One of the great things about the Urban Sketchers community is that when you travel you can meet up with local sketchers. We don’t get that many international visitors here in Sydney but this week we had two. Patrick from Singapore (who I have met before in Singapore) and Will from Manchester.

We were able to organise an ‘adhoc’ event – a low key day to hang out- share sketchbooks and sketching tools and do a little sketching together. Our favouirte spot to take visitors is the MCA cafe with the best view of the Sydney Opera House… when there is not a cruise ship blocking the view!?! Thankfully the view towards the Harbour Bridge is still highly sketchable!
Using my new De Atramentis Dark Blue Document Ink for the bridge was fun!

Of course I sketched my tea and cake but we were talking so much I wasn’t dilligent enough to pass my sketchbook around and get everyone to sign my book!

Lovely to see ‘old’ USK friends, make new ones and meet long time Facebook friends! After spending a few hours in the cafe… it was time for lunch! Ha! it was a bit of a cafe hopping day.

Then we headed out to the back lanes of The Rocks. I have been wanting to sketch this view of Suez Canal for years… I wasn’t 100% happy with either of these but I am finding having coloured inks as an option is throwing me a little. And  BTW we ran into a woman from Vancouver who has been out sketching a few times with the Seattle USK group!

I have too many options in my kit at the moment!  I am in  full experimentation mode not sure what I will do next. Yesterday I had mixed grey in a normal lamy pen (didn’t use) black in my white lamy, dark blue in a sailor pen, a mixed dark green in a pilot parallel pen, red in a Fine Kaweco pen and mixed raw sienna in a fine Kaweco pen, as well as my usual selection of watercolour pencils. No wonder I was confused!

At 3pm it was time for afternoon tea – The Tea Cosy of course! Was talking a little too much to sketch my scones but I did manage to finish my page but the end. A lovely relaxed day – I didn’t feel like I had sketched that much but once again I filled a number of pages (including my Floral Tribute sketch as well).