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| 7/13/13 Arc de Triomf, Barcelona |
Last week when my social media feeds were filled with
sketches and photos of the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Poznań, I admit I was
feeling some FOMO. Oh, not a lot of FOMO; after all, I’ve been very fortunate
to attend more than my share of symposiums, and I’m happy for everyone who got
to enjoy the same fun this year. But I couldn’t help feeling a tiny twinge.
Instead of having a pity party, I decided to go through my
image files and pick out one from each symposium I’ve attended and post them
here. As I went through the sketches, I was flooded with delightful memories of
people I met, amazing cities I experienced, and all that I learned.
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| 8/30/14 Santa Teresa, Paraty |
I had intended to assemble and publish this post last
weekend while the symposium was going on, but I was so busy attending and
blogging about two USk Seattle sketch outings that week that this post got
pushed back. That made me recall the many people I met at symposiums who had expressed
envy when I told them I was from Seattle and was part of its huge USk community.
Some told me that they had never sketched with others until they came to the
symposium because they had no local group to meet with. Even with symposium
FOMO, I can’t help but be grateful for my own USk group that keeps me busy and
happy year-round. Indeed, how fortunate I am.
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| 7/27/16 Castlefield, Manchester |
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| Alas, no new tin. |
Speaking of FOMO, you may recall my disappointment last year when I discovered that no symposium-logo Cretacolor pencil tin had
been made for the Buenos Aires symposium. Hoping that may have been a fluke, I
optimistically entreated a friend who was planning to go to Poznań to look for
the Cretacolor tin and save it for me. Zooming in on goodie bag dump images on
Instagram, I repeatedly saw no Cretacolor tins, and my friend confirmed my suspicion.
Alas, Auckland may have been the last to add to my symposium tin collection.
At least I can’t have FOMO over something that doesn’t exist!
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Custom Moleskine sketchbook from the very first
USk Symposium in 2010, Portland |
In other news, if there’s such a thing as the opposite of
FOMO, it’s this: Receiving something that I didn’t know I was coveting until I
had it! A friend who was visiting from another state to attend Sketcher Fest
presented me with a surprising gift: The custom-made Moleskine sketchbook that
came in the goodie bag of the very first USk symposium in Portland, Oregon, in
2010! I had seen photos of it, of course, but thinking that one could ever be
mine was beyond my imagination. It had never even occurred to me to try to get
one – and suddenly, one was mine, from a generous and thoughtful friend who had
a feeling I might want it.
Indeed, how fortunate I am.
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| 7/29/17 Grant's Park, Chicago |
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| 7/18/18 Porto |
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| 7/25/19 Amsterdam |
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How fortunate to have traveled to these places. I've gotten so familiar with your more recent style since spotting you on FB urban sketcher site and then here that I would not have guessed these older ones were done by you. Not better, not worse, just a different side showing how you have developed over the years. Those first two in particular caught me off guard as they look so much like someone else's that I like on the FB site. Maybe several others in fact.
ReplyDeleteI only attended the Chicago, Porto, and Amsterdam symposiums, but I do miss being there with so many other sketchers from around the world. It is quite an experience. I enjoyed seeing your sketches from each one that you attended.
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