have resolved to view her own work on Instagram with a more knowledgeable eye based on the concepts she explained to us.

Thanks for reading this! Stay tuned for my blog posts on Liz Steel's workshop and Stephanie Bower's demonstration.

Marc Holmes' Watercolor Silhouettes USK Symposium Workshop

My first workshop at the recent Urban Sketchers Symposium in Chicago was one of the most sought after at the Symposium this year. Somehow, I was lucky enough to have gotten into Marc Holmes Watercolor Silhouettes workshop on the first morning of worskshops.

I have already taken a Marc's two Craftsy classes (Sketching People in Motion & Travel Sketching in Mixed Media) and found them to be excellent in terms ofdrawing, watercolor, and urban sketching techniques. I highly recommend them. If you access the courses through Marc's website, you can get a 50% discount on the course. I also really enjoyed his book, The Urban Sketcher: Techniques for Seeing and Drawing on Location.

In this Marc's books and Craftsy courses, he progresses from drawing in pencil to ink and adding watercolor, to going straight to watercolor with no underdrawing. His workshop is a continuation of this progression. Marc has generously posted a handout, An Exercise in Direct Sketching: The Broken Silhouette, from his workshop online . Marc summarizes the goal of the workshop as follows:

THE IDEA IS SIMPLY: Sketch with a brush, straight onto dry white paper, with rich, juicy mixes of paint, picked up as directly as possible from the paint box.

Marc explained this to us as a way to not only draw with your brush, but to create solid shapes at the same time with exciting watercolor effects.

Marc showing us an urban sketch of the elevated train in Chicago

Then, he demonstrated painting a positive shape using this techniques. Here's some video of his demo.

I didn't really understand what Marc wanted in my first try - he wanted more outlining the shape with the brush and filling it it in with lively watercolor mixes. Here, I just added a wash over the statue of the horse and rider.

In my next few attempts, I did a little better with Marc's concepts.

We practiced painting the negative shapes around the statue and then added the shadow shapes within the figure

My final sketch - a panorama of the Chicago skyline and the elevated train - but I ran out of time.

The workshop was wonderful and Marc gave us so much to think about and to practice. I revisited his handout and concepts the other day and worked on using his first technique (painting a positive, isolated shape) to practice painting cars and people (with which I always struggle)!

I started with the parked car on the right and then attempted cars driving towards me on the left

Here, I started with the people and then added the background building

Yesterday, I attempted Marc's other technique - drawing with a background (negative shapes) at the Lafayette reservoir. I definitely need more practice painting negative shapes - so this was fun.

I will keep practicing Marc's techniques over the next few days and will also revisit each one of the amazing workshops I took at the USK Symposium in Chicago. Stay tuned!

New Artistic Obsession

I take many, many art courses online from fabulous artists through Sketchbook Skool and Craftsy for the most part. I have been improving my techniques by learning from these great artists - such as: Marc Taro Holmes, France Belleville van Stone, Felix Scheinberger, Anna Mason, Patricia Watwood, Paul Heaston, Lapin, Miguel Herranz, and many others. But, my latest artistic obsession with an artist is with Jean Haines, a self-professed watercolor addict.

What I love about Jean and her style is that she celebrates the qualities of watercolor that I've always loved and been attracted to. I've read two of Jean's four books so far:

In her books, Jean describes her background in watercolors, art instruction, and travels. Surprisingly, she was a highly detailed botanical artist at one point (like Anna Mason, who I greatly admire) - but, felt like her watercolors were looking like everyone else's. She also felt like she was losing her love for the medium. I have felt the same way - and though I loved using Anna's techniques to create very realistic botanical art, I admit that in paining in that style, I felt like I was working more than playing.

I also watched two of Jean's DVDs via downloads from North Light Shop. It is so helpful to see Jean paint in her style. In the first DVD, Watercolor Workout, she shows us how she warms up to paint each day by playing with her watercolors either pigment alone with water, or by mixing pigments with water, salt, or using plastic wrap. I had never before considered just playing with my watercolor pigments - but Jean is right in that doing so, helps you understand how the pigments interact with water or salt or each other! So, I grabbed one of my in expensive 6" x 9" watercolor watercolor pads and have been using three sheets a day to play with my Daniel Smith watercolors - and I love it!

What I really love about Jean's techniques are her lack of any preliminary drawings with her watercolors - though, I do admit I still love drawing with pen and ink otherwise - and her instructions to have fun with pigment and to stay loose by practicing doing only half of a piece at a time - stopping just when you can see your subject emerge. I love how Jean, like me, loves painting animals, flowers, landscapes, and people. I admit that I've been trying to find my style and what I subjects I should concentrate on - but, I'm happy to hear that a successful artist, like Jean, also refuses to limit herself to only certain subjects!

I could go on and on about what I love about Jean Haines' atmospheric watercolors and style - but, I'll just say that I feel energized by her watercolor outlook and committed to using it to find my own style! Let me know if you have encountered Jean - or another inspirational artist - and what you've learned from them.

Here are some recent pieces I've done inspired by Jean's style.

Urban Sketching using Marc Taro Holmes's Techniques

I have been loving Marc Taro Holmes's Craftsy classes, Sketching People in Motion and Travel Sketching in Mixed Media. I love how he understands the constraints of urban sketching - especially when people are moving, you're on vacation and your family wants to keep moving, etc. To sketch people in motion, Marc teaches us how to capture gestures quickly with pencil and then move onto fountain pens, brush pens, and watercolors. In terms of travel sketching, Marc teaches us to do single line drawings, then 5-7 line drawings (cinq à sept), use shading and brush pens, watercolors, and eventually, watercolors alone.

I recently practiced these techniques in my hometown, Walnut Creek.