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Opticos’s Cailin Shannon Demonstrates Her Superb Sketching Skills at ICAA Event

Senior Designer Cailin Shannon honed her drawing skills as a classical architecture student at the University of Notre Dame, where she was awarded the Andrew F. Kervick Award for excellence in freehand drawing. In addition to her project management responsibilities, Cailin either creates or oversees most of the in-house renderings at Opticos. This past weekend, she was invited to teach an outdoor sketching class for a group of emerging professionals organized by the Northern California chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art.

The event took place at the Spreckels Temple of Music Bandshell located in Golden Gate Park between the DeYoung Museum and the California Academy of Sciences. Some 20 participants arrived with paper, pencils, pens, and blankets eager to improve their sketching skills. After a short introduction, the drawing began. Cailin offered individual assistance to the participants on one-point and two-point perspective drawing.

The event drew participation from a wide spectrum of ages, abilities, and backgrounds. “For me, sketching is such a powerful tool for exploring the world. It’s such an important skill to have as an architectural designer, but it also crosses over in to so many other fields. It was great to see both younger and older professionals with varying sketching abilities and backgrounds in architecture, landscape, and even furniture come out on Saturday,” says Cailin.

The ICAA Northern California Chapter’s new Emerging Professionals series is part of a larger educational program to advance the contemporary practice and appreciation of the classical tradition in the Bay Area. The program offers several courses each year, from ink wash rendering to drawing the classical orders.

“It was really fun and it seemed like everyone got a lot out of it,” says Cailin, who is relatively new to teaching, but added that she would be pleased to teach a similar course again.