An Honor...and a Touching Educational Experience: Our Invitation to Sketch at the Pierce County World Aids Day Event

On the evening of Thursday,  December 1st, 2016 Urban Sketchers from USk-Tacoma were honored to be invited to sketch during the World Aids Day Program which took place at the Washington State History Museum. Kate Buike, earlier this month, submitted an article, her sketches, and her photographs from that evening.

Since I just received an email which is directed to all of our attending sketchers-- I thought I'd pass it along. It is wonderful in these troubled times to be able to offer some small support with our art to members of our wider-community, and I hope our group is invited to other such opportunities in the coming year. If we are, we will post them as Ad Hoc Sketch-Outings, in case you would like to join other sketchers who would like to support folks who are standing up for and working on various issues.

This type of sketching offers an opportunity to do the type of Urban Sketching called 'reportage.' Urban Sketcher Thomas Thorspecken has an excellent book called "Urban Sketching: the Complete Guide to Techniques." Thomas does an excellent job teaching techniques...AND...in his personal life devotes his sketching time to reportage. There are a lot of his sketches in his book, probably needless to say. In the book's Forward, Thomas says, "The more you get out to sketch events, the more you will become a citizen reporter." I highly recommend his book...and the adventure of reportage.

Here are the sketches I did that evening. The first one is of a lovely display in honor of World Aids Day and in remembrance of those who have lost their lives to AIDS over all the years, and those who are today living with HIV. The second sketch is of one row in the audience: Everyone was listening  raptly to an educational presentation by a group of High School Students. 

Best Regards,

Frances Buckmaster