I am an architect, still working as an architect every day restoring monuments as a living. In my free time I make art : drawings and paintings.
Being a child I always wanted to become an artist, but my parents pushed me into university and I became an architect… After about 15 years without drawing I struggled myself through tutorials, workshops with several watercolour artists, doing loads of work, struggling to find “my style”… It was full of stress, where it should have been fun and full of joy! I did also a lot of watercolor workshops and it all seemed so complicated and non-intuitive… There are funnier and easier ways to learn how to draw & paint.
I think we all teach what we most needed to learn when we were beginners and that we all grow when we get out of our comfort zone. In this sense I find it very important to pay attention to the new members and the beginners, as they’re the future of the organization, and accompany them. When I invite new people to join the urban sketchers I noticed that it’s an obstacle for a lot of beginners that they find they can’t draw well enough to join the urbansketchers. Some of them literally told me “they’ll come back when they know how to draw”…
So I created this workshop especially destined to beginning sketchers who struggle with drawing and “start from scratch”. For that I also use Betty Edwards method “Drawing on the Right side of the Brain”. I think it’s an excellent method. I present some of the exercices in the book applied specifically to urban sketching.
My “speciality” is value drawing, cityscapes, mixture of techniques to create texture with pencil, ink, ballpoint pen and watercolor.
My workshop is called “Simply Draw & Paint It” : Urban sketching on the right side of the brain. As it’s in spring, I plan to go sketching cherry blossoms in Brussels. The last Sunday we’ll go to Bruges.
In November and December I organized 4 “Simply Draw It”-sessions, and now I add “paint it” to it, as I experienced everybody likes to give more attention to end the sketch in watercolour.
In this workshop we will exercise how to look in a creative way at an urban scene and sketch in a relaxed way what we see, avoiding overwhelm and allowing each participant to search for his own “handdrawing”. At the end of the session each participant will have experienced and researched a way of finding his own drawing style.
I developed some urbansketching exercises based on Betty Edward’s method to make drawing more accessible and to make progress in drawing more effective and joyfull and to take away the fear of making a “bad” drawing.
Learning goals :
1. Learn how to really look at an urban subject in a way to activate the right part of the brain;
2. Learn some observation tips to make a “correct” drawing without getting into detailed perspective rules;
3. Learn the basic drawing perception skills:
- the perception of edges (seeing where one thing ends and another starts)
- the perception of spaces (seeing what lies beside and beyond)
- the perception of relationships (seeing in perspective and in proportion)
- the perception of light and shadows (seeing things in degrees of values)
- the perception of gestalt (seeing the whole and its parts)
Learning to draw is really a matter of learning to see – to see correctly- and that means a good deal more than merely looking with the eye.
[Kimon Nicolaides, the Natural Way to Draw]
Workshop Dates and Location:
- April 14th, 21st, and 28th we'll be sketching cherry and magnolia blossoms in the famous social housing garden city “Le Logis Floréal” in Brussels.
- May 5th, I propose to sketch in Bruges, Belgium.
Duration:
4 consecutive Sunday afternoons, from 2 to 5 p.m.
Workshop Schedule
Introduction and warming up:
We’ll start with a short explanation and 15 minutes warm up exercises to learn how to look with blind contour drawings
First part of the exercise with 10 minutes demo/explanation and afterwards 1 hour accompanied sketching:
the perception of edges (seeing where one thing ends and another starts) (20 minutes)
the perception of spaces (seeing what lies beside and beyond) (20 minutes)
the perception of relationships (seeing in perspective and in proportion) (20 minutes)
Regroup and discuss 10 minutes
Second part of the exercise with 10 minutes demo/explanation and afterwards 50 minutes accompanied sketching:
the perception of light and shadows (seeing things in degrees of values) with watercolor (20 minutes)
Regroup and discuss 10 minutes
the perception of gestalt (seeing the whole and its parts) (20 minutes)
Final Regroup and discuss 15 minutes
Maximum number of participants:
10, beginners level
Supply list:
Your sketchbook and your favourite drawing tools, such as a graphite pencil HB, B or 2B, colour pencils, watercolors, pen or markers of your choice. And a folding stool to be comfortable. Personally I use ballpoint pen, 2B pencil, waterproof ink and watercolours.
Registration fee:
35 euro/session or 110 euro for the 4 sessions, available on my website http://barbaraluel.com/myshop/
Scholarship:
USk and I are offering one scholarship for a full sessions workshop (the 4 sessions) to a student. Applications to be send to barbaraluel@gmail.com
