Occasional Observations

Saturday, March 29, 2014

waking up from hibernation...

... me, that is, not the elephants. Mostly a digital hibernation though (it took me a few moments to remember how to upload an image :o). But that's all ending right now with these guys who are at home in the Tierpark Berlin. They are part of a group of African Elephants there who are very active and great to watch. There has been a lot of exitement lately about the new zoo director starting next month and many people seem to be curious about the changes and improvements that are to come.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

USk Symposium Barcelona - Day 2 Workshop 3

Workshop 3 was Luis Ruiz' Actors and Stage which he had kindly located at Placa dels Angels, right beside CCCB. So hardly any walking that morning but yet another draw-like-hell undertaking because, as Luis had predicted, soon there was not going to be any shade left in the square. The shock of that forecast was soon forgotten as I started to draw the 'patterns that repeat itself' in the architecture around the square which was the first task. This was to set the stage.

I had so much fun with the straight-on views, I only managed one 2-point perspective.
The second part were the actors, the chaos that counter-balances the orderly architecture, the life between the buildings. The idea was to create density through line but not to draw each person rather to treat them as a mass. Focus will then be achieved through contradiction of line. My attempts turned into a few more drawings that hurt the eye too much, so I'll leave them where they are.
Finally, all was to be combined: a stage with repetitive features, actors that contrast the static with their density and chaos and light and dark to create further focus.

Unfortunately, my chaos and density here are limited, time just didn't allow for them. I did go back on a different day to finish things off but there really was no shade at that time. I was overwhelmed with the heat and had to go and sit under one of those umbrellas instead.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

USk Symposium Barcelona - Day 1 Workshop 2

Workshop 2 - the rainy one. Of course everybody had one of these, unfortunately this was the one I had most been looking forward to. But what do you do... You sit under a huge umbrella outside McDonald's and tell yourself that it's only water. Then you draw like hell because this was Veronica Lawlor's workshop and you don't want to miss a second of it.
The first 4 drawings are 4 different approaches of 4 different buildings, all beside each other at L'Illa de la Discordia: 1.various types of line 2.shapes 3.lines in any colour material 4.coloured lines and marks
I left out my second drawing because it hurts the eye.

The second part of the workshop was to take the 4 different techniques and combine them to make one drawing of the line of buildings using each approach as you feel is suitable.

I didn't have enough time in the end to finish up and although I'm happy enough with how I dealt with things I realized afterwards that I still looked at them as four seperate buildings rather than a row of houses.

Mixing the different materials and attempts is very - here it comes: liberating. The pressure is off 'cause you know you are going to jump right into it and while you draw away you are making something of it because you are looking at it from many different ways: line, shape, colour and you have to make decisions about what you put where and with what. So, it's good and maybe one day we'll be in a league with Veronica Lawlor :)

Monday, August 5, 2013

USk Symposium Barcelona - Day 1 Workshop 1

These are the first sketches of the symposium: warm-up sketches in Ma rina Grechanik & Ea Ejersbo's workshop Urban Life at Mercat de la Boqueria. The aim was to quickly capture people going about their business at the market.
The best place to losen-up: people are constantly walking past you, everything seems to be moving all the time and the vendours go about their routine with such skill and speed it is fascinating to watch. When you draw it seems all you can do is react. There's no time to worry about your drawings.

Part 2 was trying to develop a story: using a double-page spread (in this case A3), the idea was to capture only certain people that seemed of particular interest and combine them with only certain elements of the market that would aid the 'story', all the while preserving the loseness built-up during the first sketches.

The last drawing built on the ideas of the first two and - I almost want to say - colour was allowed. I think there was big excitement to try out Marina's technique, like children finally opening our pots of paint. Marina's approach is to use watercolour and watercolour pencils in a way that they add to each other rather than copy each other. This seems simple enough but I required quite a bit of concentration and restraint. For some reason there is a need to draw a line around a blop of paint and in return to colour-in the pencil lines. Once you fight this you can achieve great things - I didn't really but I'm sticking with it.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Pre- 4th International Urban Sketchers Symposium Barcelona

Barcelona, 10th July 2013

After joining the pre-symposium sketchcrawl this is one of the first drawings in Barcelona. When faced with 'Sagrada de familia' as my first drawing of the day and admittedly in a long time, I turned the other way and chose this guy instead.