Manchester 2016 : Day 2

By now you know the drill.. start with an early morning sketch before the start of workshops. On the left, the early sketch gang, on the right, the early bird correspondents.

Today was the start of workshops and I got to start my day not with teaching but with taking Fred Lynch‘s workshop, Hunting and Gathering: Sketching Vignettes and Lists, a great reminder to not always paint a full page, but to consider other forms of visual storytelling and recording. We explored vignette and list drawing, and I drew a subject that fascinates me here in Manchester, chimneys: so many of them, standing like sentries on the top of buildings.

It was fun to sketch these chessmen while walking around in the rain, but best of all the workshop left me with so many things to think about and consider: about making art, telling stories and seeing with all your senses.

In the afternoon was my workshop, People and Places: Life in Contrast on what was probably the rainiest day I’ve seen in Manchester so far. But my super-enthusiastic group of sketcher sheltered under dripping awnings and gesture-sketched people on the street before we took a break and wandered inside for some respite from the rain. Which might explain why my little gesture-drawing demo is of Tina and Jason , who were hanging out indoors at the Manchester School of Art.

But we headed outside again for our very last sketch the juxtaposed the grand architecture of the city with the energy of the people on the street.

Here they are, my fabulous (and slightly wet) group of sketcher from today.

That just about wraps up today. Looking forward to teaching yet another session of my workshop tomorrow!