Poznań (Part 7) – Saturday Night

February 13, 2026February 14, 2026Leave a comment

Before I knew it, the Symposium was coming to a close. I had a short rest at the hotel, and set out for the final big group photo. I have missed the final photo in at least two Symposiums and so was determined not to miss this one, and of course I very nearly did because I was walking to the wrong place. I figured it out in the end. Hundreds of us gathered in this big town square, Plac Wolnosci (that I had never been to before), and you can see the big photo on the Urban Sketchers site. After the big photo all the different sub-groups got together for their own photos, the Symposium Faculty, the Volunteers, the Poznan sketchers, the German sketchers, the Brazilian sketchers, the Californian sketchers (I’m in that group), the UK sketchers (I’m in that too but I missed their photo), the Antipodean sketchers (good contingent came from Australia and New Zealand) plus many more, all having lots of fun. My real group though was small, and we spent a while trying to gather us all together, we were the Last Remaining Originals from Portland 2010. There we are above – Elizabeth Alley, Shiho Nakaza, Liz Steel, Mike Daikabura, Kalina Wilson, and me. The only other Original who attended Poznan was Rita Sabler, but we couldn’t find her despite much searching. We took a few photos, and then I had them all do the ‘Brucie’ pose, (without explanation) as you can see above. Good game, good game, didn’t they do well. The more normal non-Brucie picture is below. By the way you can see the very first Symposium group photo on Liz Steel’s blog; fifteen years ago!

Once everyone started to disperse, the final Sketchwalk started. People got back into their ‘Sketching Zone’, we all have our Zone, before the festivities of the final reception would begin. I had been approached the day before by a local sketcher Martha, who asked if I’d be interested to give a demo or talk to some local sketchers. I didn’t really have time to arrange anything formal like that, but said if they wanted to come to the Sketchwalk I could show how I approach a drawing. So after everyone dispersed, they met me on the steps and it was just her, another sketcher, and her young son, and I let them watch over my shoulder while I drew the scene below, while I explained what I draw first, how I add people, perspective, little bit of paint in the sky. It was a fairly quick and simple sketch but hopefully I got my point across ok. Her young son sketched next to me and did a great job himself, and as I was sketching afterwards he came up and gave me his drawing! I was very moved by that, made my day. His mother Martha even left nice surprise of some Polish cakes at the Symposium hub for me, I ate them when I got back to London. So, I joined the rest of the Sketchwalk people at the end point and looked at everyones’ sketches, I was really impressed again by the amazing work from the Korean sketchers, it really is one thing to see these online and another in person, they blew my mind. Coming to the Symposia and seeing so many people out doing these incredible drawings really gives me that extra boost of motivation as an urban sketcher.

By the way, I drew that hydrant just before the big group photo, because I just had to draw another hydrant. I think it was at Stary Rynek, which by this point I was calling ‘Stary Stary Rynek’, but only to myself. That bobbly Moleskine paper makes the page look dirty, but it wasn’t, it;s just the way it scanned. You can see the same effect in the sketch below as well.

The closing reception of any Symposium is always exciting, because that’s where we learn the very secret location of the next Symposium. My guess would be a return to Asia, and since there was a big group from Korea I was convinced they would be announcing Seoul, which would be a fantastic choice. They really draw the announcement out (do I even need to say ‘pun intended’, that’s a given) but there is a lot of fun stuff before that. For example, there was a performance of traditional Polish music by a couple of classical violinists, one of whom was one of the local organizers of the Symposium. It was beautiful music, and as well as the musicians (above) I sketched a couple of sketchers listening to it below, Cecilia Novello from Argentina on the left, and Shari Blaukopf from Montreal on the right (I really enjoyed her workshop in Amsterdam). I sketched some others too, a few people in the row behind me, plus Eric Ngan from New Zealand who was on the USk Executive Board, and Dan Archer who is British and lives in Hong Kong, I chatted with him on the first day and he was very friendly, plus his work’s great. Anyway, the big announcement for 2026, the Symposium will be in…Toulouse! In the South of France! I was delighted to hear that; I’ve not visited Toulouse, but for me France (especially the South) is like going home. The day I met my wife (in Aix-en-Provence), she had just come back from Toulouse. That’s two European Symposiums in a row, a bit like 2018-2019. So I am hoping to make it to that Symposium, but you know, it’s very competitive to get in, I didn’t apply to be an instructor or give a demo or talk on time (early deadline, also very competitive) and summer 2026 is a bit of an unknown for me anyway, so we will see. I might apply to be the Correspondent, since I like going round drawing everyone anyway, but I wasn’t selected for Poznan, and that’s fine. Still, I reckon I’d be good at it, though July in Toulouse can be rather hot, and the World Cup is happening then…

I didn’t spend all my time sketching though, I mostly mingled and chatted to people, a number of whom I had no chance to see during the Symposium and people who I’d seen online but not met in person, such as Taria from Taria’s Sketchy Adventures, whose work is great, she is from England but lives in South Africa. I also chatted a lot with Fred Lynch and his wife, and caught up with Fabien DeNoel who I last saw in Lille. I spoke with a lot of people, and the food and drink was really good.

All the sketchers in the world were at the hotel bar. I nearly went home after the reception, but saw many familiar faces and went over to catch a last beer with them, joining Suhita, Liz, Paul, Omar, Uma, Joel, everyone sat around sketching and talking. I got to finally meet Peter Rush from Australia, who so many people had been talking about with his cereal box sketches. I sketched the group above with Omar in the middle, I didn’t know some of the people behind, but Andrew James from New Zealand who I’d met a few times on the trip, he’s in this twice, once standing up and once sitting on a very low stool. He told everyone a funny sketching story about a watermelon. I sketched some people in my brown paper book below, there’s Nick Patyczak again this time wearing a tie with pigs on it; there’s Taria again; there’s a woman whose name I didn’t catch; there’s Alessandro Britto from Spain/Brazil/USA, who said “you hold your stuff like a crazy person!” (yes, I do; Lapin called it “L’Incroyable Tenue du Crayon de Pete” back in Portland); finally there’s Andrew telling the watermelon story.

It was definitely bedtime after this, I was off to Berlin the next day. And so, that was the 2025 Symposium! We will see if I make it to Toulouse. If you are reading this and are thinking about going to a Symposium, well I’ll say you should do it and you will probably have a great time, it’s overwhelming, exhausting, and a lot for introverts like me, but it’s all about relaxing and meeting the other sketchers, we are all like that, and all learn from each other. I drew a lot, but if I wish I’d done anything, I wish I’d drawn even more other sketchers. The sketches of people in those quick moments are what makes the memories for me. They aren’t all accurate, not even 50%, but it’s what came out and it’s what I had time to record, and that’s what counts. Ok, one more morning left in Poznan, and then on with the journey.

Poznań (Part 4) – Friday morning

February 7, 2026February 14, 2026Leave a comment

Friday morning at the Poznań Symposium, I was up at a good time and ready for a day of sketching. I had no workshops or demos to attend, but was planning to join two of the organized Sketchwalks in different parts of the city. I realized that I had not as yet been to the Old Town, just seen other peoples’ sketches of it posted online already. This morning though I’d be heading out with the group to Cathedral Island. Before that, I headed to the Symposium Hub at the Novotel Hotel for one of the morning presentations, and this one was by my friend Rita Sabler (who I also first met at Portland in 2010), who is an urban sketcher, journalist, musician and story teller, and gave a really moving talk called “The Power of Drawing in Telling Difficult Stories”. She travels all over, and so was presenting some of the stories she had documented on various assignments. I have sketched one of Rita’s talks before, back in 2016 in Manchester, and she is a really good presenter and empathetic teller of stories. “Drawing opens doors that would otherwise remain shut.” I drew another woman with pink (or maybe purple) hair listening to the talk (below) but didn’t catch her name. After Rita’s talk (there we are in the photo below, I’m wearing my Cameroon football shirt), I headed out to the meeting point for the Sketchwalk.

The sketch next to Pink-purple-hair by the way is London sketcher Lis Watkins, in the green jacket, who I’ve met a few times on our London sketchcrawls, I’m a big fan of her work. She was sketching over at Cathedral Island with so many of us. As a big crowd, we all got into the Poznań electric tram, and I chatted with some sketchers from Scandinavia. “This is the Symposium right here” I said, as we all squeezed in and tried to read each others name tags, “more than the sketching, it’s about all cramming into a tram and seeing where we end up.” It reminded me of the streetcars in Portland, or the buses in Manchester, or squeezing into that elevator in Amsterdam, sketchers off on an outing. We arrived at Ostrów Tumski, ‘Cathedral Island’, which is an island between branches of the river Warta, and is where the city of Poznań originated. The cathedral itself is one of the oldest in Poland. I’m a sucker for a cathedral, but it’s really nice to see one that looks so different from the big Gothic cathedrals of western Europe. I found a shaded spot in a garden by the river, chatting with Elizabeth Alley who told me a lot more stories about her Arctic adventure, and drew the view below. The bridge was red by the way but I never ended up colouring it in. I got to a point and was like, I’m done. This being on the portrait size paper, double spread, they always take a bit longer and I was really only interested in the cathedral. Looking at everyone else’s sketches though it did start to feel like I was deliberately not colouring in the obvious big red bridge, like a contrarian, but I really didn’t want to distract from the cathedral and that north-central-east European sky.

I went over the river and sat a bit closer to the Cathedral. I drew in pencil because I thought I might not spend as long faffing out with my pen, probably correct. I love those green oxidized roofs. It was peaceful over there, quiet. There were sketchers everywhere, quietly getting on with it. We all get it, we all know what it’s “for”. We all get it. It’s one of the things I love about symposiums, I don’t have to explain or feel like I need to justify why I need to stop and just bloody draw the world around me. I felt quite chilled at the end of this sketchwalk.

When we were all done sketching, we gathered in front of the Cathedral and did the obligatory and inevitable “Throw-Down”. People bloody love the Throw-Down don’t they. They all put their sketchbooks down on the ground, where people’s feet go, and all stand around the books like mourners at a grave, looking down at all the sketches from a distance of 5-6 feet which is totally how you look at art, no idea whose is whose. Like when I go to a museum, I always prefer it when they put all the paintings on the floor and make you look down at them. As you may know I don’t do the Throw-Down on my sketchcrawls, I prefer a show-and-tell, or maybe if we absolutely have to lay them out, then somewhere a bit higher up like a bench or a table. I don’t like leaving my sketchbook lying down on the pavement anyway. I did it once in France and a bike ran over it.

I met Kalina again who was wearing a Thor t-shirt, and also met with Mohan Banerji, a sketcher and actor who lives in Berkshire who I first met in Manchester 2016, it was really nice to see him again. I got the tram back to the city centre with him and a sketcher from Australia, Stuart Jenkinson (I sketched them both) and we had lunch at that place in the mall (where I had lunch every day, it was nice and there were always sketchers about). So far I was really enjoying Poznań, though I had still not sketched in the old town. I managed to finally do that in the evening, but had a brief rest at the hotel first to strum my ukulele and put my feet up.

Poznań (Part 3) – Thursday Afternoon Activities

February 6, 2026February 14, 2026Leave a comment

On the first day of the Poznań Symposium I had a busy schedule, so taking a short afternoon break at the hotel was a good idea. I relaxed, didn’t sketch, strummed my ukulele, and then dashed back across that park to join the Afternoon Demos. This is where the instructors, the Symposium faculty, all get to show a small group how they go about making a sketch, offering advice, encouraging to join in, but mostly watching and learning. I had signed up for Stephanie Bower‘s demo “Look Up!”, and we crowded around her stool and little easel to watch how she plots a drawing out. I’ve met Stephanie a number of times and always liked her sketching style, which is very strong with perspective and depth, and she has been a teacher for many years. Sometimes when she does these drawings with a very defined one point perspective they feel so grand you feel you can walk right into them, and when I see a certain type of scene (an old library interior or a town square in Italy) I usually think of how Stephanie might draw it. I have her book which is part of the ‘Urban Sketching Handbook’ series and refer to it often, but I’d never taken a workshop or demo with her so it was nice to hear her talk it through in real time. Of course, I cannot sit or stand still so I took the opportunity to draw the whole thing and many of the people attending as well.

I liked the sketch above because Stephanie is demonstrating how she uses her tools to find the vanishing points and the measure out perspective, and you can see the space we were working in. I kept it fast and very loose in pencil and a little paint. It’s funny, I did use pencil more on this trip, and I myself use pencil to measure things out, but then I sharpen the pencil and it gets a little shorter every time, so when I am using it to measure 45 minutes into the sketch, it’s not the same length any more. I’ll be honest, sometimes I do that thing with the pencil where I hold it out and close one eye just to make it look like I know what I’m doing, but I don’t really. I have talked about the performative aspect of being an urban sketcher before and that’s one of the theatrical tools I use, like a magician with that little wand and top hat. Anyway while I listened and watched Stephanie’s drawing unfold, I thought about whenever I have given a demo, and how difficult it is to maintain that zone you get into when drawing, I was impressed at how Stephanie managed it so well.

I got the brown paper sketchbook out for some people sketching, and was using the thick black pen a bit more which helped me create some more defined sketches. I really liked how these ones turned out. The pens were a Pigma Graphic 3 (the bigger block nib) and the Zebra pen I first picked up in Amsterdam, I don’t use it much but it’s nice. Coloured with watercolour, also some white gel pen. The sketches above are Ronaldo Kurita from Brazil who I had sketched badly the day before, this one looks much more like him. He was looking down watching Stephanie’s demo and really enjoying it. The next one is Rebecca Rippon who is from San Francisco, I’d never met her before but she said she had shown work at the Pence Gallery in Davis, small world! (It also reminded me I had a drop off deadline at the Pence that very day so sent a reminder back home to bring my drawings there for the Art Auction). I also drew Anna Zięntkewicz, who is from Poland and was on official duty as one of the Symposium Correspondents, being the local one. She was going from demo to demo documenting everything in her sketchbook, I think she liked my drawing of her hard at work. The other sketch on the opposite page was not drawn at the Demo, but at the Sketchwalk later on in a different park, she was a sketcher from Trieste in Italy called Giovanna Pacco and was one of a group (dressed in yellow) that came who were not registered for the Symposium but were joining in on the big Sketchwalks which were open to all. There were hundreds that came like that to Poznan (like I did in 2013 in Barcelona), and it felt like there was almost a ‘fringe’ symposium happening all over the city. I had been on the forums and groups leading up to the symposium and people were connecting and arranging to meet, it was great to see so many sketchers from all over the world coming together like that. I spoke briefly with her and her group, I have been to Trieste myself many years ago (right after graduating from university I took a few days in Trieste and Venice).

Before joining the Sketchwalk I walked to the other side of the park and drew the view looking down the hill, the shadow of that church spire cast on the colourful wall. There were so many sketchers dotted about, so many solo sketchers on their stools with that look of intense concentration. I know that look, I have lived that look for years. The strange fish drawings underneath were from some graffiti I saw, which is based on a local landmark ‘Pan Peryskop’ that has become a symbol of Poznan, and I’ll talk about in more detail later. This Pan Peryskop symbol was even in the Symposium logo, and appeared all over town. More on this later. I joined the Sketchwalk and we headed down to a bigger park nearby, called Park im. Karola Marcinkowskiego, and there was no way I was remembering that. I’d passed through it the day before when walking from the station. The streets around it were busy with traffic, but we ended up congregating around a small lake and I found a spot and drew that view, below. I enjoyed this sketch less, it didn’t really do what I wanted it to, it felt like an end of the day sketch. I liked drawing the people sketching on that log in front. The evening sunlight was good. I spoke with some sketchers but kept to myself mostly.

On the way back to my hotel, I drew this little old bench which was two stone goats holding up the seat.The goat is another symbol you will see everywhere in Poznań. The original goats, the Koziołki poznańskie, are two mechanical goats that come out on the City Hall and butt horns. The goat symbol crops up everywhere, but I think this was the only place I sketched them. I wrote down the name of the street they were on, but I’m not typing that out here, life’s too short.

And then after a brief rest it was time to head over to the mall again for the Drink and Draw that was happening at the restaurants just outside. Wasn’t really as good a location for a Drink and Draw as in some other Symposia, but I was planning to meet with Kalina Wilson (long time sketching friend since Portland) and see some other sketchers I’d not seen in ages. That was great, and I bumped into Fabien DeNoel, Arnaud De Meyer and Mauro Doro, the Belgium/Luxembourg lads who I’d not seen in a few years, always great to see them. While I was there a local artist, who it turned out designed many of the Pan Peryskop imagery you see everywhere, pointed out a little Peryskop figure and commended me on the pin I was wearing (that came with the symposium goodybag), and he gave me a bunch of really cool stickers of that image which I was delighted with, and went on my sketchbooks. I sat down with Kalina and some others and we all had a great evening chatting, I sketched Kalina who was in her red hat (the very same one from Portland 2010 which I had sketched when I met her there), and also drew Joel Winstead, who I first met in Manchester 2016 but had had a nice dinner with him and his friend back in Porto in 2018, so it was nice to see him again. There were also some sketchers from Germany and Austria with us, I had met one before but it was nice to meet the others (though I didn’t sketch them at that point). I also saw Joe Bean from Leeds who I’d been hoping to chat with, we ended up missing each other a lot during the Symposium but I saw him briefly on the final morning before I got my train. After all these nice meetings, and a long day, I went back to bed and slept well.

portland pals

January 31, 2019January 31, 20192 Comments

A few more from my recentish trip to Portland (early November, recent in geological terms). Above, I joined my friend Rita Sabler for her husband Jim’s birthday celebration at a cool little place in on Beach Street Portland I had never been to before, which involved some sketching and a lot of interesting conversation. Rita had invited me up to teach a workshop in Portland which was really fun, but it was really nice and relaxing to meet up with some of her friends. I last saw Rita in Porto in the summer at the symposium, she is actually a former UC Davis student (from before even I came to Davis). Check out Rita’s sketching work at www.portlandsketcher.com, she has done some great things lately (including a residency at the leper colony on Molokai!).

On my second night there I met up another old sketching buddy and fellow pirate-sketcher, Kalina Wilson. I really wanted to go back to this Belgian place that we had sketched one rainy Sunday afternoon back in 2012, Bazi Bierbrasserie, so we arranged to meet there. Except it’s not called that any more, it’s now to my surprise The Thirsty Monk. Beer was still nice though, and the conversation fun, always good to catch up after quite a while, I think I last saw her either at Manchester symposium or when my wife and I visited Portland one November (I forget the year). Check out Kalina’s sketching.

And above, a sketch I did at the hotel bar of the Doubletree in Portland. You have to go down to the bar to use their Wifi because it’s not included in the rooms (booo, join the 21st century Doubletree). I usually stay at this hotel because it is easy enough for the places I usually want to go, it’s right by the MAX line to the airport, but I don’t know, time to find somewhere else maybe. There was a heavy metal weekend going on at the hotel while I was staying there, so there were lots of long-haired metally people, dressed pretty much the same way (“metal”), which didn’t really fit in with the bland corporateness of the Doubletree. I always kinda laugh at the sameyness of metal outfits and rock dress, but of course when I was younger this was very much the scene in London that I enjoyed being around the most, the Hellfire Club on Oxford Street, the Intrepid Fox on Wardour Street, the Marquee on a Thursday night, I loved those places. And I would dress, well actually I would wear a bright green football shirt and have short hair because I liked to be different to everyone else, but I could mosh with the best of them. Those were the days. I felt quite at home around all the rockers, even in the sanitized corporate setting (and Doubletree, don’t put the toilets so far from the bar, yeah?). Anyway I sketched the bar, in its bland corporate light wood and screen showing basketball. Not exactly Old Town Pizza (now that is an interesting bar to sketch!) but a good way to get sleepy before bed.

symposium people

August 24, 2016August 25, 20165 Comments

And now for the final post about #Uksmnachsrte2106 (sorry, been typing it so many times I have forgotten how to type) (that looks like a joke but I corrected about half the words typed in this sentence just now so it isn’t) (my autocorrect has just given up on me and gone home). The final official day was on Saturday July 30th, we had a Closing Ceremony, and they announced that CHICAGO will host the next one! Hooray! I do hope I can go. Anyway here are a few more sketches of people that I did over the days of the Symposium, in no particular order, but starting with Simone Ridyard, above, Manchester resident and one of the main organizers of this whole awesome successful symposium. Here she is announcing day three, with some of the main stage backdrop behind her. Well done Simone and all the Symposium team! I have Simone’s book Archisketcher, by the way, it is very good.

Next up is Bridget March, a lovely lady I met in the first workshop, who is from Harrogate (I had a friend at school from Harrogate, sounds nice there) but lives and works in Saigon in Vietnam. We ate with some others at a great little street-food type snack bar on Oxford Road, while rain drizzled down outside.

Here I did my only digital sketch of the Symposium, made on the iPad with the Paper app. this is Danni Hoedemakers, from Belgium (Hasselt), who I met talking with Corinne Raes at the Peveril of the Peak. She was telling me about these really interesting tours of Hasselt that she gives, “Happiness Tours” I think they were called, which I really liked the sound of, though I struggle to explain them. This gave me a few ideas of doing similar things but including sketching or writing. Anyway, it sounded like fun. There were quite a lot of Belgians at the Symposium, always a good thing, allez les Belges!

Now here we meet Mateusz Hajnsz from Poland, who I remember from the USk Manchester facebook page, nice to meet him. He actually had a copy of my book to be signed! So I sketched him as well. I sketched him later during dinner as well as part of the group at the Indian Tiffin Room.

Speaking of signing books, this is Stephanie Bower from Seattle. I really like Stephanie’s artwork, very architectural and full of light, and she is a delight. Her book “Understanding Perspective“, the latest in the Urban Sketching Series, just came out, so she was signing copies at the Symposium (I bought my copy in the US) when I sketched her.

And here is the book-signing event several of us who have books were asked to come and sign them at. these two fine people are from Quarto books, Ben and Emma, with a selection of publications such as the Urban Sketching Series books (of which Stephanie’s is one), Gabi Campanario’s “The Art of Urban Sketching”, Katherine Tyrell’s “Sketching 365”, Simone Ridyard’s “Archisketcher”, and James Hobbs’s “Sketch Your World”. Ok then…where was Creative Sketching Workshop? When I got there they had none. They had some the day before, apparently, but none now. So I stuck around anyway and sketched Ben and Emma, and then after a while they found at the bottom of a box a few remaining copies and put them out, so I added those in! I didn’t sign any though. I never know what to write when signing books anyhow, I always think I should write “Happy Birthday”!

At the final Closing Ceremony party at the School of Art, I was already feeling tired, but I did spend time talking to people and sketching, saying my goodbyes and see-you-in-Chicagos, and I’m very glad to have rubbed shoulders with so many international sketchers, old and new friends. The funny thing about urban sketching symposia is that you might only say a few things to someone, see them in a few workshops, raise a drink and say “great job on all the sketching, here’s my Moo card” but then over the next couple of years you make a point of Liking their FB pages, commenting on their sketches, checking out their websites, being inspired by their prodigious output, and then next time you see them in another country you feel you know each other a lot more, and it all begins to feel like a big global sketching family. Above, on the right is Vincent Desplanche, from France, who I met briefly last year in Strasbourg and was blown away by his sketchbooks, and who I have followed with great interest over the past year, it was great to see him again in Manchester, and hopefully we’ll sketch together in the future. He is talking to Daniel Nies, from Germany, who I met for the first time in Manchester but I recognize from the Urban Sketcher group on Facebook. He told me that he is a beekeper, and was very interested in the bee symbol of Manchester (though it’s an inaccurate bee, he said!), and made a really cool lino-print of that same bee emblem. Incidentally the bee represents the worker element of Manchester, the home of the Industrial Revolution. On the right is Kalina Wilson from Portland (aka Geminica), who I’ve known since the first symposium (uskpdx2010) and feels like an old sketching buddy. Also a fellow pirate. Here she is disbelieving me when I tell her that I used to teach Cockney Rhyming Slang in classes at a university in Belgium, but this fact is absolutely true (it even came up in their exam). So glad she was able to make it to the UK this summer, and she even came to the Wren crawl the weekend before in London.

Here are a couple of sketchers from Yorkshire (I do like a Yorkshire accent!), on the left is none other than Matthew Midgley from Huddersfield, who I have wanted to meet for years, I love his artwork. Super nice guy, who likes to draw food. On the right is Alec Turner, who I did not know, but was also friendly and a nice subject to draw.

Next up was Ed Harker from Bristol/Bath, who I had spoken to earlier in the day, and whom I saw sketching me in his long accordion notebook. Well, I couldn’t resist sketching him back! You will notice that I am sketching most of these people in pencil, which is quicker and a bit more expressive – I’m doing this more, and it’s fun. Little dab of paint, lovely. Ed was a lovely bloke, and his sketches are lively and fun.

Above, two well-known urban sketchers, Lynne Chapman and Liz Steel. Lynne from Sheffield (though originally from the south of England), a much-published children’s illustrator who also recently brought out a book about Sketching People, which I haven’t yet got but I certainly will do. It came out in March, just a little bit too late for me to read while writing my own book about sketching people – shame, as I am hugely inspired by how Lynne draws people, she does such a fantastic (and often very colourful) job. Speaking of books, Liz Steel (from Sydney, Australia) (there was a big contingent from Australia this year!) But Liz has been to every single symposium, since Portland 2010) also has a book coming out this Fall – it is the ‘other half’ of the one I wrote! “Five Minute Sketching Architecture” will be published in the US on October 1, same date as my “Five Minute Sketching People”

Ok now these were sketchers dancing at the closing ceremony party. The pen scribble is an aborted attempt at sketching Marina Grechanik that just didn’t work. The other sketches on the page however are obviously super accurate and obviously detailed likenesses. Maybe not, but sketching dancers isn’t easy – it is fun though.Two of them I do recognize, the others I don’t know who they are. There was a lot of dancing; they even did the Conga. Pete doesn’t do the Conga.

Pete does dress up as Captain America and pose heroically though. Here I am with Marc van Liefferinge from Belgium (a photographer whom I met in Strasbourg last summer, this time he was photographing the big symposium!), and Vincent Desplanche from France.

And finally, Liz Steel once more, and Paul Wang from Singapore. More old Urban Sketching friends! I remember nice evenings at dinner with Paul and Liz in Lisbon and Barcelona. Hopefully again in Chicago!

There were about 500 people sketching Manchester this symposium, and I’m pretty glad I was one of them. Too many however to meet them all, though I gave it a good try, but not ever overwhelming. I think that was Manchester itself, which despite being the first time I was there, had a real familiarity about it. I didn’t even mind the rain. I think it was the Chips in Gravy. A huge thanks to all the Symposium organizers for showing us Manchester, and who knows, see you in Chicago…

petescully

postcards of the hanging

Tag: kalina wilson