Weekend Top 6 Picks for October 12 and 13, 2019

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In honor of National Library WeekSaturday October 12, 2019

10am to 1pm $5. Urban Sketching Workshop: Capturing Brutalist Architecture. Orange County Regional History Center, 65 E Central Blvd, Orlando, FL 32801. The Accidental Historian
Young Artists Urban Sketching Workshops.
“Ink and Twig: Capturing Brutalist Architecture in Urban Sketch”
For students 14 to 24 years old.
Brutalism
was an architectural movement that flourished from the 1950s to the
mid-1970s. The term originates from the French word for “raw” as used by
the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier to describe his choice of
material as béton brut (raw concrete). The aesthetic appeal of Brutalism
sprang from its sculptural potential, and the style was generally
favored by architects who saw buildings as works of art. Brutalism is a
very cerebral style. The Orlando Public Library exemplifies the style,
with its “raw,” textured concrete facade. The original, easternmost
section, 60,000 square feet, was built in 1966 and was designed by John
M. Johansen. From 1982 to 1985, the building was enlarged to 290,000
square feet, with Schweizer Associates guiding the expansion to follow
Johansen’s design.
The sketching technique of Chinese ink and
twig perfectly captures the “raw” pure art form of Brutalist buildings.
With only a bit of ink and a sharpened twig, you will capture the raw
textural facade. In this workshop taught by landscape architect Art
Esteban and architect Gay Geiger, participants will learn a bit about
the history of the Brutalist architectural style in Orlando and how to
sketch with ink and twig to capture an urban setting.
This
workshop is open to students aged 14 to 24. All skill levels are
welcome. Sketching materials will be provided by Sam Flax Orlando. The
sketching portion of the workshop will take place outdoors. Participants
should dress appropriately for the weather and bring water and a snack.
Participants can bring a folding chair or stool to sit.
Workshop schedule
• 10 a.m. Meet inside the Orange County Regional History Center
• 10:05 a.m. Introductions
• 10:25 a.m.Tour of The Accidental Historian exhibit
• 11:15 a.m. Sketching instruction outside of Orlando Public Library
• 12:30 p.m. Sketchbook Throwdown

About the Instructors: Art Esteban and Gay Geiger
Art
Esteban is a landscape architect, off-road cyclist, and avid urban
sketcher. He has traveled to several Urban Sketchers Symposiums and
taken ink-and-twig workshops with the Malaysian sketcher and instructor
Kiah Kiean. Follow Art’s adventures on Instagram @artistotle_05.

Gay
Geiger is an architect with SchenkelShultz Architecture in Orlando. She
grew up in a small town in Wisconsin, learning to sketch from her
father. She moved to Central Florida in 1980 and has been practicing
architecture since 1987. Although Gay sketched buildings and entourage
for many years, it wasn’t until 2015 that she was able to define her
sketching interests as “urban sketching.” See more of Gay’s work on
Instagram @gaygeiger.About the Series: The Accidental Historian Young Artists Urban Sketching Workshops
Catch
the world around you one sketch at a time! Join Urban Sketchers Orlando
for any, or all three, sketching workshops in downtown Orlando for
artists aged 14 – 24. In conjunction with the History Center’s newest
exhibition, The Accidental Historian, these classes for all skill levels
will get you sketching on location and capturing history as it happens.
All art supplies are included, courtesy of Sam Flax!

4pm to 6pm Free. Young Voices. JB Callaman Center 102 North Parramore Ave Orlando FL. Teen Open Mic Every second Saturday of the Month. 

8pm to 10pm $5 Second Saturdays in Sanford. 202 S Sanford Ave, Sanford, FL. Live music event featuring 2 stages, drink specials and more. 

Sunday October 13, 2019

10am to Noon. Free. Heartfulness Relaxation and Meditation Class. University, 5200 Vineland Rd, Orlando, FL 32811. The Method of Heartfulness A simple and practical way to experience the heart’s unlimited resources. 

1pm to 4:30pm Free. Family Day on the Second Sunday. The Mennello Museum of American Art, 900 East Princeton Street, Orlando, FL 32803.

The
make-and-take craft table is open from noon-2:30 p.m., and docents are
available to give mini-tours of the museum. Then it’s open house in the
galleries until 4:30 p.m.

3pm to 5pm Donation based.  Fundraiser Historic Preservation. Black Bottom House of Prayer, 921 Bently Street Orlando, FL 32805.

Latitudes

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I need to find a downtown spot which will work for an Orlando Urban Sketching Workshop about sketching the Orlando Downtown skyline. Pam and I decided to go to Latitudes (33 W Church St, Orlando, FL 32801) which has a rooftop bar. After getting drinks we walked upstairs to another platform above the bar to see if the view might work for a workshop. The New Year’s Eve ball or orange was still on a pole having ushered in 2019 in January.

Unfortunately this rooftop bar is surrounded by much taller skyscrapers which cut off the views. I rather liked the intimate view of the couple sitting on the bar stools chatting with the bartender. During the week this spot if rather quiet until the crowds arrive much later at night. We discussed the idea of renting an upper balcony apartment just for the workshop. Another building was nearing completion across the street.

If anyone has suggestions of building which might offer good views of a 360 degree view of the downtown skyline please let me know. My next thought is the courthouse but of course there is tight security to get into the building and art supplies tend to confound most security guards. Another thought is to just sketch the skyline from Lake Eola Park. There is however a definite added drama of sketching a city skyline from an elevated vantage point.

10 X 10 Urban Sketch Workshop at the Orange County Regional History Center.

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One of the Orlando
Urban Sketching Workshops was held at the Orange County Regional History
Center. The lesson of this workshop was to focus on value and color without
much use of line. It was the same evening as another large event in town, so
turnout was down, but we made the best of it. There was also a wedding on the
ground floor, so we stayed in the exhibits on the top floors.

The Citrus Industry exhibition was where we started. The first sketch
was of a lifecast on a ladder picking oranges from a tree. There is a clear
advantage sketching a mannequin as opposed to a live model since it never
moves. I gave pointers on composition and then we all got to work. The goal of
the class was to finish two sketches with an emphasis on color and value.

Pam Schwartz, the History Center’s Chief Curator joined
us. She has done plenty of art in her past, so she fit right in. As we sat working, she noticed one of the
text panels in the Citrus Exhibit was missing a letter, so she touched it up.
The entire museum is going to be renovated with new exhibits in the upcoming year or two, so the museum as it looks today is a bit of an antique. New interactive
exhibits are on the horizon.

After sketching the citrus trees, we moved over to the pioneer cabin where two lifecast children were on the porch pulling taffy. This porch set up
was a good exercise in one point perspective and bold blocks of color. I
explained that the open window created a pool of light in which the main action
took place. The mural on the wall next to the cabin had a painting of a chicken
that was larger that the cows in the field. It is a strange touch that most
visitors probably don’t notice. When you take the time to sketch, however, such
strange size relationships become obvious.

Pride Fireworks at Lake Eola.

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On the day of Pride, traffic downtown was predicted to be a major cluster f@!ck. The Orlando Come out with Pride Parade was going on as I taught classes at Elite Animation Academy. That day roads would also be closed for a soccer game at the Amway Center and something at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. I thought that getting to Elite would be a challenge, but streets had not been blocked off yet.

That evening I scheduled the 8th Orlando Urban Sketch Workshop at Lake Eola. With the parade over, I figured some of the crowd would have dispersed. Getting home from work, I skirted downtown by driving around the congested streets. The last few blocks were a challenge but I made it back to the studio fairly easily.

Attendance for the workshop was down. I imagine people weren’t up to the challenge and adventure of trying to park downtown. Pam Schwartz had walked in the parade with members and families involved in the onePULSE Foundation. Since she was downtown, we met and walked around Lake Eola together. I settled on this view of the fountain as my pride sketch for the year. A drone hovered above the lake.

Fireworks were slated to happen at 9 PM which gave me plenty of time to sketch the Orlando skyline. I started to put the tablet away, when the fireworks suddenly erupted with a huge series of blasts. It damn near made me jump out of my skin. The fireworks were large and beautiful and I put a few blasts on my sketch while others shot video and took cell phone photos. I often wonder what becomes of all those shots.

After the show, it was easy to walk back to my place and then slip out of downtown. Although many downtown streets were blocked off for the day, Orlando is still small enough so that I never experienced grid lock.

Weekend Top 6 Picks for October 7th and 8th.

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Saturday October 7, 2017

5 PM to 10 PM – Free. 10th Annual Zombietoberfest. Audubon Park Garden District Orlando, Florida 32803. Orlando’s original zombie festival returns, with all the dread, undead and revelry that entails. Food trucks, open air market, zombie crawl, costume contest, food and drink specials and more.

7 PM to 10 PM – $35. 10 x 10 Orlando Urban Sketching Workshop. The workshop will be held at Zombietoberfest. Urban Sketchers is celebrating 10 years by inviting sketchers from
around the world to attend ten on location workshops with an Urban
Sketching official instructor in your city! You may choose to
participate in one or more of the workshops at the following prospective
locations in Orlando.

Goals

1. Show stories from your city, one drawing at a time

2. Improve your drawing skills

3. Learn how to select, frame and design visual stories on a page

4. Learn how writing and drawing can work together to communicate more to your audience

5. Experience the advantages of group learning and seeing the many paths to success

10:30 PM to 12:30 AM Get a bite or drink. Son Flamenco. Ceviche Tapas Orlando, 125 W Church St, Orlando, FL. Hot blooded Flamenco dancers perform to live acoustic guitar.



Sunday October 8, 2017

10 AM to Noon. Free. Heartfulness Relaxation and Meditation Class. University, 5200 Vineland Rd, Orlando, FL 32811. The Method of Heartfulness A simple and practical way to experience the heart’s unlimited resources.

 2 PM to 3 PM, Free. Celebrate with Dance. Orlando Public Library 101 East Central Avenue Orlando Fl. Enjoy a lively performance of Spanish folk dances by Alborea Dances in honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month.

2 PM to 6 PM Get a drink. Halloween Hair of the Dog Day Charity Event. The Thirsty Topher

(601 Virginia Drive Orlando FL). A canine costume contest tops off a day of raffles, complimentary homemade dog treats and mingling with furry companions.
Donations will be made to the Humane Society’s disaster fund.

Orlando Urban Sketching Workshop 5 at House of Blues.

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Hurricane Irma blew the wind out of the sails of the 5th Orlando Urban Sketch Workshop that was held at the Ultimate Art Party in Tavares Florida. I decided to reschedule that class since so few artists attended. The next week we met at House of Blues in Disney Springs. When I arrived artists were already gathered at the iconic rusty water tower. We looked for a location where I could talk without the canned in Disney music. I thought we would hang out in a grassy area, but the lawn had loud speakers. We ultimately walked across the courtyard to a bunch of benches a short distance from House of Blues.

I had everyone work small on thumbnail drawings. This allowed us all to do a series of sketches rather than one long sketch. I executed this sketch quickly as everyone worked. I encouraged everyone to limit their color palettes so this sketch was just in sepia tones and then I added color later. The large cement courtyard between us and the water tower gave a good ground plane for me to explain how to populate a sketch.

We did 5 minute studies of each artist in turn as they looked at their cell phone or sketched. With all those quick sketched done I asked the artists to create a ground plane using two point perspective and then copy several of the quick 5 minute figure studies onto the grid. The figure studies were like chess pieces on a chess board. Pieces in the foreground were larger, and pieces in the background grew smaller.

Live music could be heard coming from the House of Blues, so the last exercise was to approach the music and draw the crowd gathered to listen as well  as the musicians. I executed a second tiny sketch while everyone found a spot and got to work. We then returned to the benches to see each others work and take some photos.  It was a fun night and I think the attendees age getting a feel for the excitement of working on location.

Weekend Top 6 Picks for September 2nd and 3rd.

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Saturday September 2, 2017

1PM to 4:30PM $25 at the door. The 15th Anniversary Sunburst Convention Of Celebrity Impersonators Public Showcases. The Florida Hotel & Conference Center located at The Florida Mall at 1500 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, 32809. Imagine Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, Neil Diamond, Elvis, Cher, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Justin Timberlake, Joan Rivers, Robin Williams, Lady Gaga, Barbra Streisand, Tiger Woods, Tim McGraw, Kenny Rogers, Frank Sinatra and numerous other icons of the past and present all gathered together to perform and be seen.  No, it’s not another reality show.

This year, all are invited to attend special talent showcases open to the public on Friday, September 1 and Saturday, September 2 from 1pm-4:30pm where impersonators will perform, delight and entertain the masses, featuring a special Sunburst edition of “Celebrity Match Game” and “The Tonight Show”.  Plus, guests can get their picture taken with their favorite “celebrity” during intermission and following the showcases. 

Each year, over 100 of the world’s best professional celebrity impersonators, lookalikes and tribute artists fly, drive and cruise into Orlando for the Sunburst Convention to gather, mingle, network, educate themselves and have an unforgettable time.  They are joined by numerous talent buyers, talent agents, producers and meeting planners from all over the country who are invited to watch the imitators perform live and make a lasting impression.  Sunburst features performance showcases, themed parties, an awards banquet, promotional room and tons of photo opportunities.  The general public is also invited to attend and rub elbows with the “Just About Famous” stars, and with special public access again this year, now even more spectators can enjoy the unique, fun and one-of-a-kind entertainment Sunburst has to offer.

1PM to 4PM. $35. 4th of 10 Orlando Urban Sketching Workshops. The Florida Hotel & Conference Center located at The Florida Mall at 1500 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, 32809. This workshop held at the 15th Anniversary Sunburst Convention Of Celebrity Impersonators Public Showcase will cover basic human body and facial proportions. Attendees will then sketch the Celebrity Impersonator’s Convention as illustrative journalists. Artist Thomas Thorspecken (Thor) from Analog Artist Digital World is the instructor.

In 2017 Urban Sketchers celebrates its 10 year anniversary and we want to commemorate by introducing the first year long USk program ever!
We invite all sketchers around the world to attend 10 on-location
classes with USk official instructors in a city near you to learn or
improve the core value of Urban Sketching: sketch the world, one drawing
at a time.

The program will take place in 10 classes covering three themes:

1. little stories

2. medium stories

3. great stories

 

10:30PM to 12:30AM Get food and or drink. Son Flamenco. Ceviche Tapas Orlando, 125 W Church St, Orlando, FL. Hot blooded flamenco dancers to acoustic guitar. 

Sunday September 3, 2017

10Am to Noon. Free. Heartfulness Relaxation and Meditation Class. University, 5200 Vineland Rd, Orlando, FL 32811. The Method of Heartfulness A simple and practical way to experience the heart’s unlimited resources. http://heartfulness.org.

 

Noon to 1PM Free. Yoga. Lake Eola Park near the red gazebo. 

10PM to Midnight. Free but get some coffee. Comedy Open Mic. Austin’s Coffee, 929 W Fairbanks Ave, Winter Park, FL. Free comedy show! Come out & laugh, or give it a try yourself.

First Orlando Urban Sketching Workshop at the Orlando Public Library.

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This is a very quick sketch I did in the Orlando Public Library (101 E Central Blvd, Orlando, FL 32801) at the First Orlando Urban Sketching Workshop. This  first of 10 weekly workshops focused on using simple shaped to place small intimate objects on the page.  We used the magnolia room as a studio for the first two hours.  There we sketched from busts of Abraham Lincoln and small statues of American Buffalo. We experimented with blind contour and using a simple shape to define the shape before focusing on detail.

For the last hour I sett the students free to explore the third floor of the Library. The  goal was to catch an intimate detail and I let the students interpret that as they pleased. I did quick sketches for each student offering suggestions on what to consider as their sketch progressed. Then I settled in and did this quick sketch. There wasn’t time to add color, so on this rare instance I finished the painting back at my studio days later.

We all gathered at the rainbow of books at the end off a hallway for a group photo with everyone holding up their favorite sketch. I am having fun creating worksheets and course materials for these 10 workshops. The Worldwide Urban Sketchers organization was founded 10 years ago and they are celebrating by offering 10 long term workshops at cities around the world. The goal is to encourage more artists to carry sketchbooks and discover the world, one drawing at a time.

Orlando Urban Sketching Workshop 2 at Dixon Toconderoga.

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The second Orlando Urban Sketching Workshop was held at Dixon Ticonderoga‘s headquarters (615 Crescent Executive Ct #500, Lake Mary, FL 32746). Dixon Ticonderoga is best known for making those ubiquitous 2B yellow pencils that you will find being used in most classrooms and many artists studios, mine included. It was a rainy afternoon on a Friday but all the attendees braved the weather and rush hour traffic. Rachel Fox, Dixon’s Public Relations and Social Media Coordinator greeted us in the lobby and guided us to a small classroom set up on the first floor. The room is clearly for younger students with bright picnic tables and a salt water fish tank in the corner, but it suited us just fine.

Rachel showed us some of the art products we would be able to play with and then escorted us upstairs to the Ticonderoga museum and curator, executive assistant Donna Cochran, who offered us a brief tour of the art work that the company has collected over its 200 year history. The jewel of the collection is a Norman Rockwell painting that was one of 3 paintings stolen from the Ticonderoga offices in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1975. This one painting titled “Grandfather and Grandson.” was later recovered by police but the other two have yet to be found. The painting has since been cleaned and is worth an estimated 4 million dollars.

In the museum was an old green machine with a hopper that was used to sharpen pencils. The pencils would be rolled over a cylinder of sandpaper. Our time in the museum was limited, so we all immediately set about sketching artifacts and the scene. Everyone was encouraged to take photos of some of the incredible artwork created using the Ticonderoga pencils.

Dixon is one of America’s oldest companies, created by a merger of the
Joseph Dixon Crucible Corp. with the Bryn Mawr Corp., a Pennsylvania
company dating back to 1794 when the company built the first highway in America between Philadelphia and Lancaster. The highway was 62 miles long.  Joseph Dixon began making pencils in the
1830s. Dixon used Cedar wood from Cedar key until the supply ran out. Graphite was mined from the town of Ticonderoga in Upstate New York. During the Civil War, soldiers needed pencils so they could write home. Quill pens with ink weren’t a good option to be used on a battle field. In the early years, machines turned out 86,000 pencils a day. The company also made wooden boxes for the model T when it was first rolled off the assembly line. The crayon company willed this automotive order from 1914 until the 1960s. The Dixon Ticonderoga company has since expanded to include other art supplies
like Prang, Das, Oriole, Lyra, Daler Rowney, and Canson.

Back in the classroom, we put watercolor on the sketched since wet media wasn’t allowed in the museum. I handed out workshop material that covered one, two and three point perspective, I invited everyone to take one of the sketches from the collection and do a sketch that showed the horizon and vanishing point used by the artist. I also asked them to take one item from the collection and interpret it 3 different ways using the three different perspectives. We were encouraged to use Dixon art supplies and at the end we each were given a Canson sketchbook. Students were asked to write an article about the experience and share it on the Orlando Urban Sketcher’s Facebook group page. Each of these workshops is a new adventure. Each attendee is quickly becoming an Orlando sketch correspondent.

The Third Orlando Urban Sketching Workshop will be at the Orange County Regional History Center on August 19th starting at 6PM. We will be sketching models of Historic Orange county architecture to further hone our perspective and composition skills. Tickets are $35 and available from Eventbrite.

The First of 10 Orlando Urban Sketching Workshops.

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The first of 10 X 10 Orlando Urban Sketching Workshops was held at the Orlando Public Library (101 E Central Blvd, Orlando, FL 32801) in the Magnolia Room. The brutalist style architecture of the building makes it feel like it belongs in a futuristic non-Utopian society as in George Orwell’s 1984. Classical music is pumped into the lobby and when the automatic doors open, you can feel a rush of inviting cold air hit you as you walk by.

Urban Sketchers is celebrating 10 years by inviting sketchers from
around the world to attend ten on location workshops with an Urban
Sketching official instructor! The 10 workshops will cover three themes:

1. Little Stories.

2. Medium Stories.

3. Great Stories.

The Goals of the progressive workshops are to:
1. Show stories from Orlando, one drawing at a time

2. Improve drawing skills

3. Learn how to select, frame and design visual stories on a page

4. Learn how writing and drawing can work together to communicate more to your audience

5. Experience the advantages of group learning and seeing the many paths to success

For the first workshop I started with simple shapes like squares, circles, and triangles. We sketched the simple shapes and then sketched them as dimensional objects on the page. The most important building block to understand for me is the cube and we sketched it from all different angles as if it were dice on a roulette table. We then softened the edges of the cube and stretched, bent and twisted the shapes on the page. Being able to sketch that form from any angle is critical.

We then focused on contour drawing by doing blind contours before more controlled contour drawing of Abe Lincoln statues and buffalo statues. We then focused on producing a more finished still life of our art supplies. We used watercolor for the first time and I offered sketch suggestions to each student as their work was in progress.

 The library sketch with all the computers shown above was broken down into simple shapes. We left the classroom and found small intimate things to sketch throughout the library. The goal of each sketch was that the object chosen should have a story. As part of the workshop each student is encouraged to write about their experience and post those articles on the Urban Sketch Workshop Group page on Facebook. I am excited about the line up of venues that is coming up. We will be sketching exhibits and historic building models at the Orange County Regional History Center, the Ticonderoga Museum which is devoted to the humble pencil, a Celebrity Impersonators Convention, Zombietoberfest, the Creative City Project and Skeletons at The Museum of Osteology. By the end of the 10 workshops, I hope to have helped inspire some new Urban Sketch Correspondents.