Amsterdam - Urban Sketchers Sympoisum 2019

This was my third symposium, and first visit to Europe. I had a great time and it was so awesome!

Amsterdam is such a photogenic city, you can sit anywhere and get a great sketch.

Let the journey to Amsterdam begin. Auckland to Brisbane - and the requisite airport sketch!

Layover at Brisbane airport.

Flying 14 hours from Brisbane to Dubai with Emirates. Luckily the flight wasn't full, and we could spread out over four seats! Even then, there wasn't huge amounts of sleep, so after getting bored with endless movies, I sketched.

Zuiderkerk [South Church] was the hub of the symposium. I think EVERYONE sketched this building. Yes, the lamp post was crooked!
We hit the heat wave this week, and temperatures soared to 40 degrees! Some symposium participants struggled badly and fainted -daily reminders to stay in the shade and hydrate!
600+ registered sketchers from 48 different countries. Plus dozens of unregistered artists joined in to the free Sketch walks each day.

Workshop with Marion Rivolier. Tried to use my markers to approximate the water colour techniques she was teaching.

Workshop with Roisin Cure, goose quill and brown ink - very nice to work with.

Workshop with Eduardo Bajzek. A technique that gives a great moody effect.
Really enjoyed this one, as it bought me back to my roots of pencil work.

Before heading to the symposium workshops each day, I used three cool mornings to complete this sketch of the amazing buildings of Amsterdam. 

As a member of the USK Social media team, I seek out and repost every night to the Instagram account. At the symposium I also did quick interviews of sketchers, which was fun. But in the lead up, we noted that we were approaching 200,000 followers, so we wanted to commemorate this. We sent out a call for involvement #USK200k, then we selected the finalist, and I edited them into a power point to be played at the symposium. It was a fun project, and we got close, but it wasn't until after we got home that we actually hit the 200k mark. Nevermind. I reformatted the presentation into two Instagram videos, and we celebrated from afar.

The silent auction at the final night function -great art donated to fund raise for the USK committee

The final big photo of all 600+ sketchers.
I met up with some awesome old friends, and made some new awesome friends.
So very satisfying on so many levels.

The 2020 symposium was announced for Hong Kong at Easter.. will you be there?!

Following the symposium, I stayed in Amsterdam for another week.

Enjoyed some great food, sight seeing, and more sketching.

And the weather had cooled down to a fabulous 30 degrees!

The unique canal bridges

A visit to the Rijks Museum and the library

A view of Zuiderkerk on  canal bridge

Another canal bridge. I was met by an interested local, who invited me into his 4 story canal house nearby.
It was a great experience to venture into a 400 year old house! He then mentioned I should visit a certain area of Amsterdam for some more sketching...

As recommended - this area of Buiksloterdijk had an amazing array of unique cottages.

While sketching the previous houses,a local resident invited me to sketch his house "The most beautiful in the whole street" He wasn't wrong. And he also invited me inside to see his house. A special day!

A day trip to Haarlem was another sketcher's heaven, but the huge Grote Kerk [Great Church] St Bavo had me sitting for three hours [and a few beers]

No visit to the Netherlands is complete without visiting wind mills. As you can also tell, it was a gloomy and showery day. A big difference from last week's heat wave!

A final sketch from my accommodation's first floor

On the way back to Aotearoa, we stopped for a few days in Singapore - for some sketching and eating!

Lau Pa Sat food court, housed inside an historic building

I joined the Singapore sketchers for a morning session.

AND there you have it. Lots of fun. Amazing experience, Great memories.