Capturing intangibles - with Fred Lynch

Choosing Fred Lynch's workshop was another no-brainer for me. His lecture at last year's symposium was so inspiring that I immediately started following his work and when I saw he was teaching a workshop this year I didn't want to miss it.

The complete title of the workshop was Capturing intangibles: Exercises in creating meaningful sketches. "Meaningful sketches" - that's what attracted me here. How to turn a simple depiction of reality into something more.

For our first exercise we were given one of three words: historic, romantic or strange. We were to head out in search of a subject that would express the word we were given.

This is the sketch I did for that exercise. Can you guess what word it was?*

This house had many lovely balconies

At the end of the exercise, everyone had to leave their sketchbook for others to place in the right category (historic, romantic or strange). Fred would then comment on each of the sketches, pointing out what worked well and why some sketches didn't work out as planned.

I'm happy to say that mine was interpreted correctly.

For the second round, we could choose one of the two remaining words. I chose "strange" this time.

The house was known as Pineapple House

Unfortunately, this one was not read correctly and people put it in the same pile as previously. I guess choosing the same subject was a risky move, but I had done it on purpose. Fred pointed out that it might have been interpreted differently had I left a bit of the door less defined.

I agree with that. In spite of the fact that I tried to sketch the subject in a "stranger way" and not to put too much detail in my sketch I ended up overworking it.

This workshop forced me to think about what message I wanted to convey in my work and how - something I never think about. It's a bit tricky to do for me, in particular because when I work for myself, without an assignment that is, I very rarely try to give a meaning to what I draw. I just go with the flow mostly or try to be as accurate as possible, if I'm in a mood to be more realistic.

So the main concept I will remember from his workshop is WHAT MESSAGE DO I WANT TO CONVEY IN MY SKETCH?

 *If you thought "romantic", yay for you! And for me for a job well done :)