Urban Sketchers Symposium—Part I

I attended the 3rd Annual International Urban Sketchers Symposium in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic July 12-14. It was my second USK symposium having gone to Lisbon, Portugal last year. It is an amazing opportunity to meet other sketchers and to "see the world one drawing at a time".

The cathedral at Parque Colon sketched at the 36th Annual SketchCrawl on the last day of the Symposium.

The statue of Critobal Colon at the SketchCrawl.

The Parque Colon is a major gathering place in Santo Domingo. So besides 100+ sketchers there were many families enjoying a Saturday afternoon in the park.

The work shop "Improvising with Lines and Colors. The Urban Sketcher as a storyteller." was taught by Inma Serrano and Orling Dominguez. Both great teachers and artists, it was a very special treat to take a workshop from them. Our first assignment was to create a story at the Parque Colon using lines, color and improvisation. Playing with line weights and using color to emphsize focal points.

I came me to Santo Domingo with a very banged up bruised and swollen leg from my fall washing windows. Standing and sketching for three days in 90° heat just made it worse. I thankfully threw my red cotton Chinese shoes in my luggage at the last minute. They were the only shoes that fit my poor swollen foot. Besides hiding my hideous black and blue foot they were comfortable and cute!!! They definately deserved to be part of my first sketch on the square.

The second exercise was to use the same elements of the first but to add typography or handwriting to the composition. By this time my leg was killing me so I sat on a bench at the corner of the park and sketched. The workshop went by so quickly, I never had a chance to fihish this sketch.

I had an amazing experience in Santo Domingo. So much talent, creativity and inpiration.
Thank you all for a wonderful event.