Off to another Urban Sketchers’ Symposium!

In the murky past (last year) I attended my first ever Urban Sketchers’ Symposium, and pretty much live-blogged it here (starting on Day Zero). My undercover spy report was popular, at least with the denizens of Logan’s discord, so I am going to do it again, this time in Toulouse! (Although I am not sure i will stick to a liveblogging schedule.)

As a preamble, I thought I would answer a few unasked questions.

Was it hard to get a ticket?

YES IT WAS. I sat at my laptop with eventbrite opened up and ready, but still, every single ticket release was gone before I could press the buy button (I was in Malaysia with slow internet, but social media suggest that this was a common experience).
However, I kept refreshing, and fifteen minutes after the one-workshop release a few new tickets appeared (obviously released by people who could not complete the complex payment process). So, I clicked on buy… and failed!

And then some sketcher passes appeared… and I failed!

Finally, just as I was about to give up and go to a Chinese New Year dinner, some two-workshop passes showed up–and, this time, I was fast enough!

So, yeah. It was all very exciting. But I am sharing it here in case others want to try my same method, next year.

What supplies am I bringing?

Not a lot, actually! Just my usual sketching kit with some extra (bigger) brushes and fancy pens, my normal sketchbooks plus the Perfect Sketchbook (I own one but have been afraid to use it), and a couple of Art Toolkits,:

My reasoning is that 1. I will be getting freebies and plan to test them and 2. there will be an Art Market in case of emergencies.

What do I hope to accomplish?

Basically, I would like to rethink my sketching style. Recently, I have fallen into a line-and-wash rut:

But is this because that is what I want, or because it is what I can do?

Okay, it is at least a little bit because it is what I want (I like the look of it) but I feel that I can tune up the line-width issue a bit by learning to vary my marks. I even tried a fude fountain pen yesterday, with mixed results:

Also, I cannot help wondering whether I should not be more watercolour-first. After all, I still consider myself a watercolourist, and I can paint stuff, even some buildings, without relying on lines at all:

Finally, I am not sure anyone has noticed, but I have: in spite of having forced several friends into doing the 100 people challenge with me, I have stopped including people in my sketches. The reason for this is, of course, cowardice.

So, anyway, my goal is to experiment! Specifically with line widths and with making watercolour the focus (as you will see from my workshops) but also with, er, people, and, of course, with whatever else I see that inspired me.

Wish me luck, I will need it! And if you are in Toulouse too, say hi!