Ever since the Urban Sketchers Chicago organized the International USk Symposium in 2017, they held the Sketch Seminar, as an annual celebration of the city’s love for sketching. This year I’m thrilled to teach two workshops among fellow Chicagoan sketchers!

With the highrise skyline as a set, the busy streets as extras, we’ll seek out the main stories of Chicago and tell them economically and intuitively. It will be a revamp of the workshop I taught in the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Poznan

Sketch Like Theater: Show Less Tell More

Reality is overwhelmingly rich with details, but we don’t usually sketch it like that. We simplify, we refocus, we interpret! When we learn how to break down reality into simpler building blocks, our attention is enhanced. We perceive the world around us in a different way!

In this workshop we’ll explore one way to visually simplify the world and commit it to our sketchbooks. We will see how large washes of watercolor become shapes that mimic buildings and elements of landscape, akin to setting the stage ready for a theater play. We will overlay other shapes as shadows, shedding light on the true focus of the sketch. Finally, we will explore the ink pen as a tool to outline and detail the architectural features, the people and all the different elements that imbue life in the streets, much like actors and props achieve that on stage.

A sketch starts on a blank page. A theater play starts on a dark stage. Both artforms tell great stories by adding as little as possible, interpreting as much as can be, and by playing with our perception of reality, giving us back an enjoyable and immersive narrative that ends up playing a part in our inner world.

• We’ll use large watercolor washes to suggest forms and shadows—letting the mind fill in the rest.

• We’ll bring life to the streets with ink outlines and details—like a stage filled with actors and props.
  And just as important as what we sketch… is what we leave out. Blank spaces give breath to the composition and invite imagination to complete the story.

• Sketching isn’t about capturing everything—it’s about capturing what matters.

Ready to see the world differently? Get your spot in Sketch like theater: show less, tell more and fill your sketchbook with awesome stories!

Registration will be Saturday, March 14, 2026 at 9AM