Brazil, part 4 – Symposium start

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Teaching in an Urban sketchers symposium workshop is an incredibly fun and rewarding experience, but there is one small downside to it – you get a little less time for actual sketching. To squeeze in a little more drawing action, I and a few other instructors staying in the same hotel got up early to go sketching together in the mornings. (Yes, I took time off from work to go to Brazil, and still got up at six almost every morning.) After breakfast, we headed out for about an hour of drawing before the day´s symposium activities began.

Morning sketchers, Paraty

A happy bunch of morning sketchers: Esther from Scotland, Liz from Australia, Behzad (and here) from Iran, Stephanie from the US, Suhita from the US/India, and Marc from Canada – and Marc´s wife Laurel behind the camera.

On the first day of the Urban sketchers symposium I had the opportunity to join Behzad Bagheri´s workshop The joy of the movement. He showed us ways to loosen up and start sketching and painting without thinking so much, adding paint to paper even before deciding what to actually sketch.

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One of Paraty´s street dogs got very attached to fellow sketcher Kumi, and decided to stay on as our workshop mascot. He took center stage, almost competing with Behzad about our attention. 🙂

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Behzad had us trying out his way of working with watercolours, which was a very liberating and inspiring experience. (Same church as in the top sketch, but from another angle.)

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All sketches: approx. 21 x 14 cm, various pens and pencils and watercolours on Stillman & Birn alpha series sketchbook paper and Moleskine watercolour paper.

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