What I Learned From Shari Blaukopf

The Urban Sketchers community will be celebrating their 10 year anniversary this November 11, 2017.

The Urban Sketchers (USk) movement was started on Flickr in 2007 by journalist Gabriel ("Gabi") Campanario.

If you follow urban sketchers on social media you will know that there are quite a few sketchers that really stand out as exceptional and Montreal artist/urban sketcher Shari Blaukopf is one of them for sure!

So I made a request through USk Education Director Mário Linhares  to have Shari put on a workshop (the same workshop that she had previously given at the 2017 Urban Sketcher's Symposium in Chicago) called "Trees and the City"in Ottawa in September.

June 2017 Report

Finally! The perfect weather for urban sketching and plein air painting has arrived!

In June, there were SO MANY more opportunities for more life drawing (The Atomic Rooster, Art House Cafe and Atelier Denu ) and I managed to organize another sketch event for the Ottawa Urban Sketchers (at Doors Open Ottawa in conjunction with Synapcity's "100 in 1 Day" event).

Missing Last Summer's Group Art Adventures & Trying To Compensate

I miss my plein air group from last summer 2015

And I miss my "Alley Project" crew

It's June and I have to admit that I am really missing my plein air group from summer 2015

as well as last summer's "Ottawa Alley Project" sketching crew.

Bike-n-sketch study: Patterson Creek, Glebe, Ottawa
(two pages of Starthmore art journal; 100% cotton paper; watercolour and gouache)

It's well known that I love organized sketching (i.e. Ottawa Urban Sketchers which developed organically following the "Ottawa Alley Project" group) and group painting (i.e David Jones plein air group)  events. So far, this summer, I have had to decline participating in group activities like these for various reasons beyond my control.

To compensate, I have created some different types of solo activities for myself to keep my creative juices flowing., The two main activities that I have engaged in for inspiration are:

• One hour solo bike-n-sketch outings
• Painting from photos

One hour Bike-n-sketch

Bike-n-sketch - my one hour sketch June 22

Bike-n-sketch outings are so fun. I load my bike up with art supplies and head to a bike path along the Rideau canal and stop and sketch for one hour.

NO matter how filled my day is, I can almost always carve out one hour for myself to sit outside and sketch. This, I find, is a lot more challenging than the luxury of spending over eight hours at a lavender farm like last summer, because I must really get down to business quickly in one hour and quit (finished or not) and jump back on my bike to head home!

So far I have done the Mill on the Ottawa River; the tulips in Major Hill Park; the Rideau locks beside the Chateau Laurier and, most recently, the Patterson Creek in the Glebe.

Painting from photos

"Fox on the rocks"
acrylic (6x6) on Strathmore canvas paper

I have been painting from photos that I find online or photos that I have taken while walking my dog. I call some of these my "scouting pictures". I do a quick study from the photograph at home and then think about going back with my easel and acrylics later when time permits to do a plein air painting later.

The small "Fox on the rocks" study (above) that I did came quite naturally after being inspired by Ottawa artist/writer Andrew King on twitter (https://twitter.com/twitandrewking).

Andrew was recently tweeting about his "Solstice Serpent" adventures (Secret of the Snake: Ancient Ontario Serpent Mound Could Be Summer Solstice Monument) and posted a photo of a fox that was watching him while he was on his adventure. I loved the photo and did a quick 6x6 study.

I was so, SO delighted when Andrew saw my small acrylic study on twitter and posted this:

This tweet from artist Andrew King made my day!

And, of course, I always do a #DailySketch, like this recent one of my dear Lexie sitting in my chair. My daily sketches are quick (maximum two hours) activities that I usually do first thing in the morning while waiting for laundry to wash and dry!

"Dog Days Of Summer" a daily sketch
using three colours:  🖌Quinacridone gold 🖌 Burnt umber 🖌Winsor blue

Even though this summer means less opportunities for beloved group art outings, I continue to find visual inspiration everywhere and I manage to carve out at least two hours each day to do what I love most - create and share my art.

Two NEW Urban Sketching Events for April and May

Be sure to visit the Ottawa Urban Sketchers blog for details on two new sketching events in Ottawa!

April 17, 2016

 Sketching at the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum 

 (For details click here)

The Buildings of The Experimental Farm

The Spring 2016 New Arrivals at the Experimeental Farm

May, 2016

Let's Sketch the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra! 

(For details click here)

Inside The Music: May 1, 2016

 By Francesc Muñoz Found on Twitter Apr 4, 2016 (used here with permission from the artist)

Urban Sketching at the Carleton Tavern

On February 10, 2016, Ottawa urban sketchers gathered at Carleton Tavern for a night of sketching

"The Carleton" sketch above by artist Colin White

My first sketch of the night capturing Ottawa urban sketchers Laurie, Colin and Derek.

For me, it really adds to my sketching pleasure when I know a little bit about the story of the place that I am sketching or something about the people that inhabit(ed) the place.

I researched online before sketching at the tavern to see what I could find out.

The Carleton Tavern History

1948 Fire Insurance Plan of Ottawa
shows the Carleton Tavern with its original and expanded structure.

"In 1935, after five years of operating the confectionery, 75-year-old Thomas Moran extensively renovated the house at 223 Armstrong, and opened that fall as the Carleton Hotel…" (Source: Ottawa Valley Irish: Carleton Tavern history)

"On February 26 1941, Moran sold the Carleton Hotel to Harold Starr and Harry Viau, for the sale price of $10,500. Starr was a popular Ottawa sportsman, having played for both the Rough Riders and the original Ottawa Senators in the NHL. Viau was a former barber who grew up in a hotelkeeper family."  (Source: Kitchissippi Times)

"Through its 80 years, little has changed at the Carleton Tavern, and that’s just how its many loyal patrons like it. It is a trip back into time, an experience that has fortunately been preserved in Kitchissippi, and one hopes will continue for many more years to come."  (Source: Kitchissippi Times)

Later in the evening I sketched the folks at two tables nearby

According to Apt613: "The tavern has grown into a haven for artists and musicians alike, offering up something for everyone from live entertainment on weekends, to writing/poetry workshops, JazzWorks jams, participatory singing with the 613 Casual Choir, and even theatre productions put on by Chamber Theatre Hintonburg. A large room on the second floor, which was once a series of rooms for rent, was remodelled to house dart leagues and private parties of every occasion. The room is free for use and licensed for 95 people."

February 10, 2016

About twenty urban sketchers stopped over at the Carleton Tavern on the chilly, snowy night of February 10. The staff were welcoming and the place really filled up as the night went on.

To see some of the sketches that some of the other urban sketchers shared, visit our facebook event page (click here) or our facebook group page (click here)

Here are a few of my sketches for the night:

Page 1 of 3 pages of sketches from our night at the Carleton Tavern.

This poster was next o the exit.
It asks, "How will you spend your last 10 years?

In answer to the question on the poster hanging at the Carleton Tavern exit, "How will you spend your last 10 years?" my answer is, ".......hopefully with a sketchbook and pencil in my hands".

Links: 

• Hintonburg Walking Tour http://www.hintonburg.com/walking_tour.html
• November 18, 2010: Carleton Tavern 75th Anniversary http://newswest.org/easyread/archives/305
• CBC: Carleton Tavern turns 80 years old this week http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/carleton-tavern-turns-80-years-old-this-week-1.3114394
• Ottawa Valley Irish: Carleton Tavern history http://www.ottawavalleyirish.com/2015/08/carleton-tavern-history.html

Meeting the NYC Urban Sketchers and Mark Leibowitz

I had the joy and privilege of meeting up with the New York City urban sketching group in Brooklyn Heights on Sunday September 27, 2015.  I arrived later than the 10:00 start because I had underestimated the amount of time it would take to ride the subway from Morningside Heights to Brooklyn Heights (and subway repairs on Sundays).

Thankfully, Mark Leibowitz responded quickly to my frantic email and helped me locate where the sketching group was when I arrived late on the Brooklyn Heights promenade.

NYC urban sketcher

The weather was beautiful, a low 20°C with a nice gentle breeze from the East river and some spectacular clouds that looked like they had been painted in watercolours over the Manhattan skyline.

There were quite a few sketchers seated all along the promenade and they were well into their sketches by the time that I arrived. I got busy photographing the sketchers in all in their various locations as I looked for Mark.

NYC urban sketchers on the Brooklyn Heights promenade
(Brooklyn bridge in the background)

One of the first sketchers that I came across (Joan Tavolott) had positioned herself on the promenade overlooking the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expy) with all the vehicles driving towards her!

I thought 'WOW! - That would be so incredibly hard to sketch' and I wished I could see her finished sketch at the show and tell later in the day (but I had to leave early).

NYC urban sketcher Joan Tavolott sketching the BQE

Lucky for me, on the USk NYC blog, all of Joan Tavolott's sketches from Sunday September 27 were posted! She did an amazing job capturing the BQE as you can see in the screenshot below.

Visit her NYC USk blog post to see all of her sketches from Sunday at this link: https://www.blogger.com/profile/11290923567339587417

NYC urban sketcher Joan Tavolott's blog post
"Fun in Brooklyn Heights"

I wish that I could have taken Rick (far right below) and Muriel from Vancouver (far left below) up on their welcoming offer to go for lunch but that will have to wait for my next NYC urban sketching meetup next year. I am so grateful for how welcoming everyone was.

More NYC urban sketchers on the Booklyn Heights promenade

The highlight of this meetup for me was meeting Mark Leibowitz. Mark is the regional administrator for the NYC USk (which meets usually twice weekly making it one of the most active groups in the world!)

At the 2015 Urban Sketchers Symposium in Singapore last July, Mark was a member of the faculty and delivered Lecture 3: How to Run a Successful Local Urban Sketchers Group.

For a FB photo of Mark delivering his lecture at USk Singapore 2015, visit https://www.facebook.com/urbansketchers/posts/10153966291368912

Mark and I discussed starting an official Ottawa Urban Sketchers group. I talked about the great group of Ottawa artists/sketchers who participated all summer in the "Ottawa Alley project" and how it had culminated in an art show in an alley called "Forgotten Spaces". Mark loved that!

And I spoke to Mark about the 48th Worldwide sketchcrawl that I organized in Ottawa on July 25th, 2015

I talked about how much I loved the sketch organizing model that the NYC USk had built:

• anyone who sketches in New York City is welcome. Even visitors to NYC like me!
• a reminder is posted: "There are no fees or attendance taken. All drawing skill levels are welcome"
• announcements of sketch meetups are posted in both the google group and on the group blog
• the announcements of sketch meetups are in clear language with maps and photos and contact information (to see what I mean, check out the "SUNDAY: Sketch Brooklyn Heights" announcement here: http://nyc.urbansketchers.org/2015/09/sunday-sketch-brooklyn-heights.html
• anyone can organize/post a sketch outing
• anyone can contribute posts to the group blog
• folks are encouraged to share their sketches to the blog, or flickr group

Mark is a member of the USk Membership Committee and he has kindly offered to help us establish an official Ottawa regional chapter and I am looking forward to working on this with him and the other artists here in Ottawa.

Me and Mark Leibowitz

When I finally settled down to sketch, I knew there was very little time left. I knew I wanted to sketch the iconic vista of the Statue of Liberty, the Manhattan skyline and all the way to the majestic Brooklyn Bridge and that was going to take a full two page spread in my art journal so I took a seat on the park bench and got busy sketching.

And here is my sketch of the Manhattan skyline from the Brooklyn Heights promenade. For the sky I saturated my art journal with water and then dropped in some pthalo blue (PB15) to get the beautiful wisps of clouds in the sky. I had so much fun sketching this and wish I could have continued sketching the "rows of historic 19th century brownstones, leafy streets, lush gardens and charming dead-end alleyways" all the way down Montague Street in the afternoon.

My sketch of  Manhattan from the Brooklyn Heights promenade

This "Manhattan skyline" sketch above and a sketch of my daughter having coffee with me Whole Foods at 97/Columbus are the only sketches I did in accordance with the Urban Sketchers manifesto (see below). The other ten pages in my art journal were sketched from iPhone photos while I was there (and stopped for coffee or relaxing with morning coffee at our Morningside Heights airbnb)

I will post my other sketches in seperate blog posts later.

I really need a few weeks (not four days) in NYC to do everything I love to do in NYC! I can't wait for our next trip!

NYC USk Links:

• Mark Leibowotz: flickr account
• Mark Leibowotz: Urban Sketching board on Pinterest
• NYC USk: Blog http://nyc.urbansketchers.org/
• NYC USk: flickr pool: https://www.flickr.com/groups/1922806@N25/pool/
• NYC USk: Google group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/new-york-city-urban-sketchers

Urban Sketchers Manifesto

Gratitude for Four Wonderful Days in NYC

I arrived home late last night from New York City (NYC). I managed to take 700 photos and I created twelve pages of sketches in my art journal in four short days (September 24-28, 2015).

It will take me a couple of days to sort through them all and organize them into blog posts but in the mean time, I want to express my most sincere gratitude to the following folks:

Firstly, I am thankful for my life partner Don (who never takes vacations) for giving my daughter and me this gift of a vacation trip to NYC. He set aside the money for us to do this trip back in June 2015 so that it would not be a question of "IF" we would be visiting NYCin 2015, but rather a question of "WHEN" we would vacation in NYC.

I am also extremely thankful for Elisabeth (and her sister Jenn) for accommodating my daughter and me in a most beautiful Morningside Heights airbnb apartment. I am also thankful for all of their wonderful restaurant/coffee shop/bagel shop suggestions and their kind accommodations to our special needs around arrival and departure times. Apartment 2B was a safe, beautiful and magical place to stay and for that I am sincerely grateful.

Grateful for Apt. 2B 

I am thankful for Mark Leibowitz and the NYC urban sketching group for their wonderful, warm welcome and the great time I had joining them (ever so briefly) at their Brooklyn Heights sketching outing on Sunday September 27, 2015.

And who knew, as a bonus, that I would be witness to President Obama arriving in NYC on the Marine One helicopter while sketching as well!?

Grateful for Mark Leibowitz and the NYC Urban Sketching group for the warm welcome.

And last, but in no ways least, I am grateful for my daughter Meagan who is the most amazing travel partner and who loves New York City as much as I do..... if not more (but she is much better at directions and knows all the best places to go).

I am grateful for Meagan's gifts of tickets to the ballet Swan Lake at Lincoln Center and a visit to the Top of the Rock on our last night to catch the sun setting over Manhattan.

And I am so happy for Meagan that we sat beside her ballet idol Misty Copeland at Ladurée SOHO on our last day in NYC!

Grateful for my daughter Meagan

I am so lucky and so blessed.

French proverb: " Gratitude is the memory of the heart"

Grateful for the beautiful sunset on our last night in NYC

Ottawa Urban Sketchers- Week II

Week 2 - Ottawa alleys

Really enjoyed this week of urban sketching. I managed to pull off four sketches in about two hours.

The light was great and there were plenty of friendly folks travelling through the alleys.

My stamp!

I liked the graffiti art in the alley

The light was casting interesting shadows.

The back of Bramasoles caught my eye.

Looking forward to next week in Hintonburg. Date and place TBD.

Ottawa Urban Sketchers

Really grateful to be urban sketching with this group of super talented Ottawa artists!

Ottawa Urban Sketchers June 2015

Ottawa alley sketch #1

Ottawa alley sketch

Ottawa alley sketch #2

Awesome Ottawa Artists:

• Colin White http://www.colinwhite.ca/
• Tomas Pajdlhauser  http://www.tomaspajdlhauser.com/sketch/
• Liam Mooney http://jackpine.co/
• Mathieu Trudel https://www.flickr.com/photos/trude_514/
• Anthony Parravano http://www.anthonyparravano.ca/
• Stephen Frew https://stephenfrew.wordpress.com/

Let's Do Some Summer Urban Sketching

There is a world wide community devoted to urban sketching . You can find urban sketchers on flickr and facebook and Twitter.

There are world wide sketchcrawl days and even an urban sketchers manifesto!

Urban Sketchers (USk) History

From the website:

"Urban Sketchers is the brainchild of Spanish-born illustrator and journalist Gabriel Campanario, a staff artist and blogger at The Seattle Times. After seeing an increasing number of people sharing their location drawings in the blogosphere, Campanario started a flickr group in November 2007 as a showcase of urban sketches. A year later, he decided to expand the flickr initiative with a by-invitation group blog where correspondents would commit to posting on a regular basis and also sharing the stories behind the sketches."

Gabriel Campanario,
the founder of Urban Sketchers and
author of The Art of Urban Sketching,

"In a short period of time, the Urban Sketchers blog and sister flickr group have become popular online outlets for people to share their location drawings. Thousands visit daily for inspiration or to travel vicariously through the visual dispatches from hundreds of contributors on six continents."

Nina Johansson is USK correspondent
and lives and works in Stockholm .

"Drawing a city isn't just capturing it on paper, it's really about getting to know it, to feel it, to make it your own," says Nina Johansson, a correspondent in Stockholm."

"To better serve this rapidly growing community, Campanario and other blog correspondents established Urban Sketchers as a nonprofit organization on December 6, 2009. The nonprofit aims to organize educational workshops and raise funds for artists' grants and scholarships."

Check out the urban sketchers FAQ here: http://www.urbansketchers.org/p/faq.html

Ottawa Urban Sketchers?

About one in every twelve Ontario artists resides in the City of Ottawa (4,600, or 8%). Those numbers represent folks who make their living from creating.

We know that EVERYONE is an artist. There are many more artists working at other jobs and finding time to do some art in between. With so many artists in Ottawa, wouldn't it be great if there was a community of urban sketchers?

There are Urban sketcher chapters in  Kitchener-Waterloo, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Wouldn't it be great to build a community here in Ottawa!

Sign Up for the
48th World Wide SketchCrawl 

If you live in the Ottawa area and love to sketch, consider signing up for the 48th World Wide SketchCrawl - July 25, 2015 - Ottawa