Fueled by Clouds & Coffee: Chicago

Showing posts with label Chicago. Show all posts

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Two Sketchbooks Bound

My Chicago sketchbook

My sketchbook from my week in Chicago is thin – only two signatures of 16 pages each – but it’s thick with memories. As I did last year with my UK and Manchester symposium sketchbook, I bound the symposium program right into the sketchbook between the two signatures. On the covers are two of my favorite street scenes – the El tracks at Wabash and Congress, and Michican Street looking out toward the pointy blue Two Prudential Tower.

The symposium program is bound right into the book between the two signatures.

While I had my bookbinding supplies out, I also stitched together my signatures from May through the beginning of August, including our short trip to the Twin Cities. On the covers are the walrus on the Arctic Building sketched at the beginning of summer and the construction going on outside our Minneapolis hotel. Looking back through the sketches as I bound the book, I have to say it’s been a great season!

If you detect a bit of wistfulness, it’s because I’ve been seeing traces of yellow and orange in some trees just lately. At the first signs of fall, some years I either panic or go into denial; other times I’m ready to let summer go. This year I feel mostly the latter: We had one of the best summers on record, weather-wise, and I sketched the heck out of it. (And now we could certainly use the rain.) Still, the outdoor-sketching season is always shorter than I want it to be, so the waning days of summer are also bittersweet.

My sketchbook from May through early August

Friday, August 11, 2017

Field Notes Field Trip

A few years ago when I was trying to find a small, easily accessible notebook to serve as a sketchbook supplement, I accumulated a mountain of them from many manufacturers, trying to find one with paper that would suit the media I like to use. Of course, small notebooks aren’t sketchbooks, so the paper in them usually isn’t appropriate for what I want to do. Endlessly frustrated, I resorted to making my own. But my handmade booklets were nothing more than a smaller version of my conventional sketchbook, and what filled them were nothing more than smaller versions of my usual sketches.

Fast-forward to Spring of last year when something happened: Field Notes Brand released its Sweet Tooth edition – identical in size and format to all of its previous editions (and similar to the mountain I had tried from other manufacturers) – except for one thing: The books contained bright red, blue and yellow paper!

Fellow Nuts!

Even though I still fill my conventional sketchbook at the same pace, I look for different types of subject matter to sketch in my favorite red book. Instead of the “stories” I try to tell with urban sketches, my Sweet Tooth is filled with random bus riders, motorcycles parked on the street, the beer I drink with dinner, and other small moments of my day. I won’t be so dramatic as to say this little book changed my life, but it did change the way I look at sketching. Why is red paper so very different from white? I don’t know, but somehow it gives me a different perspective. (I don’t post many of them here on my blog, but you can see all the sketches made in Field Notes in my Flickr photostream.)

With that as preamble, perhaps you’ll understand why I couldn’t leave Chicago without making a pilgrimage to Field Notes headquarters. True, I’m a stationery geek anyway, so it seems only natural that I would visit the company while I was in town for the Urban Sketchers Symposium. But it’s not every day that an ephemeral paper notebook changes one’s perspective. For that, it was worth taking the short Blue Line ride to pay my respects to the notebook maker (I even wore my T-shirt sporting the face of Aaron Draplin, Field Notes co-founder and designer!). And to make it even more fun, I gathered up a bunch of local Field Nuts to go with me.

Bryan Bedell, in lavender shirt, gave us a tour and talked about the company's history.

We were given a gracious welcome and facility tour by Bryan Bedell, who told us all about Field Notes Brand’s history. We all peeked into boxes and shelves and bought more notebooks than we really needed (and received a free Chicago book and other goodies!). I sketched the water tower on the roof of the building next door. Pilgrimage completed, I left Chicago the next day, happy that I’d visited the home of my little red notebook.

Reception area

The shop!

A busy worker.

Peeking into boxes.

Someone on staff likes these too!

7/31/17 brush pen, gel pen, colored pencil

Edited to add the photo below of the gifts I received. The lefty books were my only purchase. . . I already had all the other standard editions!

FN swag!

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Chicago Symposium, Part 3: People

7/26/17 Our founder, Gabi Campanario, giving the keynote at the opening ceremony.

The subject of this post is probably not what you think it is. As much as I enjoy sketching people in general, they didn’t end up in my sketchbook much in Chicago. The city was so rich in architecture and art that I didn’t focus much on its citizens (except for one busker . . . I was disappointed that I didn’t see more).

Instead, this post is really about the primary reason I attend symposiums in the first place: the people. Of course I go for the sketching, but that sketching wouldn’t be nearly as fun and meaningful if it hadn’t been with 570 other sketchers from 34 countries. I’ve probably said this after every symposium I’ve attended, but there’s something very special about being with one’s “tribe” – that worldwide community with whom you instantly bond because of a common passion. Whenever I go to the opening and closing sketchwalks of every symposium (the only sketching opportunities in which all symposium participants are likely to be present at the same time) and suddenly see hundreds of my tribespeople all in one place, doing what they enjoy most, I feel a catch in my throat.

7/27/17 Left: Mark Leibowitz gives a presentation on sketch kits;
USk President Amber Sausen opens the symposium.

Since I missed the very first symposium in Portland (in 2010, the year before I started sketching), Chicago was the first one I attended in the U.S., and I was surprised by how different it made me feel. At past symposiums, I was always a guest in another country; in Chicago, I felt I was a “host.” I felt a keen sense of responsibility toward all the non-American sketchers, especially those who had never visited the U.S. before (including both of our international correspondents), and tried to make an effort to welcome them. From my own international travel experiences, I know that whatever happens in another country, good or bad, tends to shape my feelings and impressions about that place, so it seemed important to show visiting sketchers an America to be proud of. I found myself feeling relieved when sketchers told me how much they enjoyed being in Chicago and the U.S. – that people were kind, friendly and helpful.

7/25/17 The only drink & draw I managed to attend was the night before
the symposium began. . . I couldn't stay up late enough for the rest of them!

So this post is not so much about what I sketched but who I sketched with – new people I met and friends I was reunited with. It’s also about all the many, many volunteers who worked all year long to make the symposium possible.

Most notable among these tireless volunteers is our founder himself, Gabi Campanario. His modest, selfless leadership continues to inspire me daily. In his keynote address at the opening reception, Gabi told the story of how a simple idea – sketchers worldwide sharing their work online – turned into the Urban Sketchers community we know today. See the YouTube recording of his recount of the snowy November day 10 years ago when Urban Sketchers was born and how the organization has grown and flourished.

As I am every time I participate, I am sincerely grateful that I had the opportunity to share in such an inspiring event. The positive energy I gain at the symposium stays with me all year until the next one.

And speaking of the next one, the 2018 symposium will be in Porto, Portugal! I’m already looking forward to it!