Idyll Sketching

Beautiful Landscapes, Idly Painted

USK Symposium in Toulouse, Day Zero

Hanna

,

The Symposium has officially begun!

Registration and Goodies

Registration started off on a fun note. The conference center where it was being held has very heavy, airport-like security, so the first thing we had to do was line up to pass that. I asked one of the volunteers, easily identifiable by a pink vest (more on the pink thing later) whether this was the queue I was supposed to stand in to get a chance to stand in the registration queue, and he laughed and said:

Oui! Welcome to France!

So I guess that is a thing here? I instantly felt at home as queues are very much a Polish tradition, too.

Anyway, all the queues were fast moving, and thus I was quickly able to get my hands on both my badge and the bag of goodies. Which, this year, contains the following:

This feels like a huge haul! I hope it fits in my luggage allowance. Paints above and to the left, pen/pencil things next to them, notebooks below. The whole extra column on the right is a special additional package from Artemiranda, arguable the best art shop in Europe.

I will be attempting to use this stuff over the next three days. Especially the two square accordion notebooks, because I love them (as do many other people, apparently! The Artemiranda one on top right is a copy of the one we got last year, which was very very popular.)

Of course, I will use the paints too. I got many. Special shoutouts to Roman Szmal, who has produced a very cute orange minipalette with four paints, including a limited-edition orange called USK Symposium 2026 (more on this later) and Daniel Smith, who gave us all a triad of 5ml tubes. A princely gift, given their prices.

Sketching

Let me now rewind time because, in fact, I arrived a few hours before registration. I was too late to join the official welcoming sketchwalk; however, when I went for a walk of my own, I immediately encountered approximately 100000 random sketchers. Since I am easily influenced, I felt compelled to join them.

So, anyway, I did a couple of sketches of varying quality. I quite like this one, though:

I like this sketch for two reasons: 1. it illustrates very well what I mean when I say “if I use lots of cool granulating pigments, people will ignore my linework” and 2. I was painting in a cloister, which was both shady and sheltered from the wind. So at least I was physically comfortable. (Have I mentioned that there is a heatwave in France at the moment? Because there is! One consequence of it is that everything dries almost immediately, which is really messing with my water control intuitions. I think I might actually try that Artemiranda spray bottle from the goodies bag! Either on my painting or on myself.)

Reception

The reception was, as last year, a mingle. I do not love aimless mingling, but luckily here you are pretty much guaranteed to have at least one obsession in common with anyone you talk to. Like, pigments, or shadows, or other people’s sketchbooks. (You are also guaranteed not to run into anyone to whom you have casually said, “Oh, I think I will see you at the reception!” It’s, like, a curse. There are just too many people and catering stands.)

I amused myself by asking people whether they think Toulouse is “a pink city”, since that is how it was sold to us (and I know that several people packed pink just because of this suggestion). Here are some of the answers I got:

  • No, it’s Burnt Sienna.
  • No, it’s orange.
  • No, it’s a pinky brown.
  • No, it’s peach.
  • No, it’s ochre with alizarin dropped in.
  • Yes! It’s Potter’s Pink!
  • How would I know? I am colourblind. My latest portrait of my wife is green… or so I am told.
  • I have heard that it is pink at dawn, but I will never see that, obviously. Salut!

But the most serious answer is, of course, that of Roman Szmal, whom I did not ask, but who chose an orange as the limited-edition paint for this year’s Symposium. I will be trying out that paint tomorrow! Probably, anyway; for who knows where the muses will take me?

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