Hi Everyone, It is very exciting to see all the participant posts here and I am really looking forward to meeting new USKers and sketching with ‘old’ friends from previous Symposiums. I am just about to get into serious Trip Prep mode (my trip preparations are a bit infamous giving people the impression that I am a super over organised person) and this year I will share some of this with you on this site.
One of the most important (and FUN!) things to prepare is deciding what art supplies I will take. Whether is the usual stuff or whether I will change it. This is what I carry with me everywhere as documented a few weeks ago... Am I going to make any changes??? In fact I have already done so!
I like to research whether there are any specific local colours (paint colours to buildings, stone, brick, tiled roofs) that might suggest a change to my paints. Last year for Lisbon I added New Gamboge to my kit as it was a colour I noticed was used on the buildings AND it was perfect for the colour of custard in those little pasteis de nata. This colour is now permanently part of my palette and will be perfect for the cabs in NYC where I am going afterwards. I have recently replaced my half pans with full pans as much as possible – reducing my colours so that I mix more and making it easier to use larger brushes. I have been testing them out in the past month and tweaking.... Last week changing my orange-red for a red-orange - see mixes here. You can see that I love playing with colour!
As for pens and pencils... I am not sure what I will decide on. In the last few weeks I have been sketching without my ink lines and trying to experiment with more loose watercolouring – as you can see above. This is very radical for me... As I am so much in love with my lamy pen. So I have already made a second change to the above sketch as I now carry a 2B pencil!
Other preparation that I am starting
- Trying to do some architectural history research (finding it hard to find much on DR but I might brush up on Spanish architecture of the similar period as a foundation for the Spanish Colonial architecture in DR)
- Really getting a feel for the Colonial Zone- the last two symposiums, I have not really had very good orientation...just went with the flow.
- Trying to find some music to listen to – to get me in the mood. I am looking for something a little more classical/jazzy rather than bachata or merengue – like Gershwin's Cuban Overture.
- Tearoom research – I did this a long time ago and have now given up on it! That’s ok as I like coffee as well! (but if I suddenly go missing it might be that I have snuck back to my hotel room to have a cuppa using my travel kettle! But which loose leaf tea to bring from home?)
And oh! I almost forgot... I am trying to sketch 100 faces and 100 figures prior to the symposium – drawing each other is one of the very cool things that happens and I can certainly do with more practice and confidence. Here is a page I did a while back ...(in my favourite tearoom of course!!!)
I think that I better start all over again!
Awesome sketches! I'm also amazed at how clean your palette is. You've inspired me and today I cleaned my palette, which I never do. I notice that your mixing areas have reddish remains which never come out, mine has a bluish shade which is very stubborn...
ReplyDeleteYour rig is very similar to mine, except for the red lead, the white gel pen (I haven't found one yet) and the eraser (which I don't carry). In addition I have a couple of Sharpies, a few water soluble graphite pencils, around 15 Pitt brush pens and 12 broad tip markers. I am trying a set of Derwent Inktense pencils, which I like a lot, as they are really very brilliant.
For your research, probably you have this link, but anyways: http://www.dominicanaonline.org/portal/english/cpo_arquitectura.asp
It's mostly text, but as we tend to want to know where things came from, so...
Thanks Luis! I try to keep my palette clean and normally clean it every few days when I am travelling (or at least the lighter colours) I have a specific place to mix each colour (as shown on this sketch) Using staining pigments (such as pthalo or quin colours) do stain the palette. Looking forward to seeing your kit!
DeleteThanks for the link, I hadn't come across it- it is hard to find Spanish websites on my google.
hello dear liz, how very kind of you to share all your thought and prep here. regret i am unable to meet you and all other this year but can't help to be affected by Gabi's Symp-3 state of mind (especially after a small meet with him, gail and don yesterday:-)
ReplyDeletewill be close behind you from home; have fun and plenty of sun tan:-)
thanks Asnee - we will miss you!!!! Great that you caught up with Gabi etc! Been enjoying your recent sketches!
DeleteIt will be amazing to meet you again and sketch together. We have to practice portraits each other. But ... I don´t know why you don´t have Borromini in your sketched bag... Is he going to stay in Australia? :( Hope not!
ReplyDeleteI found this article on modern Dominican architecture ... http://www.architecturebeyond.eu/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Gustavo_Luis_Moré_Dominican_Republic.pdf
ReplyDeleteHi Inma...yes it will be amazing to see you again. I am very worried about BB falling apart and therefore he is not part of my everyday kit but stays safe at home. He will be coming to Sto Dgo of course!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Peng - Thanks SO much for that link!!!! on the same site I found this one
ReplyDeletehttp://www.architecturebeyond.eu/publications-vault/santo-domingo-modernity-and-dictatorship/
Hi Liz,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I will be not in Santo Domingo.
Very interesting your post, as usual, because you can say what everybody thinks but not always can express.
When I was studing painting in the University, in the last years of the seventies, I had a great teacher, Jorge Pinheiro - that is one of the great painters of our times (in Portugal nobody cares about plastic artists, so the world doesn't know the portuguese plastic artists) that told me about his palette of colours.
I was studing the chemical reations of pigments and the rational way of using colours and it was very important for me because he showed me how I could use just a few colours. My obsession in that time was to make paintings for the eternity, without changing tones. And I did some «scientific» paintings (now I can paint in the canvas with the same ink I use to paint the walls of my house, without caring about the changing tones for the next centuries).
We must think about the colours in the way you do, always rationaly. Now we have not the chemical problems as we had before because the most of pigments are artificial. Even if they are not, who cares? See Cimabué, William Turner, for example.
Best regards to Borromini Bear.
ReplyDeleteLuís