Urban Sketchers Seattle 10x10 classes in 2018

For the second year, USk Seattle is taking part in 10x10, the worldwide initiative to offer educational workshops wherever sketchers live. Launched in celebration of Urban Sketchers’ 10th anniversary in 2017, the program brings a variety of courses on urban sketching techniques taught by talented local instructors in their home cities. All workshops are on Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Registration begins Sunday, March 4, 2018, 9 a.m. The cost is $60 each. A free Program Kickoff Event will be held March 3, 4:30 p.m., at Daniel Smith’s Seattle store. (Although the kickoff is free, registration is required.) Meet the instructors, see their sketchbooks, and learn about the workshops before registering. The kickoff will be followed by an unhosted, informal “drink & draw” at a nearby location, which will be another opportunity to talk with instructors who attend this optional event. Hope to see you there!

Seattle Urban Sketchers 10th Anniversary Workshop Series

     Urban Sketchers are celebrating their 10th anniversary (!). To celebrate, the local Urban Sketchers chapters in 26 different cities around the world will each be hosting a series 10 workshops on sketching their city.

I am so excited to be presenting one of the workshops in the series which the Seattle Urban Sketchers have put together. This is an amazing group of instructors, many of whom have taught at the annual Urban Sketchers Symposiums. An informational lecture will be held on January 28 at the Daniel Smith Seattle store and a schedule of the classes with the dates, instructors and planned locations can be found here, along with information on how to register:

http://www.urbansketchers.org/2017/01/10-years-x-10-classes-in-seattle.html

The meeting on Jan. 28 will be a great time to meet the instructors and see their work. But registration has started and some classes are filling up fast! So my advice is not to wait if there is a class you know that you want to sign up for.

Learning about Notan with Mitch Albala

Well, I have been a blogging slacker! But, in my defense, I have been pretty busy since getting back from Costa Rica. I have been taking classes and teaching classes, and trying to keep caught up with everything in between.
In February, I took a two day workshop with landscape painter Mitch Albala. The focus was on exploring composition through the Japanese principles of notan. We did lots and lots of composition studies in simple black marker, worked up to gray scale marker sketches and finally did a small value study in acrylic. I noticed that my best sketches looked very abstract - I had to stop thinking about the "what" that I was drawing.



Drawing notans is somewhat addictive, but MUCH harder when you don't have a master peering over your shoulder and suggesting you crop that shape a little more, or make this one a little bigger. I will be posting more of them soon, but anyone who finds this intriguing should get their hands on a copy of Mitch's book, Landcape Painting. The section on notan is short, but once you get it, you can clearly see how it works in all his paintings.