I attended a workshop with artist and educator Rita Sabler where the subject was drawing crowds in an urban sketching environment. The location was a busy outdoor festival, called “First Thursday Art Walk”. It was great fun, and we learned a lot. Rita is really a fabulous instructor.
Here’s a short video of the final project by the workshop members.
The workshop was 3 hours long, and included the following:
- Rita first demonstrated drawing small figures, with no detail. She encouraged us to work quickly. These become the mid ground figures in our final project
- We then learned the basics of shading, motion, and accessories (like backpacks, hats, and purses) to add to our figures
- We then stood in the middle of the street, in the middles of the festival, and watched Rita sketch a demo for about 15 minutes. With the buzz of human activity all around us, I felt like I was in the eye of a hurricane!
- We then had 45 minutes to work on our own projects, with the final 15 minutes spent discussing each of the drawings shown in the video.
Great fun, and I plan on attending another workshop soon.