The final day of the event was Sketch walk in Shinjuku-gyoen park. Since it might have been cold day, I have set the time from 13:00~15:00, however, the weather was so good and pretty warm that I regret later to set the time so short. Anyway, this day we sketch freely, no rules. Each one enjoyed and discovered the place through sketching with their own way! In total 18 people gathered! Amber and Mario on the turf. Wiltfried and Peggy. A lady who kept observing me (and said she loved drawing, and she wants to start drawing again), and Joel was drawing me. She kindly held my sketchbook while I was taking a photo of my drawing. I wanted to include those lying handsome young guys, so I chose this composition. But they recognized my drawing of them and left sooner. This is at most depiction ( almost an afterimage.) The trees behind are very interesting. I think they are a kind of pine tree. But they have very smooth texture on the trunk. Naoko's lovely vertical p

This day we have panel discussion in an auditorium of Chiba University horticulture department. First, Maria gave us short talk of her story, how she discover the meanings and use of Urban sketching. Why she start sketching; why she kept sketching after coming to Japan as a student; how she found meaning of sketching in the regional activity; how she found Urban Sketchers/ Urban Sketchers Japan; how she incorporate sketching in her study as well as this event program, things like that. Then followed by talks by Richard Alomar, Peggy Wong, Mario Linhares, and Professor Isami Kinoshita. The topic is mainly about role and value of sketching, they showed concrete examples through their profession, project, experiences such as workshop, recording heritage, sketch tour, social media sharing, research program, etc. Then we had Q and A time. Lively discussion continued. One question was “What can we do when to attract people who feel intimidated because they think they are bad at drawin

Day 2, Feb 12th ( Monday) This day, Maria led us. We ( all of us) were to lined up and stand one side of the road, face the view seen across the street and sketch it for seven minutes. Then we cross the road to face the opposite side to sketch for another seven minutes, so you can make two sketches at one location. We repeated this six times as we proceed. We drew a pair of sketches of one location on a sheet, with the manner just like we learned the other day by Richard: description, detailed partial drawing, and whole image. This was a quite “scales fall off from eyes” experience to me. Something you think you've seen and known are actually not what you really know that much. It was just like rediscover the both side of the same coin which usually we don't care which side is which and what kind of subject is depicted. I myself find how characteristic each and every precinct, house, public building is, it seems there is no rules regarding public appearance. So disorder

Thanks to Maria, one of blog author of USK Japan blog, an international graduate student of Horticulture Department in Chiba University, energetic, skilled, with full of new idea, selflessly strived to make the first 4-day sketch event to happen in Japan in collaboration with Urban Sketchers executive board members, Professor Kinoshita from Chiba University, at Matsudo local community building where she lives and manages, and University lecture hall as well.( I also thank her partner who also helped a lot in may ways!) Day 1, Feb 9th (Friday) This day, an Executive Board member Richard Alomar, AKA New York Sketcher, gave us sketch drill from 13:00〜15:00. Participants were to make quick sketches of following 3 types of visual records in a page that is divided into three parts: 1, description with words ( annotation, remark, words, how you feel, what you see, etc) 2, partial detail that you find important or interesting in the scene you see. 3, not detailed but whole image of