Genoa-Lisboa Sketch Connection

February: Waterfront / Fevereiro: Beira-mar

The waterfront of Lisboa, on the Tejo river, is 17km long, but for many years, most of it was only partially accessible and difficult to get to. Between shipping containers, port equipment and the railway line along the shore towards the ocean, just a few spots were available to promenade. Nowadays, the city is improving its relationship with the river, and giving the waterfront back to its citizens.

I saw flashbacks from the 2011 Lisbon Symposium, which, at a distance, looked really tiny. I saw these past ten years that changed my life completely, and I saw the main role that the urban sketchers had in that change!

It’s been a month now since Marina Grechanik’s workshop in Lisboa and it’s still kicking in. I’ve been experimenting a lot with ecolines, waterwashes as sketching base, big contrasts and form simplification.

Last week, Liz Steel and Marc Taro Holmes challenged sketchers worldwide to spend a workweek sketching one hundred people.

Thousands of people took the challenge worldwide. Liz and Marc can be proud that they made the world sketch quickly and loosely for a single week.