I just got back the Urban Sketchers Symposium, held in the beautiful city of Poznań, Poland.
It was my 4th symposium, after Manchester, Porto (my favorite!) and Amsterdam, and was fantastic as usual.
What is the USK Symposium?
The Urban Sketchers Symposium is an annual international gathering of sketchers from around the world. It’s 3 packed days of workshops, lectures, demos, sketch walks, and the chance to meet hundreds of people who share the same passion for drawing on location.
Impressions from Poznan
When you prepare for an urbansketching symposium it’s always exciting! I prepared 2 leporello sketchbooks, my watercolors, my sketchbag, a stool, color pencils and watercolor pencils. In this video you can see what I prepared.
It’s always fun to arrive at least a day early, and if you want to extend your trip, you can always find “warm up” gatherings all around the area and in neighboring countries! You can find these announcements of events mostly on Facebook and Instagram.
I arrived a day early but couldn’t stay longer unfortunately.
Other things which are good to prepare: stickers and business cards with your art to swap ! J
Takeaways from this symposium
- Take time to play and don’t rush ! It’s easy to get overwhelmed at the symposium because there’s so much to do and to see and to sketch, and so many people to meet! Even now after the symposium I feel sometimes frustrated when I see online people who were there that I didn’t get to meet… If you let yourselves be overwhelmed you will be frustrated. So just enjoy yourself, play around with your sketchbook and sketch what you feel like sketching
- I managed to take my time and did my longest ever sketching session: a 5 hour long sketch at the main square Stary Rynek with amazing colored houses
- It’s a great time to experiment and try new sketching techniques! Everywhere in the city you can meet sketchers that sketch in a different way, with different tools, so have a look and play along! By trying out different ways of sketching, you can try different styles you like, and do it your way, with your lines and colors, and find eventually your own style and sketching personality
The Art Market
If you come to the symposium, make sure to have some room in your bags for new art supplies….
I bought great sketchbooks made in Poland with wonderful watercolor paper. You can also get them online here: https://kovalshop.com/en/37-all-sketchbooks
And the best news for Europeans:
next year’s USK Symposium will be in Toulouse, France July 15 -18 2026…
Subscribe to https://urbansketchers.org/usk-symposium/ to get emails about the tickets !
In the video below you can see my sketches from Poznan!
Enjoy !
