On the Friday evening in Toulouse, there was going to be a massive Drink and Draw across the river at Port Viguerie, an area on the banks of the Garonne with funfair attractions, a big ferris wheel, and a large restaurant where people were lined up to sit at tables. I knew that a lot of people I knew would be there, but I headed over there myself to just see who I could find. I didn’t head straight over there though, and stopped on the embankments at the Quai de la Daurade to enjoy the early evening sunlight on the riverside. This right here I think is what Toulouse was all about, people hanging out in the evening by the riverside, talking. It felt so Mediterranean (I mean it literally is), but coming from such a ‘stay home in the evening’ place it was heartening to see a city so alive with people just enjoying each others company down by the river. It’s hard to explain, but the sketches speak for themselves and these were probably my favourite ones I did on the whole Symposium, in my little brown boo, capturing the light and the community.

If I hadn’t needed to also feel a bit of social interaction with my sketching friends too, I might have stood drawing people up there until the sun went down, hearing the French conversation waft upwards. I did try out some of the new Roman Szmal paints that we were given as part of the goodie bag, in the little orange tin with the symposium logo on it, to mixed success, but it was something different.

Then I walked across the long Pont Saint-Pierre, which was also very active with people enjoying the evening, the occasional musician, and amazing views over the river at sunset. Port Viguerie was crowded with urban sketchers and it was a long walk around, Toulouse really made us get our steps in. When I first arrived I saw some people I knew in the long line waiting for a table at the big restaurant, but I said I would walk around for a bit along the banks and mingle. It was very busy, but everyone was sketching. There weren’t many places other than the big restaurant for a drink, and I had already eaten before I left (remembering the evening before when food was very late), but I bumped into a few familiar faces including Hungarian sketcher Ors Levay, who I had met the previous year, so I drew him in my little people sketchbook which was coming along nicely.

I then walked over to the restaurant area – Racines – and was called over by some friends to join them at their table, and had a very nice evening talking and sketching with people I had not seen in a while. There was of course Don Colley, who I had first met at Portland in 2010 and I’ve followed his art over the years but never managed to ever see him again until now, which was fantastic, sixteen years later. There was Arnaud De Meyer, my old Luxembourg sketcher friend who I’ve met at events many times since first meeting in Manchester 2016, great to see him again. He did a sketch of me (see below). There was Vincent Desplanche who I first met in Strasbourg in 2015 and several times since, I’m a huge fan of his work and he was one of the big reasons I wanted to draw in the Southwest of France (he was also one of the lead organizers of this Symposium), and Jean-Christophe Delphine whose work I have known for many years, but we only met briefly in person in Lille in 2022 (we were all at a big dinner at a moules restaurant, we did manage to sketch each other from a distance though!) and he reminded me that we had both been featured in the same Danny Gregory book many years ago, it was really nice to chat and catch up with him. He told me that Tommy Kane, another long-time urban sketcher I’d known since the start but never met in person, was in Toulouse also, they have become very good friends over the years. Tommy wasn’t out that night but I did finally catch up with him the next day. There were others there I spoke to, new people I met and also bumped into other old friends such as Rita Sabler, Amber Sausen, Daniel Green, and more. Then we had the long walk back over the river, and I walked through the busy streets back to my hotel bed. That was a very nice evening.

I did get a sketch of Vincent eating dinner using a pair of large paint brushes as chopsticks…