Two days in Napoli

I spent two days in Naples on my way to the IV° Naples Urban Sketching Workshop (which actually took place in Ischia). Naples was incredibly busy, and it felt quite different from the Italy i knew; i had never been this far south. The narrow streets of Quartieri Spagnoli (supposedly not the best neighbourhood) were much calmer than the city center and were great to sketch. I had various very nice conversations with locals in my non existent italian while i painted the view below.

There where some beautiful places to explore, especially old book and antique stores. The weather wasn´t great, but it´s a chance to draw people with colourful umbrellas. And of course, a panoramic view with the Vesuv in the background was a must.

 

USk Treffen Darmstadt

This year i had to cancel my participation to the Symposium in Singapore due to work commitments.
I had Simos Ischia Workshop to look forward to, but that´s October, and a summer without some sort of big Sketching event taking place-impossible. So Birgit and me got together and sarted planning our own event.

A month ago, the first big meeting of Urban Sketchers in Germany took place in Darmstadt, a town just 30 min from Frankfurt/Main. Sixty sketchers came together to draw in the  beautiful art déco quarter of Mathildenhöhe, and some of them traveled quite far- from northern Germany, the Netherlands and even Paris- to be with us. The program included workshops by Urban Sketching veterans such as Omar Jaramillo, Arno Hartmann, Birgit Dreesen and me. We also hat demos by Daniel Nies and Catalina Somolinos  and activities like a Portrait Party (inspired by Paraty) and Drink&Draw just like at the Symposium and lots of sketchbook browsing! After a beautiful and intense weekend, we had a little exhibition of sketchbooks.