Don Colley Workshop

Kate watching Don Colley illustrating people drawing through his sketchbooks.

I had a rare opportunity to be a student today at the Don Colley Workshop. We gathered this morning in the classroom at Daniel Smith, Inc.

But FIRST!! Look at the swag we got from Faber-Castell!

Thank you, Faber-Castell and Dan Smith, Inc. for the generous box of drawing stuff!

Don started us out with pages from his sketchbooks, demonstrating some fascinating techniques he uses with Faber-Castell marking pens. Check out his masterful technique through his video demonstrations here. Then we moved outdoors, to Alki Beach. Brrrrr!

Don teaching at Alki Beach.

I walked a ways down the sidewalk and saw two brave guys from the Fruit Chatter Box Food Truck who were setting up on the beach. I did my sketch while they set up and they took a photo of it when I was done!

 

I am told that as long as your head and chest are bundled up you can go ahead and wear your shorts, no problem!

It's 12:15 and our teeth are chattering by now, so we all walked down the avenue to Pegasus Pizza & Pasta for lunch. They fixed us right up, with delicious food and great service all at a big long table. Don decided to illustrate some basic measurements on the human head......his head!

Not forgetting about the Seahawks game that we were all missing, Don puts on his game face.

Back out for afternoon drawing on the beach! I had gotten accustomed to being warm during lunch and it seemed that the wind chill factor had inhumanely increased and whitecaps were really kicking up now. I couldn't believe that some people wore shorts and light shirts out there!

All the workshop participants had multiple layers on, but Tina and I still opted for another indoor venue.We got a nice hot coffee and a cinnamon roll to share at the iconic Top Pot Donuts. Ahhhh, bliss! Nothing better than being out on a sunny, albeit chilly, fall day, on or near the beach, learning something new!

Our instructor came in out of the cold eventually and he drew Tina and I while we were sketching.

See more of Don's sketches from today post workshop here. 

Tina's cup of hot coffee, our yummy cinnamon roll, one of the coffee pots displayed on the bookshelf wall at Top Pot Donuts and a 5 minute sketch of a customer from our pizza lunch. Oh, and finishing off the day with a little art supply shopping back at the "mother ship"!

Note: These are the raw sketches from our day at Alki. It will take me some time to try out all the new tools and techniques I learned today. When I do, I'll post them up and share my thoughts about working with all my new stuff.