Continuing with the Gdansk sketches from last summer’s Poland adventure. I loved all the big spires, of which Gdansk had so many. On the first night there, before going to bed, I sat out on Długi Targ (‘Long Market’), the nice town square at the end of Długa and looked up at the very tall tower of the main town hall building, the Ratusz Głównego Miasta, which is the Museum of Gdańsk. I wish I’d made time to go inside, there were a few museums I came across that I never had time to explore. I was staying there for two nights, but really it was just one full day (of sketching, pirate shipping and napping), since I arrived in the evening and left in the morning. You can’t do it all. I decided to draw the tower in pencil and watercolour rather than the usual paint, I wanted to mix it up a bit on this trip, and also change my perspective from landscape to very tall portrait. It was night-time but I had good light to draw in, and could lean on the stone wall of the steps I was standing on, with the winged lady sculpture in the foreground. I enjoyed sketching this, and for a summer evening in a good-sized European city and tourist destination it was remarkably chilled out. I was frustrated with the new Moleskine paper and the way it made the paint bead up in those little divots, it was not the texture I was going for but it’s all part of the story now. I was determined not to stop using the book, having started it, but since this was my main symposium book I just figured that if I want to finish it then I need to draw loads more to try and complete it. I’m a completist like that, and when I’ve had annoying sketchbooks in the past I have, by the end of it, come around to their charms, but not in this case. It might be the last watercolour Moleskine I use, after 29 of them, but maybe I will find one with the old paper in (in my scary art cupboard of endless not-yet-started sketchbooks and bags of still-ok pens I must have one hidden). This sketch really pleases me though, and given how I post so many landscape panoramas in this sketchblog format that end up looking tiny, it’s nice to show one where you can really see it, and have to scroll down to see the bottom. Of the sketch, not the sculpture, whose bottom was hidden. I liked drawing in pencil too, but it has to be the right pencil. I did get quite a few types of Blackwing before I left, but they end up being too soft on this paper and I end up using an old Staedtler (though I picked up a Leuchtturm pencil at the Symposium that I really love, so far). I tried to sketch in pencil more on this trip, but it’s fun when doing these night architecture sketches which need to be quicker.

Here is another night-time looking-up sketch that I did on my second evening. I have a load more sketches I did in between my later afternoon nap and this point, but I’ll post them separately. I wasn’t kidding when I said I sketched a lot. This is another pencil and watercolour at night sketch, and I stood at the corner of Ul. Piwna and Kołodziejska, a short walk from my hotel. Quite a few people out passing by, and my light was not great, but I wanted to look up at this magnificent building which is called the Great Armoury, or Wielka Zbrojownia. Sometimes I look at a building and think, if I draw this with my usual pen and try to get all this detail in, I’ll make a right dogs dinner of it and not always like the look of it afterwards, thinking of the effort and the awkwardness of looking up. As it happens I drew in pencil and focused on what stood out the most – the building’s colours and the contrast with the night sky – and I propped my paintbox in a lit shop window to see what I was doing. As I sketched, I did get interrupted by a nun with a suitcase. My first thoughts were ‘spy movie’ and I was hoping to hear some elliptical spy passphrase like “When the squirrel eats marmalade, it rains lemons in Bucharest” or something (and yes I know “elliptical” isn’t the right word but it sounded right when I wrote it, and still does). She just asked me where the train station was. I am not a Catholic but was brought up to be helpful and polite to nuns, and especially Polish ones because the Pope was from Poland. I explained I am not local, but looked it up on my phone and gave her directions. It was quite late in the evening to be catching a train, but who am I to question a spy, or a nun for that matter. Besides I was catching a train myself the next morning so needed to look it up anyway.

When I was done with that sketch I saw there was a little bar opposite that looked interesting, and had good music coming out of it. It was called ‘Joseph K. bar’ and had a really cool vibe about it, plus loads to sketch. I stood in line for my beer and got a nice dark Polish beer whose name I have forgotten. Polish beer, like Czech beer, is really nice and I especially like the dark beer. I sketched on this sofa, because I have never sketched enough, and had a chat with a nice English guy who passed by to have a look. I liked how colourful this place was, but it was just really relaxed, and a short walk back to my hotel.