Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
Originally published on Urban Sketchers
Welcome to the Urban Sketchers Symposium 2015 headquarters. This is the Singapore Design Centre – the worldwide epicenter of all things sketchy for the next 4 days! I decided to start the day by sketching the venue and it's neighbour before the 10.30 instructors meeting.
Welcome to the Urban Sketchers Symposium 2015 headquarters. This is the Singapore Design Centre – the worldwide epicenter of all things sketchy for the next 4 days! I decided to start the day by sketching the venue and it's neighbour before the 10.30 instructors meeting.
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| The National Design Centre - center of the world for the next few days |
The design centre is a renovated art deco building which once housed the
St Anthonys Convent and is situated right next door to the St
Joseph's church. I got a quick sketch of it in before the morning
briefing.
The
Singapore organisers seem to be an incredibly well organised unit and
it's clear they've done a lot of work. I enjoyed the early morning
instructors briefing - a briefing to some of my all time favourite
sketchers - some of which I hadn't even met yet. The day has been a
steady stream of sketching and meeting familiar and new faces, then
sketching again and meeting more! Lunch turned into a sketch off...
Later
on it was registration time. Something like 300+ sketchers from all
around the world filtered through to collect their symposium guides and
goody bags before heading off for casual sketchcrawl - the perfect way
to warm up for the next few days activities.
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| Kiah Kiean, Marc Taro Holmes and James Richards get amongst it in Purvis Street |
I took the Purvis Street sketchcrawl group. Sketchers everywhere I've never sketched with so many people before!
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| More sketchers on Purvis Street |
Then
back to the design centre for the introduction. I tried to capture the
organisers as they worked to explain proceedings to a captive
audience...
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| Design Centre Reception |
See you tomorrow, I'll be back with more.
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