Today was the last of my 8 week sketching course in Manly and it was another wonderful day!

We were looking at “play” – some fun and experimental techniques (a number of which I picked up in Singapore and have been playing with myself this year)
The most important concepts from today were
– although we have to do the hard yards to improve our sketching, improve out hand and eye coordination, sketching should be FUN and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
– find a couple of (crazy) techniques that enable you to loosen up and have fun
– try to work out what conditions will get you into a ‘state of play’ which will help to develop your own personal expression. Disclaimer: your ‘sweet spot’ might be more a more contemplative mode (eg. slow and meticulous cross hatching) rather than a ‘let your hair down’ type of approach.

After my usual introduction we did a few exercises and a few quick demos from me (this one was the splashing scraping demo) we wimped out of going on on the streets due to the unpredictable weather this week (it was actually fine for us all day!) and ended up at a mexican joint with lots of interesting things to sketch. Once again I was so impressed by the work of everyone in the class and how many of them took risks and really got into a ‘state of play’ And look at those juicy rich colours – so exciting to see them all together at the end of lunch. Thanks to everyone that has been in my class over the last 8 weeks – you have been amazing!

And special thanks to Erin Hill, not only for the use of her wonderful studio but also for making these classes a reality rather than an just an idea I would like to do one day. She has also been very generous with sharing her local knowledge. Manly is a really wonderful and varied suburb of Sydney and if you are looking for regular sketching classes I recommend you check hers out here. http://erinhillmyblog.com/travel-sketching-class/

Of course I am thinking of what is next…. if you are in Sydney and interested in joining a future class please email me at lizsteel {at} gmail {dot} com and I can let you know via email when future classes or workshops will be happening.

Now it is time to really focus on my upcoming trip to BCN, London etc!