At the wonderful TBD Italy conference in Rimini week before last, I had little time to sketch! Our days were busy from 8am to bedtime! But I managed a few drawings, mostly made during talks, and here they are.
Backs of heads, fronts of heads, people sitting, earnest speakers making important points and opining!
And, oh, yes... profiles!
There were dozens of indoor and outdoor booths. Here's one of the latter, drawn while I was waiting for my buddies to meet me for lunch:
You can see I ended up using mostly pen and wash at the conference. One brush pen sketch I made was a bust, so I ditched it for the rest of the trip. I was busy and I had to make each sketching minute count!
I have more sketches from the second part of the trip... mountains and food, mostly. To try to capture the magnificence of the majestic Dolomite mountains in a tiny 4" x 6" sketchbook was daunting, to say the least.
More about this next time and more sketches, too.
Here's a sample, though. Quick and loose, Cretacolor oil pencil and wash: the view above Vipiteno, the northernmost town in Italy.
I fell in love, love, love with the Italian Alps. They brought back beautiful memories of childhood trips to the Swiss and French Alps... they are the same and they are very different. Ahhh.
I am deeply grateful to the organizers and sponsors of TBD Italy 2104 for hosting me! I met so many charming people who are now new friends and I learned so much about the travel industry in Italy and beyond. I became clearer about what it is I do as a blogger and why. It was a priceless experience in very many ways.
Thank you so much, Kate, Lucy, and Sue. Lucy, I was surprised to learn that travel blogging is such a big phenomenon now. While other blogs are perhaps slowing both in numbers and in numbers of posts, travel blogs seem to be proliferating. Sue, you are the nomadic artist par excellence, so your blog has that double attractiveness. Lucy, I have seen the ways your blog and mine have evolved over the years, of course, and I am happy with the current situation with mine. I hope to post more frequently and I think I will in 2015, but we are what we are. I am so grateful that you are still there. You are a haven for so many of us. And the same can be said of Cathy Johnson's blog and work.
Posted by: Laura | October 31, 2014 at 05:15 PM
Oh, what a wonderful experience! I am so glad you had the opportunity and that you share it so generously with us. Glorious, glorious sketches...
Posted by: Cathy Johnson (Kate) | October 28, 2014 at 07:43 PM
The people sketches are funny and full of character; looking forward to more miniatures of mountains!
It's good to know, when so many seem to be predicting the decline of blogging, and for many others of us, that it's a continuing but well worn part of our lives, without the initial drive and excitement that it once had, that perhaps it is simply changing and refining its purposes, and the best may be yet to be, who knows!
Posted by: Lucy | October 28, 2014 at 08:59 AM
Great people sketches!
Posted by: Sue Pownall | October 27, 2014 at 07:32 AM