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I’m back from an awesome weekend in Wellington helping Urban Sketchers Wellington celebrate their 10-year anniversary. 3 days of sketching workshops, sketch walks and 'drink n’ draws' over Wellington Anniversary Weekend. Sadly I was only there for 2 of those days but had a great time.
I took workshops early on Saturday and Sunday mornings. I lead sketchers up some steep stairs on the Mt Victoria end of town where the streets are lined with beautiful old houses – the perfect spot for my ‘Push and pull for more pow’ workshop where I introduce sketchers to working with opaque media on toned sketchbooks. The shot above is my second workshop group, up above Oriental Bay, having had their sketch brains turned inside out for 3 hours.
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The weather was a little challenging – especially for JAFAS and Australians amongst us who found the 13C and windy conditions more like winter. But like the Dartz track (that I stole the title for this post from) 'You can't beat Wellington on a good day' and eventually it did warm up nicely.
Sketchers came with a full range of sketch experience, some new to it and some very experienced so I had my work cut out to keep everyone on track with my weird approach to sketching – it's quite a mind shift for people used to fine liners and watercolour in white sketchbooks.
A piece of cake for some though who managed to knock out 3 sketches in the 3 hours!
The Saturday sketchwalk centred around alleyways in the central city where Wellington’s quirky people culture and architecture means there’s always loads to sketch. Old warehouses, funky cafes, craft breweries, lots of people, a protest march etc. I sketched The Bond Store warehouses (above) and an old 1950's Chevrolet car parked inside a cafe that doubles as a workspace. A guy inside the Chev worked happily away oblivious to the sketchers around him.
The Sunday sketchwalk was based around Tinakori Road and it's narrow lanes packed with cottages including 'The wedge house' – see the bottom photo below.
I'll post some more sketches from the trip soon, but here are a bunch of photos below but there are probably better ones on my Instagram if you want to check them out.
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