Spotlight Sunday is a series of interviews designed to introduce and highlight Chicago Urban Sketchers individually. Now that our chapter has over 500 members it has become more of a challenge to meet every sketcher in person and have a conversation. These posts concentrate on individuals and speak in their own words and sketches.
Chris Buczinsky - sketcher, artist, teacher
Interview by Alex Zonis
Alex Zonis: Thank you for agreeing to do a Spotlight interview, Chris. Let's start with how you
pronounce your last name. Several sketchers asked me… :)
Chris Buczinsky: You pronounce it in three syllables: BUZZ as in the
sound a bee makes. INN as in an inn in Indonesia. And SKI as in the winter
sport. BUZZ-INN-SKI.
How
did you first hear about the Urban Sketchers community and what made you decide
to join Urban Sketchers Chicago?
I first heard about urban sketching through the
book The Art of Urban Sketching, which showed me just how good you could
get at this game! But a blonde, Russian painter in my Tuesday night
portrait drawing class (Alex Zonis) alerted me to the presence of a Chicago
chapter. It was all very Romantic, like being let in on the French Resistance
in WWII.
When
did you start sketching?
I began drawing while writing my dissertation for my Ph.D. in English
literature at Northwestern. Graduate school overdeveloped my left-brain,
threatening to permanently tilt me in that direction. Ever since then, I have
needed drawing to balance me out. I started by drawing from solely my
imagination. I illustrated a children’s book which I
self-published, but when I realized I wouldn’t improve if I drew only from my
imagination, I began drawing from life. I started a regular sketching
practice later, when my son was on the swim team in high school—about 7 years
ago. I was more interested in the people watching than in the swimmers swimming—even
when my own son was racing! I was a lousy swim Dad.
Why do you
sketch?
I sketch to practice my drawing skills, of course.
I do it for relaxation, partly. It also keeps me in the moment, slows me down,
teaches me to attend to the world and to others. It’s a nice record too—of day-to-day life and
vacations—cities I’ve visited, plane flights I’ve endured, hikes I’ve taken. Ultimately,
I’m trying to capture my feeling for the day-to-day beauty of things.
What
are your favorite subjects to sketch?
I like people. All kinds. I love how we all can’t
help broadcasting who we are without even speaking a word. I especially like
children—but they are always moving so fast! I love old people because of all
the lines in their faces—and they’re slower! And I love drawing women, all
their wonderful hairstyles and patterned dresses.
I love festivals and fairs, the sensory overload of
them. I’m a big fan of the Brookfield Zoo, and I reserve some sketchbooks just
for my visits. My favorites are the giraffes, rhinos, and seabirds--especially
the penguins. In the summer I garden. I grow vegetables, draw them, and then
eat them; I get everything I can out of my veggies!
What
are your favorite sketching tools?
I love my Derwent Sketching Pencil (HB). It has a
large-diameter lead that I can sharpen for details but blunt for quick, mass
drawing. It also has a nice heft—big enough for my big hands. I use it to
rough-in quickly, and then go in with a Tombow 2B if I’m adding value or 2H if
I’m just doing some line work or I want to add color.
I use Moleskin Watercolor Sketchbooks of all sizes.
They open up nicely, they have a handy back pocket, and their covers repel
water. When I have time to watercolor, I
use Holbein’s Pro Compo Travel Kit. It
holds twelve 5 ml tubes of watercolors, two brushes (2 and 8) with a brush
holder, a pan, and a foldout palette. It’s totally cool, like an artist’s
survival kit.
What is your
“day” job? What do you do when you are not sketching?
I teach English—writing and literature—at Calumet College of St.
Joseph, a small Catholic college south of Chicago, in Whiting, Indiana. I spend
my days lesson planning, teaching, grading, advising, and attending meetings. It’s
a great job for an artist. I have to read a lot, so I get to learn. Teaching
young adults also helps keep me young. And I sketch at the meetings. I sketch
my students when they take exams, and I hire students to sit for me, early in
the morning, before the day starts. And of course I can devote my summers to
art.
Do
you have a website, blog or social media accounts where people can see more of
your work?
I have a website, a blog of sorts, which I mainly post to
during the summer months, when I am not teaching. It’s
www.kryztographics.com. It’s the one place
in my life where my drawing and writing come together in a meaningful way.
I began my adult interest in art by illustrating for
children and by making naïve paintings in acrylic sgraffito. This month I’ll be
traveling to Guatemala on a mission trip with my school. I’ll be doing lots of
art with the children in the village of La Labor. It will be my first time
visiting Central America, and I’m really looking forward to it.
AZ: This interview was conducted before Chris went on his Mission trip. He is now back from it, and you can ask him about details when you see him on a sketch crawl. He has some cool stories!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and sketches with us, Chris! We will see you on our next sketching event, and I will see you at the next portrait class, thankfully not in 1940's French underground, but in Fine Arts building on Michigan Ave!
