I just returned from the
5th Urban Sketchers Symposium in Paraty, Brazil. Over 100 sketchers from around the world converged in Paraty, a little colonial town on the southeastern coast, for a week of sketching, workshops, demos, and eating. I attended workshops by
Behzad Bagheri,
Suhita Shirodkar,
Liz Steel, and
João Catarino, some of which were pretty challenging, but from which I learned a lot. We also spent a fair amount of time just sketching together informally in the city, and often sketched each other at mealtimes. I also got to explore Rio de Janeiro for a few days before the Symposium itself started. You can see more of
my sketches from the Symposium on flickr, or check out everyone else's work in the
Urban Sketchers Paraty Pool.
The Symposium is a lot of fun - I highly encourage any of you to go if you get the chance. It is a lot of fun to explore a new place with a bunch of other sketchers. And since we only get together like this once a year, it is also a bit like a family reunion of sorts - it is great to catch up with people you haven't seen in a while, but whose work you have been following online. I look forward to the next Symposium.
But for now, it is back to sketching D.C.
