Urban Sketchers Symposium in Barcelona - July 2013

Almost 3 months since my last post - this has never happened before! I know some of you were really waiting for something to happen and nothing happened for weeks, even months...  SORRY!

The reason is that I have a new computer and I needed to take time to sort out how to blog with it. Now that I discovered, I will try to update the last months as good as I can and come back on track....

I cannot continue my blog without mentioning the most important event I went to since I restarted sketching: the Urban Sketchers Symposium that took place in Barcelona this year from July 11th to July 13th.  It was a fabulous international event, to which around 200 urban sketchers from all over the world came. This symposium takes place every year since 2010 and this was the 4th. For me it was the first one.

This was my back with all my material and my new Swedish Walkstool.

Waiting at the gate in Munich to fly to Barcelona:

One day before the symposium, the Germany correspondents met in front of the Arc de Triomf. It was nice to finally see each other personally. 

I attended 5 Workshops, as follows: 

1) Light and Shade with Sagar Fornies 

2) Panoramic Views with Virginia Hein

3) Straight to Masses with Eduardo Bajzek 

4) Perspective with Matthew Brems

5) Actors and Stage with Luiz Ruiz 

and at the end, I also attended a great sketchbook making lesson with Choni Naudin and Isabell Seidel (one of my dreams to learn how to make my own sketchbooks came true) 

1) Workshop 1: Light and Shade with Sagar Fornies

At this workshop we were asked to draw with a ball point in two colors and stay try to differenciate the foreground from the background. It was challenging, as all the workshops were, because you are asked to behave differently from what you are used to. You have to deal with limitations and that is what makes such a symposium full of workshops so rich.  

2) Workshop 2: Panoramic Views, with Virginia Hein 
This is Virginias great palette which fascinated me totally.

The workshop participants looking at and commenting each other's work.

 What I understood in this workshop is that it often is all about value (not colors). First the shape, then the value and at last the color. For me and until then, the color was always at the first place, but now I understand how important it is to analyze and understand values, independently from the color.

One sentence that Virginia kept saying was "what is the color of the atmosphere?" and this stayed in my mind until now. I still often ask myself what the color of the atmosphere is.

3) Workshop 3: Straight to masses with Eduardo Bajzek 
Challenging and great workshop where we received many markers.
We had to sketch masses and not think in lines. This was also something very new to me, think the world in masses and make abstraction from lines.
The location of this workshop was fantastic.

4) Workshop 4 with Matthew Brems - about prespectives, light and shade 

This was also a great workshop to train the eyes and think in values and try to find out what the darkest part of the landscape is and what the clearest is. 

6) Workshop 6: Actors and Stage with Luiz Ruiz 

Luiz Ruiz is such a great Urban Sketchers that I have been admiring for many years. 

His workshop was very good, we learnt to oppose people and moveable things (actors) to buildings that do not move and have a repetitive pattern (stage). 

Final Workshop: How to make a sketchbook:
This was the material lovely prepared by Isabell Seidel and Choni Naudin, both great instructors that managed to teach how to make a sketchbook in less than 3 hours!

And this is my first sketch at the end of the Symposium in my self made sketchbook: 

  

THE END was probably the most peaceful moment of this symposium: a sea of sketchers setting everywhere in front of Arc de Triomf and sketching in the golden light of a late afternoon. Saturday July 13th was also the date of the 4oth worldwide sketchcrawl. 

The Symposium was wonderful and I thank the urban sketchers for such a nice event and Gabi Campanario for such a great invention!

The very best was to have so many Urban Sketchers in the same place, I enjoyed so much to see again Martine and Juliette, Corinne, Gérard, Nina, Fabien, Ludivine, Ea and Reza, Omar, Florian, Richard Alomar, Marc from New York and many others. To see the very inspiring Liz Steel, Eduardo Bajzek, Inma Serrano, Luis Ruiz, Tia, Isabell Seidel, Lapin, Sagar Fornies, Virginia Hein, Isabel Fiadeiro and many many many others in person and to sketch with them. To connect with Fernanda, Karina, Jutta, Carlos and Alegria.
A big thank you to my friend Mirieta who hosted me in Barcelona during this event.

I am already looking forward to the next symposium in 2014 and hope that I will be able to attend it.