Yesterday the Urban Sketchers Symposium roared to life with an Australia/New Zealand meetup. We’d only known each other online—Facebook comments, ticket chatter—but someone suggested a face-to-face.
We met out the front of Poznań’s Town Hall, smack dab in the middle of the Town Squre. No trouble finding each other, between the backpacks and the tshirts, sketchers are easy to spot. Quick intros, recognising people from Instagram, figuring out who was going to which workshop until the Melbourne crew’s caffeine alarms went off. Off we marched to a delightful café with a cool courtyard; sketchbooks came out as fast as the hot beverages. Coffee goes cold when you’re busy drawing each other, so you need to sketch fast.
I had my starstruck moment too when I met Helen Wilding, whose drawings of Brunswick I’ve admired for years. She couldn’t have been kinder, and yes, I left with a postcard and she doesn’t just give those to everybody!
Back at the Town Square, I walked and wrangled with my suddenly-too-tight backpack. It was a struggle getting my left arm into the strap but once I did I realised I was trapped bacause I couldn’t get the backpack off! I was going to have to ask for help but right now, every tourist had their phones aimed at the the clock tower, waiting for the famous midday goats. In the end, I flagged down two unamused beat police who set me free.
Evening brought the Art Market (filled with amazing art products, it’s like a candy shop for urban sketchers) and official opening. The Novotel Centrum buzzed with sketchers from every corner of the globe. This is what we call our tribe; a few days each year when you know you belong. After 15,000 steps though, I tapped out early. Asleep by 8:30. Wide awake at 3am. That’s my new normal.
This morning kicked off with Ivan Chow’s lecture, The Hand that Draws the Future. His message was interesting: sketching isn’t just art, it’s brain training. Fire neurons, wire neurons backed by science. Draw more, think better, calm the mind.
Next came my first workshop with Ireland’s Róisín Curé. She’s every bit as warm, generous, and inspiring in person as she is on her YouTube channel. She turned a café into a classroom, and by the end of the session, every cup, saucer had been immortalised.
During the lunchbreak I found a shady spot under the trees and sketched Stary Browar’s least glamorous side. Not my best effort, but putting that pen on paper and doing the work is the point. Brush meets paper, brain rewires, joy stays intact. It’s just Science!
I missed my demo with Paul Wang thanks to my poor briefing-listening skills. Lesson learned. Dangit, we are destined to never meet!
Tonight’s “Drink n Draw” will carry on without me. Between jetlag, sun, and steps, I’m cooked. My sister’s grabbing sushi and a burger on her way home, and I’m here, happily tapping out this update.
