Toulouse Part 9: Friday après-midi

September 14, 2026September 14, 2026Leave a comment

After the Friday morning workshop, I took it a bit easy on Friday afternoon. I seem to remember that I had decided to take the afternoon off sketching and just relax, go to shops, hang out at the hotel, but looking at my sketchbook I did in fact draw some street scenes. But I had several hours to myself before the evening Drink and Draw, and I took my time. I did spend a lot of time in a well-stocked art shop, trying my hardest not to buy everything I saw, ending up just getting a few small easy to carry things (that I probably didn’t need; a tube of neon yellow acrylic? Hey I might need it, better buy it). They did have some good art books, including Matthew Brehm’s book on Perspective, in French, and it was fun to see some of my old curvilinear perspective sketches in there, described in French. The scene above is of a bar on the corner of Rue Gambetta and Rue Peyrolieres, near my hotel, called La Reserve. It was sketched many times by many sketchers that week, and as I was walking about the area I could not resist it. It was very colourful, full of flags and people, but I only coloured in the french flags, and the street sign, and left the rest to the imagination. I drew very fast, and decided not to stop in for a beer, as I went off to explore some other shops instead. I wish I had stopped for a beer there though, it looked cool. I did walk down to the Toulouse tourist information office nearby and got some maps and looked at old pictures of Toulouse, I love stuff like that. Toulouse is ancient, probably dating from before the Roman times, though became a prominent city under Roman rule and there are still Roman ruins. I didn’t know that Toulouse was also capital of the large Visigothic kingdom before being conquered by the Franks. Much of its growth and building happened in the 16th century, and there are lots of structures still dating from that time, including the Pont Neuf. I didn’t spend too long in there, but I’m always fascinated by how much history there is to learn.

The sketch above was drawn shortly after the workshop with Marielle, but not in pink ink. This is the Rue des Changes, and when I saw this building I felt as though I had discovered something that nobody else had seen yet, as for once there were not hoards of sketchers about drawing it. I have to sketch it, I said. I did get myself a milkshake (in place of an actual lunch) to have while sketching, and it was good to practice some perspective going down these narrow streets. I was a little tired though so I drew fast, and moved along. IT turned out that pretty much every sketcher who went to the symposium drew this scene too, at least that’s what it seemed like from Instagram. I like the old timber frame house with the thin stone wizard’s tower behind it. I don;t know if it has a name but didn’t see it on the little map I got in the tourist office. I don;t know if anyone else included the massive ice-cream cone in their sketch though, unwittingly juxtaposing with the upturned cone on top of the wizard’s tower. Urban sketching rule, if there is a massive ice-cream cone somewhere on the street you are duty-bound to include it. I ended up going to a bookshop on Rue Gambetta, which I though was small and specialist, one of many small bookshops on that block, but it turns out they were all connected as one very large bookshop, easy to get lost in, as all bookshops should be. It was called ‘Ombres Blanches’ and I was in there for ages. I did end up getting a couple of books, both translations from English books, but ones I’ve wanted (one was a translation of a Terry Pratchett book, the other of an Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy adventure game book, one which I had in English as a kid could never finish, and it turns out I can’t finish it in French either! Great to read in French though, it’s good practice). Also bought some nice cards, I always love the ones over there. Rue Gambetta was amazing for shops though, it was like my perfect street. Bookshops, Comic shops, Games shops, a great Record shop, a couple of Guitar shops (just off that street, near La Reserve), there was even a Football Shirt shop which had some harder to find shirts too, including the maroon Portland Timbers kit I got a couple of years ago. It was the best street to get a hotel on, and I had a great afternoon looking through the shops.

This last one was done after my rest at the hotel, I had popped across the street to get some street food, then walked around to Place du Capitole for some late afternoon sketching before the Drink and Draw that evening. I used my purple fountain pen and sketched the Rue du Poids de l’Huile (‘Road of the Weight of the Oil? I might be mistranslating that). I can see why they call it the Pink City at this time of day, the light gets a pinkish glow and the stone of the buildings is warm and soft. I like this sort of perspective view too, it’s fun to draw. The evening before on the Sketchwalk, I was talking with a couple of people after I’d done my first sketch, one was an older American woman, and the subject of perspective came up (I think she’d said that she can’t draw straight lines, I said me neither but it doesn’t matter, they all curve eventually anyway). So they asked me to explain curving perspective, which I did as best as I could, based on what I’ve learned (and taught) over the years. While I don’t always get it perfect, and shy away from being very ambitious, I do have a lot of experience with it and like to use it subtly. Anyway, I demonstrated with the buildings around us how you can see the lines go up and then curve around before going down again behind us, and drew out the rough grid to show how that works. She was very sceptical and wasn’t just going to take some “random man’s word for it when her teacher had said to do it with a straight ruler.” (I mean, I have appeared in a book about perspective.) She then wanted to look at the drawing I had just done (the back of a cathedral). “There, see!” she said, clearly winning the argument. “Your lines are straight, not curving!” and I had to explain that this was just one small section of a larger scene, you can’t see the curve like that, but if I drew back and showed the whole street, the curve would be there, as that’s how my eye sees it. She wasn’t having any of it. “Well,” she said “that’s just your opinion.” I mean, no it’s not? Anyway as I sketched the Road of the Weight of the Oil in my purple fountain pen I probably had this in mind as I let the street curve with the eye, following the line of the windows towards the vanishing point (trust the windows, not the ground), my eyeline being just below that of many of the people as I was sat down on a concrete block outside a restaurant, surrounded by waiters and kitchen staff on their break. It was not quite as hot as it had been, and this was looking like it would be a nice Friday evening. I was heading over to the other side of the river for the big evening Drink and Draw, where I would hopefully meet some of the other sketchers I know (and maybe not be asked to explain perspective again).

Toulouse Part 8: Marielle’s Pink Morning

September 11, 2026September 10, 2026Leave a comment

After a long Thursday I slept pretty well, and took my time eating breakfast in the morning. It was overcast and looking like it would not be as hot which was a good sign. By the time I got to the Symposium Hub, I saw the long security line and knew the morning talks would already be mostly over, so I missed that and gathered for the morning Workshop. I had signed up for one workshop only and it was a good one, “Lights and Delights in the Pink City!” with French artist Marielle Durand. I have been a fan of Marielle’s work for years and especially her drawings in blue ink wash, which is really expressive and she has a book I’d like to read called ‘Bleu d’Auvergne’. It’s a very different from the sort of linework drawings I do, but really inspires me and is a style I really want to learn to play with. When I saw a few months before that Marielle’s workshop was available I quickly switched from the first one I had signed up for, and I’m so glad I did, as this really was very different for me and a lot of fun to play with. We were given some special pink acrylic ink to use (I did order some before, just in case), Rohrer and Klingner (from Leipzig) in Magenta, which is a very bright colour indeed. Toulouse was all about the pink. We were in the courtyard at the Hôtel d’Assézat, a 16th century building which now houses the Fondation Bemberg art collection. Marielle showed us a variety of techniques and had a really helpful handout. It was outside my comfort zone, seeing a scene in a different way, approaching it with layers, making my brain work a bit differently. We started with some simple exercises, I found it hard to get used to the ink at first.

I think I actually enjoyed sketching people in this style more than the architecture, which daunted me, like the opposite of my usual situation. I liked looking at things more simply though, in terms of basic shape blocks, how things related to each other, and starting with the lightest tones. We did some test sketches to see how this all worked.

I enjoyed talking to some of the other sketchers at this workshop, it was a really friendly group. Our final exercise was a larger drawing using the previous processes and trying to show more depth and light. I definitely found it tricky, just wanting to go more into some kind of line drawing, but it was a really fun thing to play with. I want to do more, in different colours (I went and bought some blue ink after that which I’ve yet to use; I did try some green ink sketching in London briefly) but playing in this bright pink was so much fun. Merci Marielle for a fun workshop! After it was done we had a group photo, and I went to an art shop nearby because there are never enough art materials to have. France has some really good stuff we can’t get in the US, but I held back, I already have so much. The sun wasn’t yet coming out, in fact it even started to rain a little, but it was still feeling sweaty so I walked back towards the hotel for a rest.

Toulouse Part 7: Thursday Evening Sketchwalk

September 10, 2026September 10, 2026Leave a comment

The Thursday evening Sketchwalk was quite far from the Hub, but I jumped on the Metro for a few stops and found myself next to the cathedral of Saint-Étienne. The summer evening sunlight was dripping with gold. I was early for the Sketchwalk (since it was about 40 minutes’ walk from the Hub, most people did that, adding to their already massive step count for the day. Looking at the map, the end point of this Sketchwalk should not be too far, at the Museum de Toulouse (where I think the limited-ticket Drink and draw event was going to happen that night, but I was not fast enough to pay extra for that ticket). Actually it was about another 25-30 minutes away on foot, accounting for getting lost a few times, which not only eats into your sketching time but also, why so far from the start point for such a short Sketchwalk? I wasn’t thinking of that when I got a headstart on my evening sketching. Actually I first sketched a fire hydrant around the corner from the cathedral (see below), and as I sketched I had a conversation with a young sketcher from Germany who had travelled to Toulouse with her partner for the Symposium, but not as registered attendees. There were a lot of non-registered sketchers here, as there were in Poznan, and it really made it all feel as though this was the global capital of sketching for a few days. It’s inspiring for those of us who like to draw everything. Anyway I found a spot in some shade to draw the back of the cathedral, and decided to draw in pencil, which was slightly faster, but not really by that much. I loved the really thick charcoal pencil I used for the tree foliage in the foreground though, it’s one of those I have in my bag from a previous Symposium that I never use, but it’s fun to experiment. As I stood sketching, as I always do, my legs started to feel all that walking. A restaurant was opening up nearby, some of the workers were sat outside before their shifts. One of the women who worked there came up and asked if I’d like a seat, since they didn’t have any customers yet, which was very nice of her. She brought a seat out to me and I was able to rest while adding in the paint. Still it took me an hour to draw it. I was really happy with it. I do wish I had drawn the view from the front as well though, in the main Place. I saw a lot of people sketching that and their drawings were amazing, but I didn;t have time because I had to go on a long expedition to find the Sketchwalk’s distant end point.

Pete in sunglasses standing in front of Cathedrale St. Etienne in Toulouse holding up a sketch of the cathedral.

Here is that little fire hydrant (inside its protective shell as many are here) in a quiet street, covered in stickers. Another one for the collection.

It was a long journey to the end point by the Museum of Toulouse, and by the time I got there, there was o time at all for sketching, and I missed the throw-down (not worried about that, I never like those), and the final photograph (would have been nice, but ‘tant pis’). I did find the spot where Simon de Montfort died, which was impressive, there was a big plaque commemorating his death at the Siege of Toulouse fighting in the Albigensian Crusade. I always thought he died in battle in England, but it turns out that was the younger Simon de Montfort, the one who led the Barons’ revolts against the king in the mid 13th century and effectively ruled England. This one was the father, the Elder, I always forget there were more than one. Still, very impressed to find big historical landmarks. There were a lot of people still about at the end of this Sketchwalk and I was talking to some sketchers from England, one of whom was Si Newell, whose amazing work I have followed for years but I had never met (though I did sketch him at a London sketchwalk years ago, but didn’t realize that he was Si Newell at the time). It was amazing to look through his book in person, his style is so distinctive, I remember Gerard Michel enthusing about him years ago. Anyway a whole group of us went to dinner, sketchers from all over the world, at an Italian restaurant nearby. It was so hot, everyone was so sweaty. It was nice but we ate so late; I had seen Len Grant at another table eating a delicious looking pasta dish so I ordered the same thing, but it actually came with loads of bacon on it, I don’t eat that so had to have that taken off, but embarassing, but the pasta was lovely. I still came nowhere near finishing it, it was a huge dish and I was stuffed. Everyone was talking to each other though, these are always the best moments of the Symposium, though I think I was the only one sketching. I tried to draw as many of the people there as I could, though I was pretty exhausted by this point it was still a fund way to capture the evening. There was a pair of large naked green statues behind Si (he is the one in the middle with the beard). I didn’t have room for desert, but I had a very refreshing beer before the walk back to the hotel.

As I was getting back to Place Capitole to my hotel, I walked past a table and saw a bunch of old friends, Lapin, Arnaud, Mauro and some others, and Dan Archer who I’d met the previous year, so I stopped to chat and sketch with them for a little bit. Lapin’s family were there, I don’t think I’d met his wife before and his daughter was a baby last time I saw her. I had made these little blank Panini football style stickers to draw people on, but kept forgetting to actually sketch on them so I drew a few here, really quick tired sketches, and gave them out. I think they were the only ones I did on the trip, but it’s an idea I’ll keep for a future sketching event. Lapin had been drawing his famous portraits on beermats this time, and so he did a sketch of me and gifted it to me, it’s very cool. I still remember him drawing my hand on the night before the very first Symposium (how young we all were) and calling it ‘L’incroyable tenu de crayon de Pete’ (because of the way I hold my pen, which gets remarked upon a lot, and after that it became the official name for it). By this time I was exhausted and well in need for a good night’s sleep, and I slept well.

Toulouse Part 6: Róisín’s Thursday Afternoon Demo

September 8, 2026Leave a comment

Thursday afternoon in Toulouse. After my break at the hotel I had a late lunch at a little place called ‘Les Burgers de Papa’ on Rue des Lois, and had a conversation with a French sketcher who was in there too, before walking to the Hub to join the gathering for the Afternoon Demos. This is the part of the Symposium where everybody has to pick a Demo (when they register, in the few seconds they have to decide their whole schedule), just one Demo, and then everyone heads out en masse to a spot where their Demo instructor will give a demonstration of their urban sketching theme or technique, and speak and draw or paint for about an hour while you watch. Often during workshops there is never enough time to just watch the instructor do a full picture so these can be useful, but there’s only one opportunity to attend a Demo. I quite like them because they are a bit more relaxed. In Toulouse, one thing it did mean was even more walking. After the long walk up to the Hub, our group gathered and then had another very long walk (about 30 minutes) back down to a shaded square overlooking the Garonne. I had signed up for Róisín Curé’s Demo on ‘Fast People Sketching’. Since this is something I like to do a lot at Symposiums I was interested to pick up some different tips and tools, and Róisín (who is an urban sketcher from Galway) spoke a lot and shared a lot of techniques. I had originally signed up for her Workshop, but changed to Marielle Durand’s one afterwards (big fan of Marielle’s work and wanted to learn her technique; see the post on that Workshop later!), I switched from the first Demo I’d signed up for to this one. We gathered under the shade of some big plane trees and Róisín started quick sketches of people that were sat at nearby cafes, and I took the opportunity to sketch the scene myself, taking notes as I do. One of my favourite moments from the Poznan Symposium was sketching Stephanie Bower’s Demo, drawing all the people there watching, and then meeting and speaking to them after. It is a fun way to document what the Symposium is all about. In the sketch above, the guy I captured briefly in the hat is a sketcher from Croatia called Mario that I spoke with afterwards and now follow, he was nice and he just mailed me a copy of his sketching zine from Hvar, that was a great read. Below, I drew the volunteer (whose name I didn’t catch), she was seated and would be translating some of Róisín’s comments into Spanish for a couple of the Spanish-speaking sketchers who were there.

There is Róisín again above talking and sketching. It was pretty hot out and everyone was sweating, but I was glad for the shade. There were some other Demos happening nearby, I spoke with one sketcher from England (Peter) that I’ve met a few times who had left his assigned Demo because it was not interesting, better to wander and sketch. I really enjoyed this one though and wanted to sketch the scene from the other side, so I drew the group there fast, adding in a few pink shapes for the background, it was all it needed. I liked that massive stripy hat that one woman was wearing, I did draw her hat twice during this Symposium as she ended up in one of my Saturday sketches too, when she was sketching nearby, though I never spoke to her. I did chat with some other sketchers after the Demo and walked back to the Hub (another long walk) with a sketcher from Germany, Gabriela, in time for the start of the next activity, the evening Sketchwalk (which would be taking place about 40 minutes’ walk from the Hub, seriously; thankfully for that, I jumped on the Metro, but a lot of people did make the trek). Too much walking in the late afternoon heat. I drank plenty of water.

Toulouse Part 5: Thursday Morning

September 5, 20262 Comments

After the Halle de La Machine on Wednesday I went straight to the Symposium Hub, which was at a municipal building called Pierre Baudis, and unlike at any other symposium there was a security search and metal detectors before you could go inside. That slowed things down, and there was a long line to enter the building. Good place to chat to people, but it was annoying to have to do that every day. It was packed inside, but the system to get registered and pick up the lanyard and goody bag was well run; there were about 800 sketchers registered for this event, it was massive compared to how it used to be. Like last year, more than half were first-time Symposium attendees too. It really has grown so, so much since that first Symposium in 2010 (see these posts with tag “UskPDX10”!), and since Urban Sketchers launched in 2008 (see this post!). So many people were in pink, the colour of Toulouse, and not just the hi-viz volunteers. It was very exciting. It was also still so very hot, and not any less sweaty inside. I did sketch during the opening reception, and caught up with old sketching friends, but I will post that separately. I then went quickly to watch the England semi-final at a pub which, very annoyingly, they lost, against that lot. I already posted that. Let’s fast forward to Thursday morning, then. After a nice breakfast at the hotel I walked up to the Hub, about 20-25 minutes from my hotel, to catch the morning remarks. Of course I missed those, because the line to get through security was really long. Hopefully I didn’t miss anything too important. I did at least arrive in time for the Presentations, which is always one of my favourite parts of a Symposium, getting to hear another urban sketcher speak about something, I find it really inspiring. Last year’s ones (Elizabeth Alley adventuring in the Arctic, Rita Sabler telling difficult stories around the world and Detlef Surrey following the Berlin Wall) were really fascinating. I like to draw these talks and take loads of notes of course, as I do all the time anyway. This one was by Len Grant, a Manchester based artist whose work I’ve followed for a while, I think since the Manchester 2016 Symposium. He was presenting on the theme of “Publishing a Neighbourhood Sketchbook in 154 Easy Steps”. Since this is something I have been thinking about doing for ages, Davis, I was particularly interested in what he had to say. His books look great, and his talk was very funny, I took a lot of notes. I sat next to Yves Damin from Paris who also sketched. I am always surprised at how few people are sketching along at these talks these days, but I’m someone who can’t really stop. Len said he has four books based on neighbourhoods in Manchester, and that got me thinking, yeah I could do two about Davis, one for the city and one for the campus, but then what about London, I would love to do a Burnt Oak and Edgware book, then do one for every other part of London that has meaning to me, Crouch End and Highgate, Camden Town, Tottenham, and then I think wait, I’ve been talking about a Davis one for more than a decade and still haven’t found time. Well maybe I’ll get going on that. If I get time.

I had a one-workshop Symposium pass this time, same as last year, but my workshop was not until Friday so I joined the Thursday Morning Sketchwalk, which was going to be starting at the same place as the Welcome Sketchwalk the day before, down by the river. It was a fairly long walk down there but there were people to talk to. Spotting symposium attendees all around was easy enough, with our orange lanyards and nametags (great for when you can’t remember people’s names) and those bright yellow bags that all the art goodies came in, they might be my favourite symposium bags yet, with ‘Loulou’ on them. I sketched some of the volunteers at the start as we all gathered, many others were heading off on their workshops, and those tall sticks with the pink signs on were very helpful. The army of volunteers really made the whole thing run smoothly.

We gathered to sketch on the high Embankments by Place de la Daurade. The panorama sketch above was of sketchers looking out across the Garonne. It had pre-splattered it with light coloured paint, in fact this was done a couple of days before because I had expected to eb drawing fireworks but that didn’t happen, so I drew sketchers. Genine Carvalheira is there on the left, and there was a sketcher from Canada over there too who I spoke to for a bit (but cannot remember her name; this is why I write them down!). The others were a group of sketchers from Madrid who I didn’t get a chance to speak to that day, but I happened upon them a few days later in Carcassonne, and sketched alongside them, and made friends with them even though I speak no Spanish and they spoke no English. We speak Urban Sketching. Lovely people, they gave me an Urban Sketchers Madrid badge.

Here are a few more people I sketched down there, above you have Sander from Mechelen, in Belgium, sat sketching with his headphones on, we spoke for a little while, and then I drew a couple of sketchers from Austria, Victoria Krisai and Jelde Flessner (I mis-spelled his first name), very quick sketchesjust to capture the moment. I liked his pink hat.

One thing I will say about the Sketchwalks in Toulouse versus the ones in Poznan, the ones this year tended to cover a very large area, a long walk between start and end points, and also they are advertised only to Symposium attendees and not to the general public. That’s two things I will say about the Sketchwalks. I didn’t mind so much the second because the non-registered people found them anyway; there are always a lot of people who come for the ride, who could not get a regular ticket, but are still a big part of the whole Symposium experience and I met a lot of ‘Symposium Fringe’ sketchers, several of my sketching friends did just that. They don’t get the orange lanyard or the yellow bag, but Urban Sketchers did design a special Urban Sketching ID badge this year that people can download and wear even if they are independent sketchers in the whole thing, which is nice. Still, Poznan advertised their Sketchwalks with a lot of advance notice, Toulouse however may have been more conscious of the crowds, and not without reason – that Welcome Sketchcrawl was really over-populated, as was the final one on Saturday, so I can see why. No, my gripe was the long distance covered, and it was like that for all of them. One of the Sketchwalks had an end point over 30 minutes’ walk from the start and when you are sketching and it’s hot, that’s a long way to go for a short event (I walked and timed it, but missed the actual end photo). Just have it closer, focus on one area. This one was a bit of a walk too, but it was at Place du Capitole, right by my hotel, so not as bad. Before heading up there though I stopped to draw the scene above, because I loved all those rooftops. I wish I’d had a higher vantage point, so I could sketch them from above. I drew fast, then dashed up to the end point, where I didn’t miss the photo, I just didn’t join it because I was talking to people. I did a couple more people sketches (the one on the left, below, is of my long-time Urban Sketchers pal Omar Jaramillo, though it’s not very accurate, I was hot and tired. We got a nice photo together after. I declined to go to lunch though as I needed to rest and shower, the Toulouse heat already getting to me. I am glad I did. The next event was later in the afternoon, the Live Demos, and that was a walk back to the Hub and another walk back to the River. I definitely got my steps in in Toulouse.

Toulouse Part 4: Halle de La Machine

September 4, 2026Leave a comment

After hearing so much about and seeing so many sketches of this incredible place with all the machines and the giant Minotaur, I took Wednesday afternoon to look for it myself. I took a train to Montaudran, on the outskirts of Toulouse. It took a little while, as there seemed to be only one train an hour so I spent a lot of time waiting in the main SNCF station in Toulouse, Matabiau. I went into a photo booth and made some silly photos, you can get them themed on the World Cup where you copy the poses of various French players. Back in France 98, I got a similar thing which I still have, though I’m 28 years older now and so I am even sillier. Eventually the train came. Montaudran isn’t far, and the Halle de La Machine is a very short walk from the station. Short, but in blazing heat. The deceptively cool morning had turned into a furnace by mid-afternoon. I only had a couple of hours by now before I’d have to go back and get registered for the Symposium, pick up my packet and my pass, see all the people. That should be enough? Soon after arriving, I definitely wished I had longer. It’s one of the most unusual places I have ever visited, a collection of highly inventive and often massive machines housed in and around a large building on an old airport runway. ‘La Machine’ is the creation of François Delarozière, and it’s hard to explain them, so you should check out their website. Perhaps the most famous of the giant machines in their collection is Astérion the Minotaur, which I sketched above. It is gigantic, and kept outside. It has platforms on its back so people can ride on it, because it is not just a giant statue, it does actually move about, walking (with the aid of wheels) about the grounds, breathing smoke and bellowing. When I arrived,I was told Astérion was still sleeping, so I waited until it was being woken up before going to sketch it. There were, naturally, some other sketchers around, and I wouldn’t be surprised if at least half the Symposium sketchers visited at some point. It’s an urban sketcher’s delight. I had to pick what I sketched sparingly, as I only had a couple of hours, and I didn’t join the tour which was going around demonstrating how a lot of the machines work (which sounded really fun), but while I sketched the enormous unusual machine below, the performers of La Machine transported us into a different world.

This immense structure, made of steel, balloons, glass, and lots of botanical features, is called Le Module Aéroporté, created between 2010 and 2013 and built by Patrick Grevoz, and looks like some sort of flying greenhouse. It’s hard not to think of the sort of creations in Miyazaki movies, like Howl’s Moving Castle, and Castle In The Sky. ‘Steampunk’ would not do it justice. Ethereal live music started playing, and clouds were pumped into the space, propellors rotated slowly while performers on bungee ropes sailed up and down, giving the effect that this whole machine was flying slowly through the sky. It was a pleasure to be sketching at this moment, though I wanted to draw fast, as this thing was just so, so big. I felt quite emotional, it was such a piece of theatre, and I wanted to spend the time really taking it all in, but I also wanted to draw it, and I also knew I did not really have the time. It made me want to start drawing and inventing my own flying machines, which I always used to love doing as a kid, the more impractical the better. This is a place for the imagination alright.

There are so many machines and inventions, not just the giant ones. Several were musical instrument based, with guitars and drums mixed in with strange steel contraptions and bicycle wheels. I watched a demonstration of a guitar machine called ‘La Pete Townshend’, where the performer would play some tunes on the electric guitar, and then a huge rotating metal arm would swing around performing the famous Townshend windmill power-strum. Another machine used wheels and parts of s ewing machine to create a device that painted pictures. Another had eight guitars bolted to a giant wheel, I have no idea how that was supposed to work. There was a massive banquet table with iron machines on it to open and pour bottles of wine and sort out your plates and cutlery. I wish I could have watched it all. There were two giant spiders, one inside and one out, so I found a chair and sat to draw the inside one, looking right at me with massive creepy-doll saucer eyes. I thought about the neighbour kid in Toy Story. Spiders do scare me so this would have been terrifying to see in action. I drew it quickly and coloured it in later. I heard an announcement that the Minotaur was waking up.

It was sweaty enough inside where it was cool, outside was scorching by this point. I started to draw the Minotaur when one of the little French kids waned me that it would be waking up any moment and I had to be careful or it would probably walk on me, thanks for the warning kid. I followed the crowd out of the way, and stood in some shade across the runway. The assembled kids and their families were treated to a show of mechanical fountains and what might have been snow machines dotted around, scaring the life out of the parents, and me too. I drew the Minotaur from the side, before being chased from my shady spot by a nearby fountain nozzle that probably wouldn’t have hit me, but I took no chances. I resumed my spot next to Astérion the Minotaur and watched it wake up. It was a spectacular sight. A woman in the cockpit area controlled its movements, and the eyes opened, steam came from its nostrils, its mouth opened to murmur and bellow, its arms made shapes and the wooden panels that made up its hide moved in and out as it breathed. It was incredible. I was not there long enough to watch it move about, but I experienced enough of it to be super impressed. I picked up a few bits in the gift shop, and went to catch my train back into Toulouse. If you are ever down that way, I recommend visiting the Halle de La Machine, and maybe going in the morning to give yourself more time there.

Toulouse Part 3: Big Wednesday Morning Sketchwalk

September 2, 2026Leave a comment

After a good nights sleep (I had expected French fans partying in the street until the wee hours, but they lost the semi-final to Spain), I woke up early on July 15 and had a nice breakfast at the hotel. This was the first day of the Symposium, but official check-in wasn’t until late afternoon, and I had the day to do whatever I wanted, as long as it was sketching. There was going to be a big ‘welcome sketchwalk’ down by the river in the morning, open to anybody whether part of the Symposium or not, so that was my plan. I also wanted to try to get down to the Halle de la Machine as well, and sketch the big Minotaur. thankfully after the roasting hot day before, this morning was much cooler, with some cloud providing a bit of a break from the oppressive sun. (Spoiler Alert, it didn’t last and the afternoon was even hotter) I walked down Rue Gambetta, which is where my hotel was (on the corner of Place de la Capitole) and it turned out that Rue Gambetta was the most interesting street in France. It had great cafes and bars, sure, but it had record shops, comic shops, loads of bookshops (most of which turned out all to be the same huge bookshop with different entrances, based on its themed areas), games shops, guitar shops, and even (and I am not makin this up) a football shirts shop, in which they had many classic shirts including the maroon Portland Timbers shirt I got a couple of years ago. I stood outside a board games shop which had not opened yet, and drew the scene above. It was a fairly narrow sidewalk, and as I sketched, various fellow sketchers passed by, on their way down to the Garonne. I recognized a few, who said hello/bonjour, and as more and more people passed by with sketchbooks and stools over their shoulder I was definitely getting excited. Like when you go to a football match and see your people on the tube in their Spurs shirts, and then you do the long walk up Seven Sisters, and you get closer to the stadium and can hear the crowd and smell the onions on the hot dog stand, and the people selling scarves and programmes, and the lads coming out of the pub and the kids on their dads’ shoulders. Well it wasn’t really like that at all, actually, but I was still excited to be at the Symposium, around the world’s sketchers again. My crowd. It might have felt a little performative, standing sketching while everyone was heading towards the sketchwalk, but urban sketching is urban theatre, “all the world’s a page” and all that. (I thought of that phrase a few years ago when writing a workshop I never ended up teaching) When I’d done enough I walked down Gambetta towards Place de la Daurade, where the Sketchwalk was happening. And wow, there were a LOT of people down by the river.

I saw some people I recognized and said hello, but mostly just wandered about looking for sketchers to draw. I zeroed in on this one guy in a beret, whose name was Akalu, and who lived in Michigan (but originally from Ethiopia). I wanted to sketch fast and often, using my fountain pen in my little brown book. It was nice to chat with people, find out what they like sketching, and be friendly and open. The Symposiums are so, so big now that it can be easy to feel a little lost in the throng, and a usually shy person like me would, if this were my first one, probably just hide. I still do, really. So I like to try to talk to people, and sketch them. I met a lot of people I didn’t sketch, and among all the people there I do now find it hard to remember people as well when I’ve not sketched them too. Oh by the way, the little stamp on the page, that was the official Symposium logo, the little mascot is called ‘Loulou‘ and was designed by local illustrator Olivia Marcus. I loved the logo. Also below, I met a sketcher from Houston called Chris Fitzgerald, who told me stories about San Francisco while I drew her. Then (after spotting my old pal Omar who I last saw in berlin last year) I found a spot with a view across the river, among the trees and the hundreds of people, and tried to capture the scene (above). This was a lot of sketchers. Probably too many sketchers. But each of them was doing what we do, just drawing the world, like I do every day. Capturing the occasion. I listened in to people talking to each other, in English and in French (and some German). I always worry in crowds like this whether I’m going to get a bit lost and not find the people I know, but as I wandered about, I came across them, had a few nice reunions.

I did want to sketch the sketchers hard at work though. Usually I’d go and show them, sometimes I’d forget. You can see in the second sketch below there’s one of the volunteers, wearing the distinctive bright pink hi-viz vest they made them all wear. I really liked her yellow bumblebee-striped hat.

It was so nice beside the river. I drew the sketcher above, whose name was Heike (she was from either Germany or Austria), and then sketched the two ladies fanning themselves on the embankment. It was already getting very warm. I ended up getting one of those hand-held paper fans myself, as many people did, and made good use of it during that week. And then, we all gathered up to look at all of our sketchbooks, but there were so many people that I didn’t really see anything. As we know I’m not a fan of the whole “put your book on the floor and have loads of people wonder whose book it is” thing they like to do at the sketchwalks. I wandered off back to the hotel, and planned the rest of my day. It was definitely getting hot again, there was no escaping it.

Toulouse Part 2: around Capitole

August 30, 2026August 30, 2026Leave a comment

I should really call this ‘Part 3’ since I already had one Toulouse post before ‘Part 1’, which was when I posted the sketches of the World Cup semi-finals, the first of which took place on the first day I was there, July 14.Call that one a Bonus Track. This is basically the rest of the sketches from July 14 that I didn’t put in Part 1, probably because I was in a hurry. After cooling off at the hotel I headed out into Place du Capitole, and walked over to the nearby Place Charles de Gaulle where I had seen some random sketchers dotted about, and figured I would also draw this big building which is located at the rear of the Capitole. I believe it’s called the Donjon and dates back to 1525-30 (the top was added later). I had to find a good spot in the shade where I could sketch it, and settled on standing on some grass behind a bench. This was the first page of a new sketchbook, another Hahnemuhle A5 portrait size book, which is Sketchbook #63 in the official chronology but was not my main book, I used the landscape one most (Sketchbook #62). By the way those numbered sketchbooks are just my ‘main’ ones in order, and doesn’t include ones such as the small brown book I usually carry, or other ‘side-project’ sketchbooks. I didn’t actually sketch the main Capitole building itself, despite having a hotel right across from it, because it was a very big building full of windows and decorations, and I figured other people would draw that, I’ll draw something else. Looked like it would just take too long, and at the end of it I’d be like, ok well I drew that. I quite enjoyed drawing this, but it was getting into eraly evening already and I wanted to eat something before the big semi-final, so I hurried it along. I did draw some of the lads sat opposite me though, because I really liked the football shirts. The one on the left is a Sporting Lisbon shirt (probably a training shirt), but the one in the middle was a fantastic Mali shirt, and I had already drawn one Mali shirt just a few weeks before in Davis. This was a square where lots of people were hanging out, shaded from that sun, there was a childrens play area, trees and grass, and fountains coming out of the ground that had signs saying ‘don’t play in the fountains’ but on a crazy hot day like this, everyone’s playing in the fountains, as they should. Some older men were gathered on the bench next to me, having an evening drink, I liked listening in. I spoke to some other sketchers, who were Spanish, and wished them luck in the game that night.

I did another quick sketch in the Place du Capitole, of one of the street corners in the evening light. Toulouse is the pink city, la ville en rose, but I was feeling more purple and just wanted to catch how the shadows were drawing you in. I like a quick sketch like this, it’s more of a snapshot, a mood. I couldn’t fill all my time with sketches like this because I do like making a nice detailed drawing (and I draw those pretty fast too), but if I did, in all different colours, that would be quite a fun book to look through. I saw so many styles and colour schemes in peoples’ sketchbooks on this trip that it did give me a new bag of ideas to use in my sketches going forward. I keep thinking I should take a weekend in San Francisco and just draw like this, get as many quick sketches in as possible, playing with colours, see what the end result would be. I don’t know, right now in August 2026 I have been drawing loads of trees, portrait format, full colours, lots of detail, and that is, as they say, my jam. Though I did draw a series of sketches in different colours of the Davis Farmers Market earlier this month, which by this rate I might post on here some time in the new year.

I had Japanese noodles for dinner, an interesting first meal in Toulouse, and then met with fellow sketcher Kalina (who I knew from the Portland Symposium all those years ago) to watch the World Cup in a reasonably crowded Irish pub near Place du Capitole (O’Brien’s, right across from my hotel). France lost the semi-final, as I reported in an earlier post. Spain went on to win the World Cup, but that’s another story. Kalina showed me her sketches from that day, and she had been to a place called ‘Halle de La Machine’ which looked incredible, she sketched this gigantic wooden Minotaur which moved about and she and a load of others had ridden on a platform on its back – it looked amazing, and I decided I’d make the time to go there the next day. While I did sketch the people watching the match (see that earlier post) we also sketch a group of younger people, one of whom was dressed as a pirate, and we had drawn so many pirates in years gone by. We ended up chatting away with them for a while, and it was nice to meet some Toulouse locals on the first night there. Still, it had been a very very long day, and I needed a good night’s sleep for the actual start of the Symposium next day.

Toulouse, Part 1: sketching the Garonne

August 27, 2026Leave a comment

Alors! Instead of continuing to play catch up and post things in order, before this summer slips away I am going to post my sketches and stories from the 2026 International Urban Sketching Symposium in TOULOUSE, France. It’s now over a month since the Symposium ended and I am still brimming with sketching energy and missing all the interactions with urban sketchers from around the world, though I am not missing the sweaty, sticky heat. I did a lot of drawing, though I always come away thinking ‘but it wasn’t enough’, having seen so many other sketchbooks. I did a lot of urban exploring but again always feel I could have seen more (if the sketching didn’t slow me down). I met a lot of people and spent time with a lot of old sketching friends (and new ones too), but there’s never enough time to see everyone. I did spend almost a week in Toulouse though, and that was a good time to get to know a place and come away with good memories of somewhere a bit different, but being France, still familiar. Plus I got to speak a decent amount of French to the point where I have been actually trying to keep it up and want to improve it now I am back home again. So let’s get on with it. I landed in Toulouse on July 14th, the Fête Nationale (what we call ‘Bastille Day’ but they don’t really). This was the day that France were due to play Spain in the World Cup semi-finals and I expected people everywhere to be wearing their France shirts and buzzing with excitement since they had been, so far, the best team in the tournament. Except maybe Spain who just looked very solid. In fact people I spoke to were definitely not getting carried away with Les Bleus’ chances, knowing Spain were actually a bit good. Still I was looking forward to some celebrations and fireworks that evening. As it turned out, they held the firework display over the river the night before, and France ended up losing the semi-final. Still, I had a very nice first day in Toulouse, and got right to work with the sketches. The bus from the airport was easy, my hotel was in an amazing central location right by the Place du Capitole, and I walked right down to the Garonne river that afternoon after checking in. It was very hot, and I had taken the long way. I stood in some shade on the high embankments, and looked out over to the Chapelle St. Joseph de la Grave. The Garonne was a fresh greeny-blue matching the dome, and the buildings were reddish-ochre, but you can see why they call Toulouse ‘La Ville Rose’, the Pink City, because in the light everything feels tinged with a bit of pink. The stone on a lot of the buildings does have a pinkish hue, especially in the evening, being made with what they call ‘brique rose’ (pink brick). The bridge to the right is the Pont St. Pierre. This was still early- to mid-afternoon and the sunlight was very strong, and I had to drink a lot of water. It was relaxing to draw by the river though. Three Moroccan lads sat near me and were chatting on their phones, one was admiring the sketch. I had already seen quite a few urban sketchers about town, their familiar sketching poses making me feel right at home, but had not seen anyone else I knew yet. The river turned out to be a place we would come back to sketch a number of times during the Symposium, but I got the big view out of the way first.

I walked further down the high embankment (the Quai Lucien Lombard), shaded with rows of plane trees, and found a spot on the corner to draw the historic Pont Neuf. France likes to call its oldest bridges ‘Pont Neuf’ (back when they made their bridges with irony rather than iron), and this beauty was constructed between 1544 and 1632 (it took a while; the Garonne was not an easy river to tame) and completed by the famed architect Jacques Lemercier during the reign of King Louis XIII. I adored those arches, even though I don’t like drawing arches (add to the list of things I don’t like drawing: circles, feet, hands, dogs, Arsenal shirts). As I sketched I bumped into the first sketchers I knew and they were old urban sketching friends, Liz Steel and Suhita Shirodkar, which was a very nice surprise. There were going to be many hundreds of sketchers all over Toulouse the next few days, so it was nice to bump into people I have known since this Urban Sketchers thing all started. I drew quickly and did what I could with the river, it was the colour I wanted) and started to head back into centre-ville again. There were lots of things I wanted to sketch, but it was so hot so I kept it simple as I headed back towards the hotel, and I drew this really interesting post-box on the corner of Place de la Daurade.Then I went back to the hotel to cool off before heading out for some more sketching before dinner.

I should include my in-flight sketch, Ryanair from Stansted to Toulouse. I always draw on the plane, like most urban sketchers, it’s how I relax and get my sketching exercises in. I had a small A6 size brown Hahnemuhle sketchbook with me, as well as the two A5 Hahhemuhles (one portrait, one landscape), as well as the tiny accordion Hahnemuhle. I should do a post on the materials I took to Toulouse, and those I got while there, but not just yet. The Sun is up now and I need to go for a morning run before work. Join me soon for part 2…

Last Christmas, 2025…

August 17, 2026August 17, 20264 Comments

And so it’s time to catch up with last Christmas 2025, and close out the posts of sketches from that long long year of sketches. There is no way I will end 2026 with the same volume of drawings, even though I have certainly been busy filling those sketchbook pages. 2025 was just an unusually productive year. Here then are some very festive scenes from Davis, while we are here in the middle of another scorching hot summer; “I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes, global warming is all around us…” Back in December it was really foggy, some of the thickest fog I’d seen in many years, but the shop windows of Davis brought a lot of colour as they usually do, with their annual contest to see which shop can be the most festively decorated. It’s usually this store that wins it for me, Bella Luna on F Street. Not a shop I go to myself, I’m not really into jewelry and stuff, though I really love how they decorate for Christmas and have drawn it before. I remember sketching their old location on E Street many years ago, when they were still called ‘De Luna’, and they are a longtime family owned Davis business going back to 1967. I think I did go into De Luna once to ask about cleaning my wedding ring, if memory serves. Anyway this was one of my favourite festive drawings from last year, drawn the day before Christmas Eve.

This one was from much earlier in December, another very festive storefront at Avid & Co, the kids shop branch of the Avid Reader bookstore a few doors down. It’s one of my favourite shops in Davis, and before my trips back to England I usually get something in there for my young niece. Plus some Lego minifigures for myself, why not. Before it was called Avid & Co it was known as Avid Reader Active, as the bookshop would keep its travel books in here, as well as toys and games for the kids. Long before that, it was a different toystore called Alphabet Moon, which closed in 2012 (I drew that too). I used to take my kid there to play with the wooden trains; Avid and Co still have a train table for the kids. Avid & Co has some kids books, but most of the children’s books are in the main store, downstairs at the back for the younger kids and upstairs for the slightly older kids. Back when I first came to Davis, my first job was at the Avid Reader and I worked a few times in their old Children’s bookshop branch on the E St Plaza, and then helped move it all to the main store when that closed down. As you can see here, the windows of Avid & Co were decorated with festive muppets; the Muppets Christmas Carol is one of my favourite films. I drew this while on our monthly ‘Let’s Draw Davis’ sketchcrawl. It was very cold and foggy that day but I braved it for the love of sketching.

Well well well, what have we here, Santa’s Firetruck? Santa likes to ride this through Davis during December to cheer up the kids, and while I have probably drawn this truck before at some point over the years, I don’t remember sketching it while dressed up for the Holidays. Santa’s sleigh is attached safely to the top, and I don’t think fire safety regulations allow for reindeers to ride along. I wonder if Santa gets to slide down the North Pole? I drew about half of this right there and finished it off at home, it was cold and there were a lot of lights, plus people had started taking pictures with Santa next to the truck, they asked if I also wanted a photo but I thought I’d better not, though I think Santa will agree I’ve been a good boy, and all I want is more sketchbooks, paints and pens please. I might make this into a card for this year, give to my co-workers. When my teenager was a toddler, firetrucks were all the rage. Our local fire stations used to actively invite the kids to come by and meet them, look at the big engines, and even give them firefighter trading cards with their names and pictures on them! Good memories. The fire service folk do a very good job.

Here is a sketch from our annual Holiday Party at work, I did a few but am not posting them all here. This one looks the most festive. We always have a nice party for the students, staff and faculty, with good food, games, bingo, ugly sweaters, hot chocolate and even a bit of singing, with lots of festive karaoke. This year was especially fun, and while I did not sing karaoke, I did bring my ukulele and sing one song, an Irish song by Brendan Shine, ‘Catch Me If You Can’. I have never done that before, twenty years of working there, but I think it went alright. It was because I was almost reaching fifty, there is that line in the chorus “I’m awful shifty, for a man of fifty, catch me if you can, me name is Dan, sure I’m your man”. Now, my name is not Dan, and I’m not your man, and I don’t think I’m that shifty, but I am now fifty, which seemed an ancient venerable age when I first started working here. Anyway here is one of my co-workers Olga announcing the White Elephant gift exchange game (I got a nice notebook), and one of our students Oscar singing Ozzy Osbourne in a very festive hat.

And so, back home. A few days before Christmas, my wife was getting on with some festive wrapping, ‘When Harry Met Sally’ was being played on the TV. We like to watch a lot of movies this time of year. I do love Christmas, so do our cats, and I made a very special Advent Calendar in 2025, it was basically a record store in a lit picture frame box, with shelves full of records, posters showing snowman bands (Snowasis, Taylor Snowdrift, David Snowie etc), and the records were numbered 1-24 and opened each day, with a chocolate inside, a hand-drawn album cover with snowman replacing the real artists, plus a QR code to a festive song by that artist. AI is never making this, mate. It was a Big Idea and I rushed to get it done on time but finish it I did. I should post about it sometime but I always forget; besides the advent calendars are always a bit personal. I look back at them all sometimes and go wow, I made a lot of those didn’t I. Some day I won’t. Every year I say, I’m not making one this year. I am probably not making one this year, until I get an idea in my head and run with it. Anyway.

And last of all, a sketch of the Christmas tree at my wife’s mom’s house, drawn on Boxing Day (just ‘December 26th’ here) after we had a nice breakfast at a local diner, and shortly before heading home. And that is all for 2025. I’d say ‘Happy New Year’ but I know what 2026 has been like. But from the wilds of the never-ending summer it’s good to look back at the foggy festive days.