Goodbye to November

With fewer plein air outings in the last month I've been catching up on finishing paintings I've had sitting around for some time.  And here's one that I think has a nice November feel about it.  Thought I'd get this in before we switch to snow paintings.

Tom Gilbert

Urban Sketchers Madison

Here are links to the blogs for the regional chapter in Madison and the international sketching group, Urban Sketchers: drawmadison.blogspot.com., www.urbansketchers.org/  .  I'm one of the administrators for the Madison group and we sketch on the 2nd Sunday of the month (except December) and occasional Saturdays as well.  Our schedule can be found on the Events calendar on our blog.  Our group began in 2011 and was called Draw Madison until last spring when we were invited to join Urban Sketchers as a regional chapter.  The group is open to anyone who likes to draw from life and there are no dues.  In warm weather we like to sketch outdoors but in winter we sketch in places like coffee shops, museums and Olbrich Garden's conservatory.  Sketchers use a variety of mediums from graphite and ink to watercolor and soft pastel.  It is much like plein air painting in that we draw from life what is going on around us.   Check out the Urban Sketchers blog to see interesting sketches from all over the globe.  Next summer the annual symposium for Urban Sketchers will be held in Chicago July 25-29.  It has not been in the US since the first one was held in Portland in 2010 so we are pretty excited and looking forward to meeting some of our favorite artists and attending their workshops. We hope you will join us sometime this winter when it's too cold to be painting en plein air!