Amsterdam - Part 4

25 July, first day of workshops. It's getting hotter but I am so lucky to have an AirBnB where the temperatures stayed cool all through the week. Good old 17th Century house with a garden apartment. I had access to the garden, not that I had much time to make use of it, but it was a good start to the day to sit at the little table with a cup of tea and my sketchbook, hearing birds chirping and children playing in gardens nearby.

The first workshop I did was Uma Kelkar's "Rhythm is a Dancer" (And yes, she did play the song on her smart phone as we were assembling in the courtyard outside Zuiderkerk!). I've been a big fan of Uma's work for a while now - I bought her painting at the silent auction in Porto last year, and I took part in the Direct Watercolour month this June, as I did last year. I learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this workshop! Learning to repeat, vary and skip to lend different moods to my sketches. I had brought my good paper with me, and tube paints, but I really didn't need them. Still, I used the paper and was very happy with my efforts. Uma was very generous in her teaching and constructive in her comments to each participant. With this workshop, I felt I was one step closer to understanding how she paints her wonderful watercolours! As long as I keep practising!!

There were people from all over the world at the workshop, France, Germany, UK, Canada, US, etc. That's one of the things I love so much about an Urban Sketchers Symposium - the opportunity to meet people from the other side of the world who are interested in exactly the same thing as me. And it's wonderful to also catch up with people I met last year in Porto!

A few of us stayed behind for lunch - there was a really nice café right behind us. Deb joined us and the conversation was lively!

As the temperatures were continuing to soar, Deb and I decided to take it easy for the afternoon, playing with paints and sketching away!

And then it was time to meet up with Pat and our two Dutch friends, Chantal and Marjolijn at Kapitein Zeppos, a wonderful restaurant tucked away in a lane off a lane, and its own natural cooling system. Food was delicious (I went for the Belgian option, Mussels and then Dame Blanche) and the conversation flowed, we compared sketchbooks of course, and talked about sketch matters and life in general - we even found out how to approach Dutch people in a way that elicits the best possible response - it's all to do with how Dutch people are problem-solvers, but don't like to be told what to do - Pat would tell it much better than me! And then Kate, one of our fellow Dublin Sketchers (we more than doubled our presence from last year, going from 2 in Porto to 5 this year!!), joined us and we chatted some more, and found that James Joyce has a connection with Amsterdam. Going full circle!! I just love it! (Pictures of the Dublin gang and others on Urban Sketchers Dublin's Blog)