The Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, was originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition to display fine art. One of only a few surviving structures from the Exposition, it was rebuilt in 1965, along with a renovation of the lagoon. Today the Palace remains a popular tourist attraction and is a favorite location for wedding photographs. It’s also a great place to sketch!
If you are interested in urban sketching workshops, read through this post carefully, for
1) Workshops around the world
2) Workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area
3) And a workshop I’m teaching- in San Francisco!
This is an exciting year for Urban Sketching! Urban Sketchers is 10 years old this year and they’re celebrating with year-long workshops all over the world. Excited? Click this link to see where all the workshops are. Each city lets you pick from 10 workshops being held throughout the year.
The San Francisco Bay Area chapter of Urban sketchers is excited to be holding it’s own series of 10 workshops around the Bay Area: 10 teachers you’ve been wanting to take a workshop with, and workshops geared towards all levels of sketchers! To read more about those workshops, go to this link. If you’re interested in a Bay Area workshop, get in touch with Suhita at suhita@gmail.com and tell her what classes you’re interested in. She’ll walk you through the registration process.
We have quite a fantastic lineup of workshops, so register soon because they’re filling up fast. And whether you are signed up for a workshop, thinking of signing up, curious about urban sketching, or just want to meet and hangout with urban sketchers, everyone is invited to our launch party on Saturday February 11 at Arch Art & Drafting Supply in San Francisco. The event will kick off with a sketch meet-up at San Francisco’s Mission Bay at noon, followed by the launch party at Arch Art & Drafting Supply at 1:30. USk classes will be introduced and individual instructors will be available for a meet-and-greet session. Come join us even if we’ve never met before, we’re a friendly bunch!
Title of workshop: Unraveling the Complexity of Travel Sketching
Level of difficulty: Beginning
Instructor: Richard Sheppard
Date/time: May 6 and May 7), 10am-1pm
Meeting place: San Francisco, Palace of Fine Arts, on the corner of Baker St. and Bay St.
Class description: The best souvenirs are not the things you buy or the photos you take while on vacation, but drawings you create in a sketchbook. Sketching allows the artist to slow down enough to get acquainted with surroundings that are so often overlooked while framing the world through a lens. Yet sketching in public can be a daunting experience for the self-conscious sketcher, or for those that are just unprepared. The first part of this class will cover tips on getting beyond the emotional roadblocks that keep us from sketching. Then we’ll discuss materials, styles, and techniques that are best suited for travel sketching. The final part of the class will cover developing a visual vocabulary as well as choosing subjects that are memorable and meaningful.
To register for any of the Bay Area workshops, contact suhita@gmail.com and put “San Francisco Bay Area 10×10” in the subject line of your email. Let her know what workshops you want to sign up for. Suhita will let you know if there are still spots open and she will help you through the registration process.
Classes are filing up fast!
Over the weekend, my sketch friend (Phil) and I headed out to the coast to sketch the boat that had run aground last summer. The boat has since moved further out from the beach and is now surrounded by the incoming tide.
Click here to see my previous sketch and story of this boat.
My new book “Impressions of Wine Country” (pictured below) is now apart of the Wine Library located inside the Healdsburg library. The book is now available for check-out at any Sonoma Country branch.
It’s also, of course, available on Amazon.
Geyserville, California is the new home of Lord Snort, a sculpture created by Bryan Tedrick for Burning Man 2016. The swine weighs aprox. 20,000 pounds and is over 20 feet tall and 30 feet long. Though I didn’t go to Burning Man this year, I was happy to see my favorite sculpture from the event displayed (at least temporarily) so close to home.
Sketched on location in graphite, colored pencil, brown and black ink, and watercolor. Aprox. 4 hours.