Virtually Workshopped

This week I taught my first virtual workshop, via Zoom, for the DePaul Art Museum. We had about 20 participants from around the country, and we talked about Sketching Your Day. 
I introduced Sketching Your Day by talking about the three main points below. I feel like this is a magical combination for keeping up your practice.

These sketches of onions and lemons are from the run-throughs I did, first by myself and then with friends. First we talk about drawing to understand to get to know our subject. Drawing to record includes adding context to your sketch. In the sketch above, the color comes in when we talk about adding one or two colors for emphasis.
I sketched all of these with either a Pigma Graphic 1 or a Uni-ball Micro. I also sketched all of them at a more extreme angle than I normally would because of my camera setup - I used an overhead camera so that everyone could watch as a drew and could see the object. But I love the wonky angles I ended up with in the sketches.

These sketches are from the class - more onions and lemons, and, as always, a coffee cup. In the top coffee cup sketch, I was talking about laying out what you'll sketch with large, general shapes. I've been doing that recently and find that just a couple of seconds of thinking about placement and proportions keeps me from getting frustrated by running out of room or having too much room - especially since I'm using a larger sketchbook lately.

It was all such a fun experience, although I was surprisingly nervous just before the class. Luckily sketching also helps to calm my nerves - it's like sketching is the antidote for every bad thing!
Once I got on Zoom I was fine and enjoyed every minute of the class. It was fun to see friends and family as well as unfamiliar faces all studiously sketching onions and lemons with me!
I will definitely be doing more of these in some way, so stay tuned for more information about that once I figure it out. You can also check out the virtual "handout" for the class on Instagram - go to my account (@elizabethalley) and click on the story highlights titled Materials, Books, and Follow.