Second day of the Urban Sketchers symposium
I posted half of my sketches to my flickr last night – ..one evening was not sufficient to complete all the pages from this day.

Once I get into it…I really enjoy drawing maps of my day. The secret is not to stress about getting them too accurate and only draw the bits that relate to where you have been that day. Every day in Lisbon my maps will be quite different.

BTW the sketch of the Portuguese tarts is not an urban sketch… I did it from a photo later in the day. BTW2 they were wonderful!!!!

Movement Workshop

Wonderful session with Eduardo and Monica (I absolutely ADORE her work!!!)
This was the most challenging session for me…I really enjoyed the stationery warm up sketch!!!

 
Lots of fun to try to capture movement. I was also trying to think about making interesting journal pages out of my sketches… I really don’t like filling up page after page with these kind of sketches so it has been fun to try to mix it up and live with them!

Lunch and Lectures

Wonderful lunch with Tia and Patricia (a local) She knew the owner of this restaurant and he kindly gave us various business cards. Wonderful tea by the way (oh! but I already said this!)

While I was sketching my food I got a sudden sensation that I was being sketched. Sure enough down the other end of the restaurant Daniel Green’s head was bobbing up and down and his eyes fixed my direction. Love it!!!

Ok… afternoon lectures. Both were great! Matt’s talk was so inspiring!!! Thank you Matt!

I discovered Jim’s wonderful article on Freehand Renaissance a number of months ago and really strikes a chord with me in my work as an architect. We had numerous discussions online at the time so it was SO wonderful to meet him and he him speak.
You can find the article here – Jim Richards authors article in Landscape Architecture Magazine Nov 2007

Environments Workshop

Next session was Environments with Norberto and Mario… but unfortunately I had to have an unexpected local adventure to get some ‘urgently’ needed medication… thankfully I got them in time and was able to continue at my usual pace (Now, I find it incredible that I was able to keep going!) The sketch in the waiting room was done on a loose piece of paper with gesso scraped on it given to me by Paul Wang. He also happened to have a few sick certificate stickers (he has the coolest stuff in his kit!) which was bizarrely appropriate. The gate to the hospital I sketched later from an iphone photo.

I am extremely thankful to Ricardo one of the volunteers at the School of Art for helping me out – taking me to the public hospital and doing translation. THANKYOU!!!!!

I made it to the session in time for the last 20minute exercise which was to go inside a shop and meet some locals. I was not quite up to that – I need a sit down and some rest(ful sketching) so I sat on the stairs in the shade and sketched the front of a bookshop (it actually closed soon after I started) I didn’t have much time so was rushing a little..but still after my recent adventure was relatively restful.

Evening

A few of BB’s friends…

I ended the day with a lovely dinner in the company of Omar, Pete Scully and Paul Wang.

Great meal and great company (as usual for a symposium) There was wonderful Wagner music playing in the background(free nightly concert) and the street light kept going out so lighting was patchy.

I should really be too embarrassed to post this…but this sequence of photos taken by Omar (hope you don’t mind me doing a screen capture of them!) sums up a typical dinner during the symposium. Lots of fun talk while one tries to sketch. I am thankful that there is no video footage of me (that I am aware of!)

I really was so out of control during the symposium – way too excited – and am not ALWAYS like that! Please accept my apologies if at any stage(!?!) I was talking too much!!!