I felt like I won the grand lottery when I was invited to Liège in Belgium in May, to sketch the city with 200 other urban sketchers, during the Dessiner Liège 2018 event. Three days of sketching in the company of others, enjoying great food, exploring an interesting city and making new friends. Such a pleasure!
One of the initiators of this event was Gérard Michel, avid urban sketcher and Grand Master of Complicated Perspective (check out his Flickr albums, for example the Perspective Games). Gérard is a great source of inspiration to me drawingwise, and such a great person to be around. I only wish my French was more fluent so I could speak properly with the man! Oh well, I´ll practice until next time.
On the first day, there was an opening reception at Liège City hall (Stockholm, you have so much to learn), where the mayor welcomed us all to draw the city.
Strolling around town with my sketchbook I kept bumping into urban sketchers on every corner. You need never wander alone at an urban sketchers event.
The first day was a bit rainy and cold, and of course that was the day when some of us decided to head up to the Terraces des Minimes to sketch a panorama view of the city. Took me all day, apart from a warm-up lunch, where I had the pleasure of being portrayed by Vincent Desplanche.
In this event, every participant got an accordeon sketchbook, handmade by the Liège urban sketchers. And in a very clever way, they organized an exhibition of those sketchbooks every evenings, in a beautiful room at ESA Saint-Luc Liège (École Supérieure des Arts). So much fun to see what everyone had been up to during the day!
Eating is always interesting in the company of urban sketchers. Usually, there is not much room for the actual food on the table, since everybody´s sketchbooks and drawing gear is already filling the surface. Fun, though, and I feel lucky to have been sharing so many meals with this crazy drawing crowd.
On the last evening, the local vintage car club came by the ESA Saint-Luc with their gems, a treat to sketch!
After the Liège event, our sketchbooks were on display at the Saint-Luc, along with work of the students at the school. So much beautiful work on display!
3 Comments
What a great trip. I am glad you shared it with us. I love seeing all the different sketches and sketchers.
Thanks Lisa!
This post was actually up before, but had to have the site rebuilt, so I´m trying to put back some content here. Glad to hear from you, and yes, this was a great trip. Such a treat to have this opportunity to sketch together with so many lovely sketchers in Liège! 🙂
Thanks for post Nina – love your work and big thank you for introducing me to Gerard Michel. – another inspirational artist!