6th Urban Sketchers Symposium Singapore

The 6th Urban Sketcher's Symposium was held in Singapore from 22-25th July. It was attended by about 400 urban sketchers of various level from all over the world.

I signed up for the workshop pass. Mind you, the registration fee didn't come cheap but you get to attend four out of about 20 workshops conducted by legends like Frank Ching etc.

The local organising committee was made up of fellow sketcher volunteers and they have worked for months to prepare for this event. There was so much work so I signed up immediately when they rallied for help. As a workshop helper, my responsibility was to gather the participants, bring them to the site and assist the instructor during the event.

The registration day finally came. I arrived at  the National Design Centre just in time for the opening reception. It was packed with people and reminded me of the annual Neuroscience conferences that I have attended years back when I was still doing research. 

Catching up with fellow sketchers.

View of St Joseph's Church from the NDC.

The symposium pack was filled with sponsor goodies like Moleskine sketchbook, Cretacolour pencils/ charcoal, Shin Han watercolour, ink, caran d'arche crayons, paint samples, watercolour paper and discount vouchers from sponsors. I especially loved the Leuchtturm1917 notebook. Each book was personalised with our name. How cool was that!

Workshop started the next day with Behzad Bagheri. Behzad missed his original flight to SG but I am glad he managed to get here in time. The weather was relentlessly hot and humid. When we finally settled down at the national museum we were all too drained to listen. It was a pity cos Behzad gave some neat explanation on the geometry of shadows. After the session I brought him out for lunch and we chatted about urban sketching in Iran.

Sketch of the National Museum done at Behzad's workshop.

Marc Holmes' session followed and he gave some great tips on drawing people and we had plenty of time to sketch crowd on the street. Unfortunate I didn't complete his workshop cos I had an adventure of my own due to my negligence.

People sketching done at Marc's workshop.

The adventure.

Norberto Dorantes' session was early next day. He explained all about the importance of composition as we gawked at his awesome sketches.

Norberto's sketchbook.

Sketch done at Norberto's workshop.

In the afternoon I attended an entertaining watercolor demo by Zhu Hong. This was followed by introduction to digital sketching with Rob Sketcherman. Rob was generous  to share his tools and brushes. The biggest takeaway for me was that my iPad 1 is not compatible with the pens. No digital sketching for me. Boo!

The last event of the symposium for me was  Nina Johansson's workshop because I couldn't make it for the open sketch walk and closing ceremony after that. She was very encouraging as we struggled to paint in the hot sun. When we broke out for our final sketch, Ban Pang, Kenneth and I quickly made our way into the Curious Palette cafe to bask in the air con. I bid farewell to them at the end of the event, totally shagged out from the weather and too much walking.

Sketch done at Nina's workshop.