What can I say… I was REALLY looking forward to today’s class – doing composition and basing ourselves in a wonderful cafe Foundry 53…. but it was way  more fun than I expected (which is saying a LOT).

The first 6 weeks have been what I consider foundational… I have heaped on my class loads of information and what I believe are the essential concepts behind how I approach urban sketching. I  have been giving them very directed exercises to try to explain these concepts so that they can take them away and apply to their own work.  Today doing composition and in particular focusing on sketchbooking- journal type pages,  the best way to show how it works was to get them to do their own stuff. (though I did give them an individual composition challenge as warmup in the studio first!)

Composition is a HUGE part of my design work as an architect so drawing on this background and my very strong interest in graphic design for the past decade I introduced the key concepts that I use in designing my pages –  balance, white space and connecting objects.

It was so unbelievably pleasant to be sitting around a table like this, sketching and eating and drinking and working together on everyone’s unique compositional challenges – even more so because we had a cold biting wet day outside! Once again I am totally blown away by the work done today and how much we learned from sharing everyone’s adventures on the page. Sadly missing two of the regulars today- but it was lovely to have Shantele from Lismore with us (who is also going to the USK symposium in BCN)

Hard to believe that next week is the last week – the theme is PLAY! There are a few causal spots available if anyone is interested.