Talk and Demo at Ku Ring Gai Art Society

On Tuesday night I gave a talk and a (quick) demo at the monthly meeting of Ku ring gai Art Society. It was a little introduction to a workshop that I will be running in November “Capturing the moment- the art of travel sketching”

I had a ‘little’ slideshow (of about 40 minutes) followed by a ‘5 minute’ demo. It was a very fancy demo setup with an overhead camera- which enabled me to work in my normal sketchbook!

The talk summarised the adventures that I have over the past 6.5 years as I have travelled with my sketchbook at home and abroad. I shared some of the aspects that are important to me when I travel – making sure that you have a plan of how you want to sketch, looking for and seizing any opportunity, how sketching can not only capture but also create moments and how the journey continues when you get home. Of course the online art community – the inspiration of Danny Gregory, Kate Johnson and Urban Sketchers – featured strongly throughout.

The idea of the demo was that I was pretending to be in Rome with a non sketching travelling friend who kindly went to get me some gelato while I sketched a baroque facade. Due to the time constraint I sketched at furious pace using watercolour pencils and then splashed a little watercolour over the top. Then, as my friend would return holding my gelato, I demonstrated how I would have been strategizing to do a very quick ink gestural sketch and take a photo so I colour later.

In cooking show style, I then showed them how the finished spread would look at the end of the day.

I also showed what I would have done if I had only 2 minutes (ie. would not have attempted the whole facade- just part of it!)

I did have another demo prepared but due to important society business at the beginning of the meeting I didn’t get a chance to do. This photo is of a part of it. (the original seems to have gone missing- when it re-appears I will post it) of another Baroque facade which I actually did sketch when in Rome, standing in a doorway, looking up and working in my standard ink and wash style.

Here are a few photos afterwards – me explaining the brand my ink pen and ink , water brushes and water colour pencils. Artists ARE obsessed with discovering new toys!