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 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 Chicago sketches

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. 

Dark color mixtures

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.  

warm highlights and cool sky reflections 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

the workshop's efforts

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

Final sketches of the 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. 

My sketching set up today

trying to reach our overcast sky today

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.

Marion's White Nights palette

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. 

A tour of one of my USK Chicago Symposium Sketchbooks

Before I went to Chicago for this year's Urban Sketcher's Symposium, I made two coptic-bound sketchbooks (here is a great how to video if you want to learn how to make one) from my favorite watercolor paper - Fabriano Artistico in both 140 lb. soft- and cold-pressed finishes. While both were about 8" x 11" in dimension, I made one in landscape format and the other in portrait format. I think I generally prefer landscape format as this was the one I finished first after coming back home. 

Here is a quick tour of the sketchbook with my sketches from the USK Symposium at the start - including sketches done on my own in Chicago, sketches from the group sketch crawls, and sketches from the workshops I took there with Marc Taro Holmes, LK Bing, Marion Rivolier, and Liz Steel. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Stay tuned for more posts on the individual workshops I took in Chicago as well as the demo from Stephanie Bower on Watery Reflections. 

LK Bing's USK Chicago Symposium Workshop: Spontaneous Creation of Dramatic Atmosphere

Today, I am revisiting the excellent workshop I took with LK Bing at the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Chicago last month. I love LK's watercolors - they are so full of emotion and atmosphere that I was really excited for his workshop. The full title of the workshop was "Spontaneous Creation of Dramatic Atmosphere: How to Apply Lighting Concepts with Artistic Strokes." 

I attended LK's workshop as my second workshop on Friday morning. As with all of the workshops, we met our instructors at Grant Park and walked over to the location LK selected for us near the Chicago Board of Trade building. LK was very generous with the supplies and instruction he provided us - which included: (a) a printed color booklet/handout with stated learning goals, workshop schedule, his supplies and tools, and his step by step process; (b) three water soluble Snowman markers; (c) two 9 x 12 cm thumbnail cards that are made of mounting boards; and (d) a bamboo knife.

The supplies provided to workshop attendees by LK Bing (the thumbnail cards were provided blank - but these are mine after the workshop)

The learning goals of the workshop were as follows:

In this workshop, the participants will acquire understanding of the techniques of how to make a sketching composition artistically and speedily through:

1.  Applying lighting concepts and depth to express atmosphere.

2. Creating spontaneous and artistic strokes.

3. Making value study in order to look for the best composition and to build a library of best compositions for future reference.

4. Understanding on tools and materials which helps to speed up and simplify the creation of quality sketches.

First, LK showed us his supplies and tools as well as his own sketches and thumbnails. He then proceeded to demonstrate his process of first drawing compositional value thumbnails. Here is a video I shot of LK's demo.

LK's finished thumbnail 

Following LK's thumbnail demo, we set off to try our own. I was able to do the two you see in the above photo of the supplies provided to us. LK came by and gave us individual tips and comments. Thereafter, LK demo'ed painting his full size sketch, reminding us to reserve the white of the paper for highlights. Here is an admittedly unprofessional video I took of LK's demo.

Here is LK's final sketch. 

We then set out to do our own sketches with LK's helpful comments. For instance, LK gave me the advice to try to reserve more white space in my sketch, but I could still add in some white watercolor or gouache (or even pastel) later. Here is my final sketch from the workshop.

The view of the Chicago Board of Trade I was sketching

I continued using LK's water soluble pen and his methods to sketch during my time at the USK Chicago Symposium and found it really helpful in speeding up my sketching and loosening up my style. Here are some examples of my sketches from Chicago using LK's teachings.

A sketch I did during an evening architectural boat tour

My nighttime sketch of "The Bean"

Our last sketch crawl - this sketch was done in 15 minutes

Hero Coffee Bar - near our hotel

My sketch with the lovely baristas at Hero Coffee Bar

Sketching on the "El" back to O'Hare Airport

Today, I revisited LK's teachings and used his water soluble pen to do these sketches while waiting.

a 5 minute sketch

a sketch of Mount Diablo at the intersection of Ygnacio Valley & North Broadway

I have yet to capture the atmospheric quality and emotion of LK's work, but I will keep practicing. I love how quickly I can sketch with this method and will keep working at it. Thanks again for a great workshop, LK! 

Me and LK at the final photo session of the USK Symposium

Stay tuned for my future posts on the workshops I took with Marion Rivolier and Liz Steel, as well as the demo by Stephanie Bower - all from the USK Symposium in Chicago. 

USk Symposium in Chicago!

Last week, I attended my first Urban Sketcher's Symposium in Chicago and it was every bit as amazing as I hoped it would be! I was in heaven amongst the 570+ like minded sketchers in Chicago and seeing and meeting so many of the amazing artists and teachers that I have been lucky enough to take online (and in person) or follow online: Paul Heaston, Liz Steel, Suhita Shirodkar, James Richardson, Lynne Chapman, Marc Holmes, Anne-Laure Jacquart, Marion Rivolier, LK Bing, Uma Kelkar, Jane Blundell, Shari Blaukopf, Lapin, Jason Das, Stephanie Bower, Nina Johansson, and Paul Wang.

Todd and I lived in Chicago for a few years over 20 years ago and while Chicago was familiar, it was also very changed. I loved trying to draw/paint all the skyscrapers and all the public art spaces that have been added. Todd came along and had full days to himself while I participated in sketch crawls and workshops. Each day was so busy and fun! I plan to blog in detail about each of the workshops I took (Marc Holmes' Watercolor Silhouettes; LK Bing's Spontaneous Creation Of Dramatic Atmosphere; Marion Rivolier's How To Reach The Sky?; and Liz Steel's Lost And Found Structure; as well as Stephanie Bower's Watery Reflections demo) - so, stay tuned!.

In the meantime, here are some of my early sketches from the trip and some photos from the Symposium.