Alanna's experience at the Symposium!

Hi All, the original post is on my Painted Cats blog.
I've finally decided that now is the time to blog about my experience at the Urban Sketchers Symposium that was held here in Portland July 29-31.

We were given lots of goodies. I started in on my Moleskine, accordian style, sketchbook. I doodled during the lectures.

Lapin's presentation was interesting and talked about his experience drawing a city in 10 days.


I resonated with Gabi's remark that there are three types of people out sketching: architects, artists and journalists. I think I fall in to the journalist, or "storyteller" category.

Veronica's presentation was super emotional. During 9/11 she drew as she was witnessing the twin towers falling in NYC.

Sorry, Simo, this is an awful doodle of you, but I definitely liked your presentation and the energy you put in to collaborative projects!

Matt Brehm's lecture on Sketching as a social activity really resonated with me. As someone who has actively organized a group of sketchcrawlers, I recognize the importance in my life and find it interesting that it's not necessarily a new idea.

the lectures were spread out over three days and during the three days, we had field sketching sessions. I first went out with Veronica Lawlor to work on Urban People. As it was Thursday morning & streets were deserted, we had to find the people, so we headed to Powell's. I started sketching my usual ways, despite Veronica's tip to use thumbnails.

so i stubbornly continued randomly placing sketches on the page

until I decided I better listen to the tip, as it might help.

and I think I did get a little bit better!



I went out with Simo to explore urban architecture.

but i of course got bored with buildings and went in search of some people to draw instead.


but I did try again to focus on the architecture around me.


in between field sketching sessions, I found lots of opportunities to keep sketching!



...even on the streetcar as urban sketchers crowded in!



I went with Gabi to Pioneer Square to focus on urban composition. Thinking about the story I wanted to tell.


So I sat and sketched the set up for Flicks on the Bricks, which would happen later that evening.

and since Pioneer Square is known as Portland's Living Room, I couldn't help but capture this guy:

I also went out with Frank Ching to focus on architecture some more, as I know that's were I need a lot of practice!
I approached the scene as normal (for some reason I can't get it to orient the correct way)
And Frank came to give me some tips on how to approach the scene. Following his advice, Here's what I managed:


From his advice I got some tips for future sketching, which I think will improve my sketches.
....more in next post!