Moleskine

Like all the others, I'm very lucky to have been in Portlans for the symposium. It was a reel happiness to meet all these enthusiasts of the sketch, Gabi, Franck, Tia, Jason, Pete, Kumi, Veronica, Liz, Geoff, Kurt, Matthew, Lapin, Simonetta, Shiho, Isabel, Todd... and all the others and to draw with them.
Unfotunately, 3 days were too short for meeting everybody. So I hope to be in Lisbon next year ! ( and that my english will be better !)

Symposium lectures: From sketchbook to screen, by Jason Das

This is a brief summary of Jason Das' lecture, which is scheduled for Friday, July 30, at 5 p.m. and Saturday, July 31, at 1 p.m.

After you've got your sketches down on paper, the real magic comes when you share your work with the world! The internet has made self-publishing easy. But it can also be overwhelming, and you want to make sure your art looks its very best. We'll discuss technical and presentational aspects of scanning/photographing your sketches, optimizing and retouching them via image processing software, and posting them to the internet via your own blog, popular image hosting services, or social networking services.

Symposium lectures: The history of location drawing as a social activity, by Matthew Brehm

This is a brief summary of Matthew Brehm's lecture, which is scheduled for Thursday, July 29, at 5 p.m. and Saturday, July 31, at 1 p.m.

On this lecture, Matthew Brehm traces the social aspects of location drawing over the past few hundred years. Topics include the "Grand Tour" of the 17th through the 19th centuries, architectural "sketch clubs" in the United States in the 19th century and the advent of study-abroad tours for university students in architecture and the arts.

Symposium lectures: Sketching a city in 100 pages, by Lapin

This is a brief summary of Lapin's lecture, which is scheduled for Thursday, July 29, at 1 p.m. and Friday, July 30, at 5 p.m.


In this talk, I will share my experience of producing two commissioned artist books drawn over 10 consecutive days in the French cities of Ramatuelle and Saint-Émilion.

The book projects follow nearly a decade of travels around the world with a sketchbook in hand. From Japan to Las Vegas or Norway, sketching allows me to inmmerse myself in the culture of the country I'm visiting, recording even the most insignificant details of everyday life, not just the city skylines and streescapes, but also a vintage cash register at candy store or a plate of boiled snails I'm having for lunch.

Symposium lectures: Sketching in the Sahara, by Isabel Fiadeiro

This is a brief summary of Isabel Fiadeiro's lecture, which is scheduled for Thursday, July 29, at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.


Between 2004, when I moved to Mauritania, and 2008, I spent 4 to 5 weeks each year in a remote village living with locals as a member of the family, sketching and sharing their daily life. From the fishing villages of the National Park of the Banc d'Arguin in the Atlantic West Coast to the Saharawi Refugee Camps in Tindouf, Algeria, I used my sketchbook as a tool to communicate and learn about a people and countries I was unfamiliar with. In this talk, I'll share my experiences in the different places on how to approach strangers and break the ice and how blogging has allowed me to share my drawings with a wider audience. For the Saharawi women in the refugee camps, the sketchbook also became a way of voicing their cause.

Symposium lectures: Drawing as witness, Sept. 11, 2001, by Veronica Lawlor

This is a brief summary of Veronica Lawlor's lecture, which is scheduled for Friday, July 30, at 1 p.m. and Saturday, July 31, at 1 p.m.

I will talk about my experiences creating drawings during the attack on the World Trade Center in NYC on 9/11/2001. I was downtown when the towers were hit and immediately began to draw what was going on around me. I continued to draw the events in New York City over the next few months. This was drawing as a witness to a historic event both as a public and personal recording. I will show the drawings I made as well as talk about the people I met as I was doing them. I was also asked by my friend to draw at her husband's funeral, a fireman who lost his life in the towers that day. These drawings were shown at the NYC Fire Museum and the response of the firemen who came to the opening was intense. Drawing is an emotional act and it can create a historical record that is extremely personal. I also will talk about how drawing the events after 9/11 helped me to come to terms with my own grief at the attacks on my home town.

Symposium lectures: The artist as storyteller, by Gabi Campanario

This is a brief summary of Gabi Campanario's lecture, which is scheduled for Thursday, July 29, at 5 p.m. and Friday, July 30, at 1 p.m.


From "The artist as reporter." © Paul Hogarth, 1967

We are living in the information age. Thanks to the internet we can get live news reports from around the world anytime, anywhere. The constant flow of stories, photos and video can feel overwhelming sometimes and even become white noise. But in the middle of all the cacophony of messages, a sketch seems to grab our attention in a unique way. If that's true, why aren't we drawing the news more often, instead of just taking photos or video? That's what I'm trying to do with Seattle Sketcher, a print and online feature at The Seattle Times that I started in April of 2009. In this talk, I'll share how what started as a personal blog and pastime has become part of my job as an illustrator at the newspaper and how the the idea of Urban Sketchers started. For sketchers interested in adding a storytelling dimension to their sketches, I'll share tips on story selection, developing a voice for your blog and connecting with your readers. I'll also highlight the work of illustrators who are leading a renaissance of illustration reportage.

Symposium lectures: Naples in a collaborative sketchbooks project, by Simo Capecchi

This is a brief summary of Simonetta Capecchi's lecture, which is scheduled for Thursday, July 29, at 1 p.m. and Friday, July 30, at 5 p.m.

Open publication

Since 2006, I curated the first italian annual exhibition on travel sketchbooks for a Neapolitan's books fair. Besides conferences, events and invited artists, I dedicated one section to a collective exhibit to recount the city of Naples from different points of view, both with images and words. In past four editions I collected almost 200 sketchbooks from various authors, involving artists, architects, graphic designers, illustrators but also non professionals and lots of children. A book (see excerpt above), a blog and a video channel document this experience and the international relations that have grown from it.

Symposium lectures

As you know, Symposium presenters will do a series of talks over the course of the workshop on a variety of topics. These talks will take place in five time slots, offering not only a break from the field sketching sessions but another great opportunity to hear presenters share their sketching experience in parts of the world as remote from each other as Mauritania, Singapore or Barcelona.

Symposium lectures time slots

Thursday, 1 to 2 p.m.

Thursday, 5 to 6 p.m

Friday, 1 to 2 p.m.

Friday, 5 to 6 p.m

Saturday, 1 to 2 p.m.

[Consult schedule for more details.]

We already shared the highlights of Professor Ching's talk, where he'll go over perspective principles for sketchers.

To get a little more into the academic mindset, we'll post highlights from the rest of the talks over the next few days. These summaries should help you decide which sessions to pick — four sessions are scheduled for each of the five time slots.

So let's continue the Symposium lectures summaries with Tia's:

From sketching together to a group exhibition
For sketchers interested to sketch in a group and getting their sketches exhibited, my recent exhibition entitled “Sketches of Tiong Bahru: Outside-In” with three other fellow sketchers from Singapore will provide a background from the planning to the final execution stage. Using the video materials and sketches in the exhibition as a vehicle, this talk will focus on the choice of sketching locations, the details, the important of framing and the group synergy from an Asian perspective.

Perspective principles for sketchers

This just in! We just got an outline of some of the points professor Ching will go over during his drawing sessions at the Symposium. You may have guessed that perspective would be a hot topic. Here they are in case you'd want to do some homework before arriving to Portland:

Perspective Principles for Sketchers
• Drawing as a language: drawing systems
• Principles of linear perspective for sketchers: why not use SketchUp?
• Know where you are: the importance of the horizon line
• Vanishing points and lines: objective and perceptual reality
• Composition: object or space?
• Editing: deciding what not to draw is as important as what to include