Carol Skinger holds her drawing of Dollar bank, standing on the steps of Dollar Bank  Photograph by Renee Rosensteel

Tonight I presented at Pecha Kucha Vol 8 in Pittsburgh at Nina Barbuto’s space assemble! Pecha Kucha was started in Japan by two Australian architects (I think). Architects are long winded, they ought to know- therefore each presentation is limited to 20 slides and the presenter can give 20 seconds of chit chat per slide. Period. You are DONE! In no way is it for architects only. It is wide open to anyone to submit an outline of their talk and a few images for consideration. Appeals to artists, graphic designers, writers, comedians, and actors and well- the list might go on and on. There were 8 presenters, and it was well attended. Pretty good entertainment for $5! Thanks to AIA and AIGA Pittsburgh for hosting and to graphic designer Greg Coll receiving our power points, lining them up and operating all the visual effects- so everything runs smoothly!

I was so blown away by the presentations! I look forward to seeing the work of my fellow presenters develop and to following their work in real time and on the internet. Pecha Kucha read and see more.

After you have been accepted for making a presentation, you create a power point of 20 slides and send it in via YouSendIt . Then they have it projected on a big sceen. You are off and running! A little over 6 minutes later you are done.

I used the silly ink drawings I create of street scenes to tell a story about how I started drawing them and why I do them. Contrasting my silly non-conforming drawings of buildings of crazy perspective with the precise work I execute in interior design and space planning was the core of the presentation. Seeing illustrator Alice Blodgett draw our house for a brochure when I was in first grade was like magic, and having our art teacher in 8th grade give us pen and ink and tell us to just walk to over to Main Street in Stowe, VT and draw the buildings was another piece of luck. When Ben & Jerry set up their first ice cream place in a former gas station in Burlington, VT they hung my drawing of Church St. on the wall. When I returned from a trip they told me it was something everyone wanted a copy of and that is when I began printing them.

Tonight at Pecha Kucha people especially liked seeing a drawing in process where I use drawings of the buildings on tracing paper and move them around to get a good arrangement.

This is Sixth Avenue in Pittsburgh

Then I showed the work of 5th graders at Grandview Elementary School where I photographed facades of their main street, Warrington Avenue and they created artwork based on the facades. Their artwork was shown in the storefronts of Warrington Ave. Watch a short multi media slide show on that project by Annie O’Neill and Diana Nelson Jones.

It’s my mission I guess to share the possibility of drawing your street!

Photographer and blogger Renee Rosensteel was all over the Three Rivers Arts Festival 2011. She took some wonderful photographs of kids painting prints of my Dollar Bank VERY silly ink drawing. Here is a slide show of the kids at work and her blog about it for Three Rivers Arts Festival.

Finally one of my photographs of one of the kids who had a blast painting my Dollar Bank drawing.