Workshops in Porto

I attended 4 workshops at the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Porto - I still remember that nerve-wracking day in January/February, when over a thousand people around the world were ready at their computers, waiting for the clock to tick over for the time when they could pounce and register for their workshops. I was lucky. My internet didn't drop half-way through. I got my top 4 choices - I had been ready for alternate choices in case they were sold out, but thankfully didn't need to. So I got Liz Steel, Shari Blaukopf, Suhita Shirodkar and Marc Taro Holmes. Wow! What a line-up! There was another 10 workshops at least I would have loved. But I felt so privileged, so lucky!
As it turned out, Marc Taro Holmes wasn't able to attend the symposium, for family reasons. An artist from Malaysia, CJ Khoo, was going to replace him. And that was fine with me.

I loved every single workshop - Liz Steel for her sheer energy and the joy to watch her in action, Shari Blaukopf for her clear teaching, simple method and warm encouragements, Suhita Shirodkar for teaching something so terribly difficult and pushing us to work fearlessly like she does, and CJ Khoo for painting a fully-finished piece, right in front of our eyes, and making it seem easy, like something we might be able to do ourselve, some day (well, I'm not there yet!).

So here are a few pictures from the workshops (some I've taken from the teachers' Instagram photos)

Hard at work. We were exhausted after the walk uphill to get to our location. But Liz bought us cakes, so all was forgiven!!

That's me with the red hair!

Shari Blaukopf chose a spot close to the hub and we set to work very quickly. Every location is a good location in Porto!

Fantastic to see everyone's work half-way through our workshop

Yes, it was busy and noisy - but that was the point of the workshop - how to work in busy locations to capture the action, focusing on people. Definitely something I want to do more of!

We had a really nice group for Shari's workshop - Kitty from the Netherlands inspired me to paint with bold colours, Anita from Mumbai had lived in Ireland and it was lovely to talk to her, Alvin Wong from Hong Kong was able to apply watercolour techniques to his iPad work, Andy who flew to Italy and just got married off the Amalfi coast after the symposium, and we also had some instructors attending, including Paul Heaston

CJ Khoo - an interesting palette - he uses a pill box that he fills with fresh paints, and he's got a mixing area clipped onto it

My painting didn't look as good as some of these, but I was inspired all the same. And I had a nice chat with Marco, who is from the UK but now lives in Porto and works for an architecture firm.