Thursday, February 23, 2017

People, people, everywhere


I'm in a total tizz lately, planning the series of Urban Sketchers 10x10 workshops to be held here in Joburg (that little dot on Africa) from end of March. It's really not my natural state to plan, delegate, administrate and organise but some deep perfectionist tendencies surface and I do it to the nth degree, and nothing else, causing myself terrible anxiety and heart flutterings. I know it will be a lot of fun when it happens, and I will love sharing what I know and will enjoy the people that will come along; and the sketcher friends who are also giving classes, Anni, Leonora and Lisa are right with and behind me...it will all be all right on the night!

I'm going to focus my three sessions on basic shapes and people sketching, starting with faces and quickie portraits, going on to seated and fairly static figures, and then to moving people and bustling scenes - which is why I was doing the above sketch over coffee earlier this week, trying to work out exactly what it is that I do when I do it, and how to explain it to others. If anyone reading this is in Johannesburg March - May and wants to try some urban sketching please sign up soon, the first classes are almost booked up! The full schedule is here.

People-sketching seems to be in the ether, as Marc Taro Holmes and Liz Steel are holding a week long challenge from March 6 - 10 for anyone who wants to join in, to sketch 100 people over that time (20 a day!) and post them on social media #OneWeek100People2017 
I think I might join in, if I can calm myself enough to venture out every day to find that many people to draw. Why don't you?

3 comments:

laura said...

Hi Cathy. Love the line, and the lovely washes. Your drawings always make me think: I wish I could do that!

dinahmow said...

Jo' burg's a bit far to join in!But maybe I could do 100 in a week...

Cathy said...

"oh no, oh no" is what I've been whispering to myself while reading you! I would have looooved to paticipate in the workshop! And I would have loooved to join that 100-people challenge, ... Pity I'm issing every thing!
I'm sure your workshop is going to be great! It is pretty difficult to try and understand why we do things the way we do and sketch this or that or how we start. I'm not sure I could explain it to anybody, and I would sure do the same as you : sketch and try and 'watch myself sketch' to try and explain it all. It is so very hard to make a rationalized process out of something we do instinctively, isn't it?