Blog, Architectural Illustration, Sketching, Travel, and Workshops | Stephanie Bower, Seattle WA
Dreaming of travel and sketching next year? Me too!!! To give you a taste for my workshop planned for beautiful Seville, Spain, May 17-21, 2022, I’m presenting a sketching demo and live discussion with tour organizer Brenda Murray this coming Sunday. The subject: an amazing courtyard in the Real Alcázar de Sevilla, a place we will visit during the workshop!
This demo is open to all. To register for this free online event, go here. Nos vemos en Sevilla!
Registration for 2022 travel sketching workshops is OPEN. We are just itching to get out there and sketch the world, right? Here is the schedule so far, with more workshops likely to be added:
Seville, Spain | May 17-22, 2022 | Andalusia is the very heart and soul of Spain, one of my favorite countries on the planet. Where Spanish meets Moorish architecture (Game of Thrones was filmed here), we’ll sketch cool courtyards, ornate towers, meandering streets, and eat the best tapas you’ve ever had! Info here or contact Stephanie at stbower@comcast.net.
Civita di Bagnoregio, Italy | June 2022, finalized dates to follow. No cars, just walk up the pedestrian bridge to an island in the clouds. Once you pass through the Porta Santa Maria, you enter a tiny magical town of Medieval stone streets, Renaissance palazzos, warm people and amazing food (how about a rosemary/orange tiramisu?). We’ll sketch it all, from the lovely church on the piazza to an Etruscan cave. For information, contact Stephanie at stbower@comcast.net.
Croatian Coast (Dubrovnik, Split, Zadar + Zagreb) | September 12-22, 2022 | Imagine the most beautiful water you’ve ever seen, white limestone streets and buildings, one of the most picturesque old cities on the planet dating back to the Romans (there’s a reason Game of Thrones was filmed here too!) I was here in September 2019 and was completely blown away and HAD to return to this sketcher’s paradise. Eleven, yes, eleven days of sketching, organized by French Fusion tours. Info here or contact Stephanie at stbower@comcast.net.
Please join me!!!
Join us to sketch at Daniel Smith Fine Artists’ Materials store in Seattle in the Sodo neighborhood, this Sunday, September 5 at 10am. We will sketch as a way to remember this wonderful store and say THANK YOU to the amazing staff. Please post your sketches, photos, stories, thank you’s to them at #thankyoudanielsmithstoreseattle on Instagram.
Yes, it’s been terribly long since I posted to this blog! Sincere apologies for the absence. I am fine, my family is fine. So where have I been? The answer is WRITING A BOOK! Yes, it will be my third book, and it is HUGE. I can’t go into details yet, but just know that I stopped my day job and teaching back in April to get it up and running. More on this in the future, and on to the business at hand…
Yes, tragically, the center of our creative and arts community, the Daniel Smith Store and mothership is closing. It has been closed throughout the pandemic, although I’m happy to report that they retained ALL their full-time staff by moving them from sales to paint production, which is BOOMING. They are now the top seller of paint in the world! But I have many memories from this place and the wonderful staff who became friends…book signing opportunities, workshops from amazing people from around the globe, not to mention the beautiful, tall, sunlit space with aisles to explore and tools that you could actually hold in your hand and even test before you bought them. Gone are those days. But here are two ways to say THANK YOU for all they have done for us over the years.
2. Post your sketch on Instagram, or any sketch or photo you have–maybe of a workshop you took–and story you’d like to tell, or even just say “Thank you” and then tag #thankyoudanielsmithstoreseattle so that the staff can read all the stories and know how much they are appreciated.
And as for my sketches, I’ve done a few and will go back in time and post a few…like the day it was 108 degrees out and I was sleeping on the basement floor…? Hope everyone is well.
PS, I’ll be personally signing copies of my 101 Sketching Tips book there on Sunday!
Dates are set, the new sessions are about to start! Registration opens promptly on Wednesday, January 6 at 10am Seattle time.
UNDERSTANDING PERSPECTIVE | LIVE online masterclasses in perspective sketching made easy with Stephanie Bower
Understanding Perspective is a LIVE online course that makes perspective sketching easy! I’m Urban Sketcher, workshop instructor, architectural illustrator, and author Stephanie Bower, and I’m excited to offer this course to anyone wanting to finally understand how perspective works. Perspective is easy when you know what to look for!
This course is a live, interactive 6-part online class taught via Zoom in which you’ll learn by drawing along with me in real time. In each class, we’ll take notes and sketch together as I present perspective concepts in a crafted PowerPoint presentation, then we will apply those concepts in a step-by-step sketching demo that we will draw and paint together. Yes, you’ll learn lots about watercolor technique too! And like an in-person workshop, you’ll see me work up close, and I’ll answer your questions LIVE.
Understanding Perspective
++++++++++ WORKSHOP FEE
Understanding Perspective: Classes 1-6, Workshop fee is US$325.00
Included are 6 classes + Tech Check/Intro to Materials, crits during the classes, personalized crits and markups via email on the optional homework assignments, and access to view the class recordings. I’ll send you Notes before each class, and after class, I’ll send scans of the completed demo for your reference.
Workshop fees are payable by check or Zelle for US participants or by PayPal for international participants. Info will be sent to all registered participants.
++++++++++ DATES AND TIMES
Session 1: Sundays at 9am Seattle time (12noon New York, 6pm Paris) for 6 weeks. January 17, 24, 31, February 7, 14, 21
Session 2: Tuesdays at 4pm Seattle time (7pm New York; 11am Wednesdays in Sydney, Australia) for 6 weeks. January 19, 26, February 2, 9, 16, 23. Note: this class content is particularly targeted to beginning sketchers. If you are new to sketching, please sign up for this session.
++++++++++ HOW TO REGISTER
Registration opens promptly on Wednesday, January 6 at 10am Seattle time. Email Stephanie at stephaniebower.workshops@gmail.com at that time, and be sure to indicate which session you’d like, Sundays or Tuesdays (beginners).
++++++++++ QUESTIONS?
Sadly due to the pandemic, we cannot sketch together live on location just yet. This will be the next best thing as you join me in my tiny studio and we work from carefully selected photos with the understanding that ultimately, the course is about location sketching. In some ways, you’ll see the demos BETTER than when done in person, as Zoom will allow you to look at my sketches up close.
I’ve created these classes to mirror a real college course. Most of the information is delivered through detailed PowerPoint presentations that I’ve developed. I’ll pause throughout the presentation so that you can draw and take notes, and I will sketch along with you as well. After the PowerPoint and a short break, we’ll apply the concepts learned to an actual live demo. I’ll draw and paint a scene step-by-step so that you can also draw and paint with me at the same time. And before each class, I’ll email participants a worksheet that they can print out and use for notetaking or simply to help them follow along.
YES, I love teaching beginners! If you are new to perspective, or simply want to improve your knowledge and skills, this class is for you. The Tuesday afternoon session is particularly targeted to new and beginning sketchers.
YES! Even seasoned sketchers will benefit from seeing this approach and for the deep and detailed dives into architectural elements like multiple vanishing points, ellipses, and domes. I’ll also show lots of shortcuts to sketching complex subjects in simple ways.
Yes, but homework is optional. I’ll provide a few images at the end of each class that you can work on at home and at your own pace. I’ve created a private Facebook group where you can share your sketches and homework with others in the courses.
You will need a computer or laptop to do this course. A phone or tablet will not work.
You’ll need your basic sketching equipment, including watercolors. I’ll email participants a list of supplies.
Use the largest screen and best wifi connection available to you! You will also want the newest equipment possible with the best camera so that we can see your work well.
You will need to have the free online download ZOOM downloaded onto your computer (ideal) or laptop. Instructions on how to join the live class will be emailed to all registered participants each week.
I’ll schedule a Tech Check on Zoom the Saturday before classes start so that everyone knows how to access Zoom’s “side-by-side” viewing mode. I’ll also go over the art materials we’ll use in the class and talk , including how to mix my “Magic Gray”.
The biggest difference between this class and Craftsy and my books is that this is LIVE instruction! You can ask questions and I’ll answer in the moment. Most of this content is brand new, and doing the live demo together at the end of each class will cement the concepts you are learning.
Yes, recordings will be available for viewing (not downloading) after each class. These have proven to be extremely helpful for participants who prefer to work slowly or who have to miss a class.
Definitely! I intend to keep offering Understanding Perspective. If you have suggestions for days and times that might work better, please let me know. The plan is to also add new courses, such as sketching interiors. So stay tuned!
Thanks so much for your interest in this course! I hope to see you on Zoom!
I hope to see you soon on Zoom! And Happy New Year!!
A picture is worth a thousand words. Sending best my wishes to all on this New Year’s Day for a healthy, prosperous, and bloomin’ creative 2021. Good will emerge from these difficult times, hang in there!
Yes, I think I was probably born to teach. As I prepare for the next round of online workshops, I realize that teaching these classes is getting me through the isolation of this pandemic. I’m so grateful to the many folks from around the world who have joined me to learn about perspective and watercolor from the comfort (and safety) of our own homes. I hope that these classes are helping you too.
I also think back to how I started teaching. You may be surprised to learn that for most of my 5 years of architecture school, I was not particularly good at drawing. Before entering our 4th year in the program, our portfolios were reviewed by 3 professors, and you had to pass this review in order to move on. In my review, two professors literally wrote “weak graphic skills”. I was so discouraged, especially after already investing 3 years in college, but I turned it around and took it as a challenge to do better. And wow, look what happened! I clearly remember struggling with learning how to draw, and it’s that struggle that helps me be a better teacher today.
But this isn’t how I actually started teaching…after graduating with my 5 year architecture degree from UT Austin (as Valedictorian, no less–HA, that will teach the architect who discouraged me from going saying women shouldn’t be in architecture!!!!), I moved to NYC to attend graduate school in Interior Design at Pratt in Brooklyn. I arrived without ever seeing the place and knowing no one. Coming from an architecture degree, I placed out of the required drawing courses, which helped me to find time to work (I had an entry level job at HOK in Rockefeller Center–every time I see the Christmas tree on TV, I remember seeing it out the window from work!)
My fellow classmates, however, had to take the drawing classes which were unfortunately taught by a teacher who didn’t actually teach. He would take them outside and simply let them loose and say, “Draw.” Now this method could work if you have a lot of time, but the trial and error involved is too quickly discouraging. So… they came to me and asked me if I could teach them!!!! I went to the department chair, who said that due to union rules, I couldn’t “teach”, so we started a “Sketching Club”. Twice a week, they would meet me for lunch and I’d project slides and teach them to draw the way that I was taught in architecture school. I loved it.
The year after finishing grad school, I started teaching at Parsons in the Environmental Design/Architecture program, then I was asked by Tim Gunn (yes, that Tim Gunn) to be the first hire for the new Interior Design program they were putting together. I ended up teaching at Parsons for 10 years. We moved to Seattle, where I taught briefly with Frank Ching at the University of Washington, then a number of years at Cornish College of the Arts, the Parsons of the Northwest. Once my dad got sick, I left teaching university and started the travel workshop life, thanks in large part to Urban Sketchers (I just sent in my annual donation, nudge nudge.) I’ve been so incredibly fortunate to have parallel careers in teaching and architecture/illustration my entire adult life.
As this terrible year comes to a close, I find myself grateful for so many things in life, including the ability to teach during a global pandemic. Who knew? Teaching fills some inner need to share and pass on what I have learned, to see the light bulb of understanding illuminate in someone’s eyes. It’s why I always ask, “What was your ah-ha moment?” Mine is that teaching teaches the teacher so much. Thank you to every single student over the many years for what you’ve taught me.
I get quite emotional looking at these photos. I love teaching so much, and I love the friends I see in these photos, friends made along the way. I miss you all. Let’s hope for some in-person 3-D learning and travel in a better 2021!
It’s been dark outside in the cold of winter, which makes the bits of light inside our home glow a little brighter! Thank goodness, we’ve passed our annual “hump day” and the days are getting a little longer bit by bit. We really feel it this far north in Seattle.
Welcome to our circa 1911 living room. For those of you who have taken my workshops, you’ll see an underpainting of yellow ochre with a mostly washes of Magic Gray in this sketch! My favorite bit: the table top and my shell collection in the lower left.
From our home to yours, I hope you are cozy and well!
One more class to go in the current course of six “Understanding Perspective” classes! I have LOVED teaching these LIVE Zoom classes and “meeting” so many people from all over the world… Afghanistan, Australia, UK, USA, Canada, Malaysia, Holland, Dubai, and even Tanzania! These classes and connecting with other sketchers who want to learn more about perspective and painting is what is keeping me sane during this pandemic isolation, and I think the same goes for the workshop participants too. I am so grateful to these groups of wonderful, eager students — I can’t thank you enough!
That said, this is no mere workshop, but more of a deep dive college course into all kinds of perspective topics. The first three classes focus on general perspective sketching and watercolor with a one hour Powerpoint interactive lecture followed by a 2+ hour demo that we sketch and paint together. But it’s the second set of three classes that really cements things… multiple vanishing points (like in the Piazza San Marco in Venice), unpacking how ellipses work in perspective (they defy common sense!), and using ellipses and circles to accurately draw arches (do you know why arches typically have big feet?), like in the demo sketch from class shown above. Next week we “look up” to sketch domes and towers!
We learn how to paint in layers, starting with an underpainting of warm “solids” and cool “voids”. Then there is the wonderful glow of bounced light that we get from Daniel Smith’s Quinacridone Burnt Orange, together with my “Magic Gray”! You get to see what I am drawing and painting from about 10″ away–you have a better view than I do! And we go into lots of detail, with no question unanswered.
Some want to take the course a second time, and the first groups wanted the classes to continue, so we added three more sessions to make it a course of NINE classes! I’m planning on launching another series of classes again in January 2021. Stay tuned for more information~~
In Seattle, we’ve had some nice days mixed with a lot of gray. The day before Halloween was a beautiful day, so I ventured into our local cemetery to sketch this tree that caught my eye weeks before. I’ve lived in this neighborhood since 1990, but I had never gone past the tall hedges and inside until recently.
I’m usually a stickler for painting on location BUT, I had forgotten my water and paints, so I just finished it yesterday at home. Such a remarkable tree, I hope to sketch it again in the future. By the way, the entire cluster in the center was painted in one pass, varying color as I went along. I went back and added a few strokes for extra texture.
Drawing Perspectives 