I’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about workshops at the USk Singapore 2015 Symposium, but perhaps the most fun thing we did at the symposium were the sketchwalks. Our Canberra Sketchers Group is still in its infancy, so getting 10 people along to a sketchwalk is a good outing. Imagine how amazing it feels when a whole street is full of sketchers. I don’t know how many people actually came on the registration day sketchwalk, here are just some of the sketchers in Purvis St. And there were two other groups in other nearby streets!

How many sketchers can you fit in one small street?

While the sketchwalks are fun, they are also taken seriously, as an opportunity to get to know a new location.

Heads down and working hard! Purvis St, Singapore

We were lucky that the restaurants that lined the street hadn’t opened yet, because we sketchers commandeered all the available seating, as well as the footpaths and anywhere else we could find.

Here is what I drew on that first day (BTW the drawings of houses at the top of the left-hand page and the patterns on the bottom of the right-hand page are washi tape I purchased at the Singapore Art Museum shop).

Drawings of the roof lines and building decorations in Purvis St Singapore, 22 July 2015, watercolour and pen and ink

There were other opportunities to join similar sketchwalks, which we did on the afternoons of day 2 and day 3 of the Symposium. But the biggest of them all was the sketchwalk on the final day of the symposium. The official count was 106 participants.

The sketchwalk on the lawns of the Singapore Management University, 25 July 2015

It was a grand finish to three days of amazing teaching and connection with sketchers from around the world. But what thrilled me was the impact those three days had made on my work. I could never had imagined that my final sketchwalk drawing would look like this.

My drawing at the final sketchwalk, brush pen, ink and watercolour, 25 July 2015

A huge thank you to all the organisers, sponsors and the Singapore USk group. All I can say is ‘do yourself a favour’ and get yourself along to the 2016 USk Symposium in Manchester.