Sketching, Illustration, Design and Everyday Life.
Copyright by © Nina Khashchina except where noted.
After the Symposium, there were opportunities to go further from the hub and sketch in more unusual places. One of my favorite ways to see a new city is to find a good rooftop view! I had some wonderful company to sketch with in both places and used my gouache kit (see post about my trip tools) and some pencils over it.
The best part of USk Symposium? People!
Since my return from the trip, I've been thinking a lot about different aspects of the Symposium experience, and every time my mind goes back to PEOPLE. People I knew who made me super welcome. People I knew only online but finally met in person. People I've never known but now have an amazing connection to. People who came to my workshops and gouache demo. People who shared the experience of sketching in a hot city with lots of other sketchers. It was amazing! I drew people as much as I could, but I wish I'd drawn more :)
Here are some of the people sketches - no names ;)
Each of the Faculty Members at the Urban Sketchers Symposium was giving a demo on the first day of workshops. Unfortunately, all the demos were happening at the same time, so there was no chance to attend demos of the fellow symposium teachers (and there were so many I wanted to see!!). My location was in the Japanese Garden in Toulouse and I managed to find a spot with at least some shade for both myself and all who came to watch me paint.
My workshop was in black and white; however, my demo was in full color and mixed media - mostly in gouache - but with some addition of colored pencils and such. It ran a little bit over an hour. I started by explaining my tools set-up and then jumped into the scene. Painting and keeping a commentary running during each step and brushstroke is different from just painting, but I enjoyed the experience, comments, and questions from the demo participants. And I ended up with gouache-hands (see photo below), a piece that I enjoyed, and it was later auctioned at the Symposium and a dear friend got it!
My Workshop at the USk Symposium was titled "Think Like a Printmaker: puzzle together landscapes with simple stencils and exciting textures." I found a lovely place under a bridge on the Canal De Brienne and ran this workshop three times during the Symposium. Shadow and a little bit of cool from the water were very welcome as it was HOT in Toulouse. We got to wave to occasionally passing boats and made space for bikes and runners.
Three very different and amazing groups of artists joined me in making a library of textures (made with the little printmaking kit that participants got to take home). We dove into the world os masks and stencils and how to think about any scene with a printmaking mind. And then we all took on a view of another bridge down the canal - with all the knowledge in hand. The results were very inspiring to see and learn from!
Workshop 1
Workshop 2
Workshop 3
Trip to Toulouse, France, 2026: Urban Sketchers Symposium and a few days around it.
Part 1: My Workshops.
Part 2: My Demo.
I made a little video of the Bonaire part of the sketchbook - you will be able to see how all these sketches fit together and tell the whole story of the trip:
And here are some of the sketches from the article in the wonderful Sketcher Press publication "On the Spot": Underwater sketching in the balmy blue sea
All Posts re: Bonaire 2025:
In my previous post with underwater sketches, I shared results of my oil pastel experiments and mentioned that I enjoyed using a tip or sharp edge of the crayon to add details or even write in some instances, but I found a better way to do so. And what I share below is probably my favorite combination of materials so far: I used pastels to make larger shapes, add texture, and differentiate value, and then I added details with a much more precise and predictable tool - pencil!
All Posts re: Bonaire 2025:
I wrote about my experiment with bringing oil pastels of different brands with me to my underwater sketching adventures on Bonaire. And below are several sketches which will show you how I:
Bear in mind that all the colors look very different when you are looking at them under 60-70 feet of water, so most of my color choices had to be "blind". I tried to limit the number of colors that I took with me, and remember the overall shape of the crayon, and remember how the hue would shift (from the theory that red color disappears first and so on), and from previous experience.
All Posts re: Bonaire 2025:
Bonaire has a large population of donkeys that descend from the animals brought by Spanish settlers many years ago. Now they are feral, and you can see them everywhere. In fact, there are so many of them that there is even a donkey sanctuary. But I met this cheerful burrow as it was passing our place of residence.
Bonaire also has lots of feral goats that I saw, but somehow I did not sketch even one. However, a bunch of cats visited our house. One of them had an ear clipped, and based on the fact that all other cats would run away as soon as this gorgeous blackness with whiskers appeared on the fence, I thought that the ear was damaged in some important war. Later, I found out that Bonaire has a program for Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR), and as a result, cats get the ear clip. We observed daily people-watching and bird-catching activities, but for me, the best part was the impression this character left on other cats.
Apart from these two visitors, we were regularly entertained by a small flock of brown-throated parakeets (prikichi in papiamenu) who, in their endemic to Bonaire version, have a very radiant yellow head. My problem with drawing these birds was the fact that I did not bring a bright enough green pencil :)
All Posts re: Bonaire 2025:
