After the Symposium

With all the tantalising glimpses of everyone's sketchbooks and the huge array of styles from other fascinating sounding workshops milling around in my head - and my husband and son having joined me as the symposium drew to a close - we caught a train a little way down the coast to Estoril. We had no idea what to expect, just that it was close enough to Lisbon to go back and wander around some more if we liked (which we did). It turned out to be a very popular beach resort, as we started to suspect on the train ride with all the beach bags, umbrellas and brightly dressed co-passengers travelling with us.

I sketched this from our hotel window, with a mind on Melanie's workshop, not putting in all the details of the surroundings, but the simple story of a couple, on holiday at this seaside town where an old castle overlooks the bay

The next day we joined the throngs on the beach and I tried out my 'unschooled' version of Richard Camara's 'Lining over Colour' workshop. I think I overdid the random blobs of colour underpainting trying to portray the masses of bright umbrellas!

Then an interesting mixed media sketch - inadvertently including sunscreen and sand with the watercolour...

 We caught the train back to Lisbon to do some more sight-seeing and tram-riding. Walking, trying to see as much as possible didn't leave much time for sketching, apart from a quickie of this brilliant green tiled building in the Rua do Secula, where we took a short break in the shade. The beautifully tiled buildings in Lisbon have to be seen to be believed - my daughter later asked if these tiles are really that colour... yes, as far as I can match it with paint, they are!

We came across a few stray symposium sketchers still scattered around the streets of Lisbon, working away at their sketchbooks and easels, including Marc Holmes. I had the chance to look over his shoulder at the wonderfully loose pencil linework he does before applying watercolour washes to his buildings - which inspired me to do this one when we were back on the beach the following day. I was really pleased and felt - just as it was time to move on - that I'd just begun to get into my sketching stride.