Paraty

Arriving at Paraty´s Casa de Cultura, some participants were already queuing up for registration. I started drawing the receding tide in the streets, a subject that must have found its way into every sketchbook in Paraty by the end of the symposium.

My first class is by João Catarino on the theme of reflections- we hurry to the river and get started, anxiously glancing towards a darkening sky. The raindrops create an interesting pattern on my painting, but soon the rain drives us to a nearby pousada. It is a lovely, loose approach, and we end the workshop with a lunch of fried maniok by the beach, browsing through sketchbooks.

The next workshop is 180 degrees by Stephanie Bower, on architecture, which i guiltily take because i´m a lazy sketcher who spends little time on preliminary perspective scribbles, just expecting the drawing to work anyway. Sometimes it works, often it doesn´t. Cars are also great for practicing perspective and there are many little gems of old Volkswagen in the streets of Brasil. While i´m painting the beetle by the harbour, the tide comes in and i have to abandon the sketch.

Next is Nina Johansson, teaching us how to influence the mood and impression of a sketch created by simple adjustments to the colour palette and the line character. These exercises result in a gloomy church, and a way more cheerful street scene, though i still tend to ignore the people. Maybe an issue i´ll tackle next year.