Day 2: Urban Sketching Symposium, Portland Oregon USA

I had a wonderful time sketching with fellow artists at Urban Sketching Symposium in July 2010. I drew so much that I decided to break up the posts into small chunks, which will be under "Urban Sketching Symposium" label here. More drawings from fellow sketchers at Urban Sketching Symposium are at their blog.
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Day 2: more time for sketching field trips!

I took the morning session on Urban Line led by Lapin. We went to the Steel Bridge - which definitely has a lot of lines. While I concentrated on getting the "gesture" of the bridge, I took Gabi's advice on drawing things that don't move first and wait for the right moment to draw something that happens fast - in this case, underside of the bridge moves up and down like an elevator to let ships pass through, so I waited until a barge passed under it to draw that portion. I colored the barge gray later to make it stand apart from all the lines.

Next session was on Urban Composition, led by Gabi Campanario. We went to Pioneer Courthouse Square. On this day, there happened to be a summertime outdoor movie event called Flicks on the Bricks, and a large inflatable screen was set up. Part of the appeal about sketching on location is chancing upon an event, and being part of the event by drawing it. I tried multiple drawings to describe the scene.

On this drawing, Frank Ching and Gabi pointed out that I should leave the blank space on the bottom of my sketchbook as is because it tells the viewer where I was in relation to the people and objects in the sketch. I never noticed that before - thank you for a great suggestion!