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.
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 toldAstérion 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.
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.
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…
The Symposium was over, and it was the last morning in Poznań. I had a train to catch to Germany, but still a bit of Poland to sketch. I slept ok after getting back from the closing reception and the drink-and-draw that went on well after midnight, but still got up early to go out into the sunshine and finally draw that colourful row of chocolate-box buildings on the main Stary Rynek square. I drew fast and used my fountain pen; I didn’t have time to colour in there so did that later, but I drew a lot in a short amount of time. It was so nice out. There were still some sketchers about, and I even finally bumped into Joe Bean who I’d been trying to meet with for a few days. So many people at this symposium, it was hard to find everyone. I wonder how many others I didn’t get a chance to talk to this time. The little stalls in the arches were setting up, it would have been a really good day to just spend all day in the square sketching, but I was ready to move on from Poznań, interesting city though it was, Berlin was calling me. I did have time to do one more sketch below of a fountain I’d wanted to draw, which again I had to colour in later, but then I had to dash back to the hotel and get a cab to the train station.
Here are a couple more Poznań sketches, that I started but didn’t draw until later. Some graffiti I had spotted while about town, I really liked the two-headed cartoon pig. There’s the sign for Zabka, the little mini-market conveniently located everywhere, I missed that when I left. And below, I had really wanted to draw one of the nice manhole covers, these are the things I like to look out for in new cities. So that was my trip to Poland, a week in a very interesting country that had nice people, great architecture, good trains, convenient stores, fresh beer, good food, an attractive sounding language full of long words with frightening spelling. I’ll definitely be back to explore more some day, maybe I won’t leave 27 years in between trips this time.
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.
Saturday came around fast. I was going to go for a morning run along the river, having been told about some good running paths by one of the volunteers, but it was a little bit rainy and so I went to the hotel gym instead. I had a 5k race the day after getting back to California so thought I’d better keep it up, but I had run a lot in London. I was here to sketch. After breakfast, which by the way at my hotel was really nice, lots of interesting Polish food, I went to the Symposium hub for the morning sessions. they reminded us to submit work for the auction, and also submit a postcard size drawing to win special prizes later, both of which I forgot to make time to do. Oops. When it’s in my sketchbook I can hide it away with my other sketches. Anyway, feeling a little disappointed in myself, I went to the first talk, and I had been waiting for this one. I’ve followed Detlef Surrey for years, the Berlin based illustrator who draws in a quick almost cartoon-like style in pencil and always captures the energy and spirit of the places he is drawing. I feel like I loosed up my own sketching after seeing his, and that helps when sketching scenes like above (and of the other talks) where I have to draw everyone quickly while writing down what he says. Detlef’s presentation was about his book, “Berlin: the Wall Revisited” in which he explores his home city by following the length of the Berlin Wall, or where it used to be located anyway. I was going to Berlin after my trip to Poznan and planned to do just that myself, so it was pretty inspiring. He showed us pictures from when he was younger, and the Wall was still up, and talked about the experiences of living in the divided city. I used to be fascinated with Berlin when I was a kid, when it was still West Berlin and East Berlin, and I remember so vividly watching the news when the Wall came down. Detlef showed us sketches of some sections where parts of the Wall are still up, and where the ‘Death Strip’ was located, where so many people were killed just for trying to go from one side to the other. I did visit that place myself a few days later. Detlef spoke with emotion, and it was a very moving presentation. I did look for his book while in Berlin but kept missing it (at one shop I was told they just ran out, because people who had been at the Symposium were coming to buy it). I ended up ordering it from the publisher after returning to America, and that took a while, due to tariffs and other issues where postal services would not ship to the US, and it ended up costing me more than the prices of the book to finally get it, but it was worth it as it’s a great read. While in Poznan though Detlef did give me a really cool little Urban Sketchers Berlin booklet, which I think was from an Urban Sketchers meetup the year before, full of sketchwalks and bits about different areas of Berlin, and I carried that around with me every day there, and it showed me where to go for the Berlin Wall Monument. Anyway, more on that in a later post. It was time to dash off to the first Sketchwalk of the day.
A large group walked over towards ‘Fredry’ for the Sketchwalk. It wasn’t raining now and in fact was quite bright and sunny. I chatted with Liz Steel for the first time in ages, it was really nice to catch up and hear about all her work and travels, she is so prolific. Once we all got over to Fredry I stood next to an interesting little kiosk next to an old red brick building and sketched that in pencil. I liked sketching a bit looser like that and I liked the outcome. That sketch above is one of my favourites from Poznan, I can’t explain why but it said what I wanted it to. I did have to get into a bit of shade on a bench under a small tree to finish it, I can’t stand in the sun for too long. I went back across the street to sketch some of the sketchers, see below. The two on the top are (left) Xana Jasmin, sketched during the morning talk; this was the first time I’d met her in person but had spoken to her online a few years ago when she invited me on behalf of Urban Sketchers Jacksonville to give a short talk and demo to their group over Zoom, which was fun. That was in the Pandemic times still. On the right is Gabriela Romagna who I think is from Austria, and who I had met a couple of evenings before at the Drink and Draw.
Above on the left is my old urban sketching friend Omar Jaramillo, another Correspondent from the earliest days of USk who I first met in Lisbon in 2011. He lives in Berlin, I think he was in Italy back in those days. He was sat with a Polish sketcher who I think was called Mateusz, I didn’t speak to him but I think I remember him from the Manchester Symposium, I didn’t recognize him so wasn’t sure at first. On the right is Alexandra who is from Berlin, I’d sketched her at the opening ceremony and drew here wearing her new hat which had mushrooms all over it. That was actually from the evening Sketchwalk but is on the same spread of my small brown paper sketchbook. As you can see I stamped the pages with the official stamps of the Symposium and of USk Poznań.
I went into this little courtyard where an art and craft market was being set up. There were some great printmakers there; I totally got a bunch of printmaking stuff the years before and totally stopped doing any of it, the lino printing and such, and felt like it’s something I really need to work on again. (Six months later, still not done any of it). I was feeling a bit peckish so went into this cafe, called Nowe Lokum Stonewall, and got a massive slice of cake and a beer, and sketched the bar area. I wanted to draw all the LGBTQ+ flags up on the wall, and I really liked all the rainbow colours above the bar. I drew with my fountain pen in brown ink which was ok on that awful Moleskine paper; I made the mistake of stamping it with the Symposium stamp, which as you can see did not come out smoothly. This place was cool, and it was nice to hang out and sketch an interior after all the street sketching. It did start to look a bit like it might rain, but didn’t. Still I had more to go and sketch before the final meetup.
I could have sketched a number of pretty scenes in that area, and nearly drew the courtyard of the Imperial Castle / Cultural Center, or the dramatic tall concrete monument in Plac Adama Mickiewicza that many others drew, but instead I sat in a small park and drew this, the Katyń Monument, or Pomnik Katyński. Looking at it closely, it gave me the horrors. Reading a bit more about what it was a monument to, an awful series of mass executions in 1940 known as the Katyń Massacre, that gave me even more horrors. A lot of truly terrible atrocities happened in World War Two, and this was really horrible, 22,000 Polish officers were murdered by the Soviets on the orders of Stalin. After sketching, I had to just sit on a bench and think for a while. I couldn’t look at it for long. Soon it was time to meet up with the rest of the sketchers at the end on the steps of the Grand Theatre. That was when the skies opened up, and an enormous rainstorm, accompanied by a bit of thunder and lightning, exploded above us. We all huddled under the columns laughing and exchanging stickers and art cards, there was a large group from South Korea whose sketches were amazing (followed them all on Instagram and very much appreciated all the stickers, which I put in my new Urban Sketchers passport that I got at the Hub), and we all waited for the rain to stop before heading off for lunch back at the mall. My mood lifted a bit when I saw the football score, Spurs were beating Manchester City and that always puts me into a good mood. I could tell that 2025-2026 would be a really great season for Tottenham. (Narrator’s Voice, speaking in February after another defeat left us in 16th place – “it wasn’t”). Check back soon for Part 7…
Long post, I am lumping the afternoon and evening sketches all together, and starting at the end. Above is the Ratusz, the historic town hall, in the main square of Poznań on Friday night, sketched after all the other sketching and meetings, before heading back to the hotel. I was walking back and looked up and just knew I had this one more sketch in me, another pencil at night looking up type sketch, and this time on the nicer Hahnemuhle paper (so none of that bobbling paper I got on the Moleskine). It’s a big, striking and very well-lit building, shining in the night time as much as in daylight. It was busy out in the Poznań city centre, lots of people around the main square and lots of young people enjoying the cafes and bars. I still wasn’t that familiar yet with the old town and got a little bit lost while walking back to the hotel, ending up in some less well-lit quieter streets, though I didn’t feel unsafe. The last time I’d been in Poland in 1998 a group of skinheads in Krakow had ambushed me on my way back to the hostel, failing to steal my watch they instead stole my glasses and ran off. I did get them back (it was a long night, but I was determined, I needed my eyesight); I’ve not forgotten that, and brought a spare pair of glasses with me on this trip, just in case. A little bit about the Ratusz, this building dates from the 1550s, replacing an earlier town hall from the 12th century, and is now a museum. Its most famous feature are the two mechanical goats that come out at midday. The tower (and goats) were destroyed in 1675 by lightning, when a time traveller from 1985 attempted successfully to drive his car back to the late 20th century. There was a hurricane that damaged the tower in 1725, and the building sustained a lot of damage in World War II during the Battle of Poznan, and was rebuilt in the 1950s. I really liked all the green metal dragon gargoyle features around the building. That was a feature I noticed on the Armoury in Gdansk. I saw many dragon features around Gdansk, it may be a popular symbol in Poland.
Speaking of popular symbols, this is ‘Pan Peryskop‘, a very unusual sculpture located in Plac Bernardyński. The logo of the Symposium featured a cartoon version of this, and I soon discovered that those same cartoons and variants were spray-painted on walls all over Poznan. (Poznan, by the way, what a city for interesting graffiti, I loved it). It turns out the cartoon figure came first, created by a mysterious street artist called Noriaki. There is an article on Urban Sketchers about it: https://urbansketchers.org/2025/08/17/from-street-art-to-symposium-star-mr-periscope-welcomes-you-to-poznan/ Whether the man I had met the evening before around the Drink and Draw, who told me he was the creator and gave me a load of really cool stickers of Pan Peryskop for free which I placed on my sketchbook (seriously, people were envying my shiny Pan Peryskop stickers), was really the artist himself I’ll never know, but let’s just say yes he was, because he told me he was and I love free stickers. I read somewhere that Noriaki is sometimes called ‘the Polish Banksy’. I saw many other sketchers had drawn the sculpture so I went to look for it, a short walk from my hotel. It reminded me of No-Face from Spirited Away, but with a curved mirror. The sculpture is actually called ‘Selfie Watcher’. There were a few sketchers dotted around, and I drew a couple of them below sat on a wall, Julia from Ukraine, and Laeti from Berlin (but who I think is French).
I stopped to draw a hydrant (see the end of the post) while walking back into the old city centre, where I would be joining the early evening Sketchwalk, which would be around the, at the, it was somewhere in the old town. I need to look up the location, I cannot remember any of those long street names. Skwer Roman Wilhelmiego. I picked a big brick building and drew the top of it. The sky looked like a blue white and grey camouflage shirt. You can really see that bobbly paper. Having drawn a lot of towers and spires in Gdansk I needed to up my quota here, but only managed two of them. I sat and listened to a couple of sketchers from opposite sides of the world have a conversation about, I don’t know, food or roads or whatever. I’m not a good listener, I forget things easily. I saw some graffiti that said “Warning! Artists in the Area” That was right. I saw more Pan Peryskops around, and several cartoon pigs, there were a lot of those about, I liked them. As we all sat or stood about sketching, volunteers in orange hi-viz vests walked about slowly looking down sternly, as if they were inspecting the sketches. I started to imagine them as prison guards, the Urban Sketchers Police, checking to see that everyone is following the Manifesto. “What’s that, a ruler? Guards!” As with every silly idea I have, I found it hard to get that image out of my head, so when they weren’t looking, I made a run for it.
I went a couple of blocks away and stood right in the middle of Stary Rynek, the main square, which wasn’t part of the Sketchwalk route but I’m an urban sketching rebel. Plus I couldn’t find the next location on the map. I wanted to draw one of the rows of colourful old buildings in the main square; see below. I only had 30 minutes before the official end of the Sketchwalk, and I didn’t want to be late, I’m not that much of a rebel. So I went FAST. It may be one of the fastest most detailed sketches I did that day. I didn’t colour it in, except the sky which was pure theatre. I umped into some sketchers I knew, but I was on a mission and once the sketchbook was out I was in the ZONE. I didn’t even notice Rita Sabler took a picture of me sitting on the cobbles when I was adding my paint, oblivious to the man looking over my shoulder looking utterly perplexed or amazed at my sketch. Or maybe he was just thinking “why is he holding his pen like that?” or “wait are those Jurassic Park socks?” (which they totally are by the way).
I went to the final meeting spot of the Sketchwalk, which was uphill by the castle, the Zamek Królewski w Poznaniu, the Royal Castle of Poznań. I saw a few friends there, and sketched one of the volunteers (who signed it as Patyczak when I saw him again next day and was quite a funny guy) just before his call for the final photo, “Everybody here now!” We took our photos and most people went off to the drink and Draw; I was hoping to see Joe Bean in the main square so headed back down that way, thinking I’d join the others later. I never made it, too far to walk after the busy day, so after I bumped into a group of sketchers I knew I sat and had a drink in the main square, sketched them and looked through some incredible sketchbooks. I chatted with Sybille Lienhardt from Germany who had taken Peter Rush’s workshop, he is from Australia and he draws on the back of cereal boxes, these amazing big drawings. It’s something I should like to try. I also looked through her sketchbooks, wow! Her colours really jumped out. Detlef Surrey was there too but left early, he had to practice for his talk about his Berlin Wall book the next morning. I met for the first time Anne-Rose Oosterbaan, whose work I have followed for years and was amazed to finally meet, and see her incredible sketches in person (plus she knew of me!). I’ve seen so much of her work online that it doesn’t look real in person, and she was so productive on this trip. Also there was Peter Dutka who I had met in Manchester years before, I think he didn’t remember my name but called me Captain America (I wore the Cap hoodie in Manchester), I sketched him. His sketchbooks too were well impressive. Then there was the great Hungarian urban sketcher Örs Lévay whose sketches I have admired for years but I’d never met in person, lovely bloke. I sketched him in his hat. Also there was a sketcher from Hamburg whose work I have definitely seen but didn’t really know, Nicola Maier-Reimer, and I tell you what looking through her sketchbooks was a highlight of the trip, I’d never seen so many amazing sketches, particular her very comic style of sketching people, and her love of cars as well, there were so many stories everywhere on her pages. I sketched her too. Eventually it was getting late, there was another busy day tomorrow, so I went back to the hotel (but stopped to sketch the Ratusz, as you saw at the start of the post).
for some reason I’m putting these last two at the end of the post, they just seem to go together. One is a very old metal water pump I sketched on the Sketchwalk, how could I resist that. When I see metal pipes coming out of the ground I have to draw them. It’s like, these foreign cities know my algorithm, they know how to slow me down, make an ornate metal pipe appear every so often, and I’ll never get to my destination. I draw them fast though. The other is a red hydrant from Austria that I sketched on another street with a name I’m not even going to attempt to pronounce. And that was Friday, there was one day left of the Symposium, and that will be about three more posts, maybe a fourth. It’s only taken me six months to say what I did in Poland, and then there’s Berlin, and a few more days in London. Not to mention the rest of 2025. I’ll never catch up.
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.
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.
petescully 
