hi this week in sketchbook school we are exploring with Lynne Chapman. she's an
illustrator and an urban sketcher and she's a lovely person she has a bubbly
personality and the variety in her work is amazing. she uses so many different
tools and well she's just fantastic and inspiring artists and this week she
teaches us about storytelling and depicting time and many many ways to
fill your sketchbook pages and for my homework I made a teeny tiny little
accordion sketchbook which I will bring with me to a jazz improvisation workshop
so this improv session is a workshop for our musicians here in Amsterdam. you can
attend for free as the audience and here a group of Skechers in Amsterdam goes
there every week so I join them every now and then when I can and then we just
sit down and draw the musicians and it's always intriguing because they have
these themes they work on during the workshop I make drawings like this.
really I'm trying to explore and to see if I can capture the movement and the
people and surroundings, the stage and also the audience which I really like
actually I love drawing the audience too here's another one I did. so I know I
have two hours because the workshop lasts two hours I think I can feel my
little sketchbook in two hours I hope so and hopefully I can bring some kind of
story into it depending on what happens during the evening. so I'll be bringing
my tiny sketchbook and then some watercolors and then we'll
just see what the evening brings. I can't film there I can't share the music they
make but at least I can share whatever happens through my drawings alright so
here we are at the BIM house the jest theatre in Amsterdam the jazz
improvisation workshop always starts with new people presenting themselves
and there was this one lady who was new and she sang a song and I tried to draw
her as quickly as possible because I didn't know how long it would take. it
was interesting because that first drawing is always a little bit scary and
for her it was also a little bit scary so I liked that we were kind of in the
same place on some level added a little bit of watercolor which makes a huge
difference I think now the idea of the workshop is that participants form small
bands for one or more songs so they started with this lady and she formed a
small band to begin with I really loved drawing her because she is so
characteristic in her posture and her clothing and whenever I see drawings of
other sketches of other workshop sketches I always recognize her
immediately and everybody loves her she sings why and she's funny too so I drew
the two of them that guy is really tall so I couldn't fit him on the page and I
didn't really want to either also I didn't have much time to draw him
because I really focused on her and then before I knew it the song was over and
he left the stage again next up was another band totally different
instruments in the time that I had I could just draw two people in there
we're just quite enough because I struggled a little bit with the postures
and especially the proportions I kind of hated it that I couldn't fit her feet in
but then again I do love the overlap of the guitar and his posture and actually
even though initially I didn't really like how the drawing turned out when I
had a war colors it felt so much better and more
balanced and yeah I kind of liked it and then these two percussionists made a
little party of sounds it was so fun and it was lucky because they they weren't
going wild so they said quite still and of course
they made a lot of repetitive movements so that allowed me to focus on those
repetitive movements and try to capture those in my view in front of me there
was this man sitting so I also drew him and I think that really adds to the
sense of depth and also hopefully it tells you a little bit that I was
sitting in the audience speaking of the audience I often really like drawing the
audience instead of the musicians maybe it's because they sit still maybe it's
because there's interesting characters in there I don't know I just enjoy it so
this man here on the left I really liked his jacket so I drew that and really was
looking forward to add watercolors to it those red chairs are very handy because
I could just simply count the chairs and then draw the next person and again I
put the back of the head of the person in front of me to create that sense of
depth you also see that I added a little sentence care for a mint sir and that's
because the theme of the workshop was to serve up your music like a chef would
serve up a menu to their guests so if you have for example a five-course meal
you start with an appetizer then maybe something light then the main course
then a dessert or a cheese platter and then maybe something sweet to end the
evening with so care for a mint sir suddenly makes sense if you notice and
then we got to the last band and I was kind of worried that I couldn't fit in
the lady with the cello completely because I really wanted to have her feet
on the page because she wasn't wearing any shoes and I felt like the kiss such
a homey feeling to the evening and at first I felt bummed about it but I
actually like that the head and the feet of the
guitarist don't really fit on the page it's fine and of course I added
watercolors and really enjoyed doing that adding extra layers for shadows and
in the theme of the menu the workshop leader was very pleased that finally one
of the bands served up a cheese platter I think it took me about one and a half
hour to fill the mini accordion sketchbook and that's actually really
cool to fill a whole sketchbook in just one and a half hour I can really
recommend it