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...
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| Day 3 workshop with a bunch of awesome artists |
This April I was in India as a guest of Urban sketchers Thrissur, as a workshop instructor, for the Thrissur Sketchgala. It has taken me a few months to filter through my sketches and photos to get a post together.
My plan to spend a few days on Kochi to acclimatise to the 40C+ temperatures paid off because, if anything, the Thrissur temperature was even hotter.
The event format was much like a full Urban Sketchers symposium: An evening opening ceremony followed by 3 days of morning workshops and afternoon talks and presentations in the afternoon. With casual drink and draws in the evenings.
Many had travelled from across India, a number from Goa and Pune. Other instructors included Reham Ali, Sanjeev Joshi, Ch'ng Kiah Kiean (KK) and Zainab Tambawalla.
There were lot's of highlights, but sticks in mind – watching Farah Irani drawing (pun intended) a massive enthusiastic crowd for her night sketching demonstration sketching the impressive Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Dolours while hundreds of motorbikes and rickshaws rattled through and around the crowd.
Alvin Mark and Manish Pimpley also gave very entertaining talks and demonstrations.
The top picture is my last workshop, again at the Paramekkavu Bhagavathi temple. Attendees were again a very talented bunch! All artists in other mediums with their own style of sketching but trying out something different with opaque media in tinted sketchbooks.
For many, ‘urban sketching’ involves applying watercolour to white paper, so it took a moment for some to get their heads around my concept of ‘sketching backwards’. However most attendees are amazing artists in their own right and could quickly get into it.
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| Day 2 workshop |
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| Day 1 workshop in the Swaraj Round with a very red kiwi. 45C degrees will do that! |
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| My demo sketch of the Parremekkavu Bhagavati temple drawn in stages as students step through the process of sketching backwards |
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