The last couple of drawings from Manchester!
The urban sketchers symposiums are always good fun and super informative. Where else will you find workshops to get on with the next level of your drawing habit, or listen to lectures all about drawing and different takes on it? Plus you get to see demos of how people do their sketches, you get to peak into sketchbooks, dig into pen cases, try out interesting drawing tools, and learn all the magic tricks of your drawing heroes.
I went to a lecture where Ed Mostly, who talked about the “history of urban sketching” through vintage books about drawing. Very interesting and amusing. And he told us all to draw while he was talking, so I did.
I also took a workshop with Don Low, one of my biggest people drawing heroes. I do draw people, but it is a bit out of my comfort zone, and it is so good to try out someone else´s take on it. Humans are the toughest subject to draw from life, they always move about and have difficult proportions and put their limbs in strange angles all the time, just to make life complicated for a sketcher.
Don talked about proportions (nothing really new there, maybe, but he is a lot more thorough than the regular life drawing teacher – such as myself…), and then gave us some quick exercises to do, forcing us to draw each other in different ways in a very short time. Then this, where suddenly I felt completely calm and sure of what I was doing, capturing both people and furniture and whatnot, in ten minutes. I should keep practicing this at least once a day! But do I have time for that? Do I do it? No.
If you´re ever in Manchester, don´t miss the Museum of Science and Industry! I only had time to see their collection of aircrafts, but that alone was well worth the visit. I like drawing things that I don´t really “get”, that I don´t feel comfortable drawing. Especielly if I get to do it together with others. Spent a few hours here with Lapin and Vincent Desplanche, among others. Great fun!
And so, the last sketch that I am going to post from Manchester. A quick one on Oxford road. I loved this green and cream coloured building, it has so much character!
Top drawing: 19 x 18 cm, second: 19 x 14 cm, third: 19 x 25 cm, bottom: 19 x 13 cm. All drawn with fude nib fountain pen with De Atramentis ink and watercolours, except no. 3, which was drawn with various ink pens and watercolours. All on Stillman & Birn alpha series sketchbook pages.