Anne Watkins Workshop

If sketching at Governors Island wasn't enough, several of us were scheduled to take a workshop sponsored by the NYC Urban Sketchers with Anne Watkins starting at 6pm in Bryant Park. My friend, Suzala's husband, Rick, was a prince and had driven us into the city in the morning and spent the day with us at Governors Island. Then he drove us uptown for the workshop. The workshop was on doing fast gestures of people with watercolors. Anne works with flat brushes, something that I generally don't use. She wanted us to paint our subject in large blocks of color softening with water where the shoulder or back turned away. We used very little detail and she wanted us to use mass not line. I had a very hard time not using line, but I did my best. Here are a few that I thought were successful, although Anne thought I still used too much line. Since we didn't start until 6 it was really getting dark by the time the workshop was nearly over. We wrapped up about 7:45.

A woman in a colorful sari was sitting near a man who was on his cell phone.

My friend, Rayle was working nearby.

Paula was close by painting too.

Suzala was working on her gesture sketches.

A man on his cell phone was nearby...a good model.

Olivia was painting near the wall overlooking the park.

Here is a photo of Anne Watkins doing her demo.

All in all, it was an interesting method, but since I don't want to paint exactly like someone else, I will use some of her ideas, but I'm happy using line to show the shape too.