My USK Symposium Auckland experience was Epic

Hi All, Lets get right into it!

On the first day of the symposium, registration was a long queue but it moved pretty quickly, and once I got a lanyard with my name and the back of it lists the workshops and demo I have signup for. We got a cotton bag filled with goodies from sponsors. Stay calm everyone, I’ll show you what’s in the goodie bag, please read on.

Briefly, I joined three workshops, two of which came with even more sponsored art supplies. Eduardo Bajzek from Brazil was my first workshop (don’t forget to click the hyperlinked on his name to check out his work). This workshop focused on using pencil and eraser to create painterly drawings of the scenery. The painterly style Bajzek shows aims to give the over feeling of atmosphere by starting with broad and large light shadings first and as we go on, to layer more values to smaller shapes and darkest details. Creta Colour gave all his workshop participants a whole set roll of pencils and erasers and a sharpener inside a pouch.

On the second day of the workshop, I joined Angir Sudarman’s workshop, he’s known as Darman and he’s from Surabaya, Indonesia. His workshop has been the one I wanted to join since I started following his instagram. He’s a watercolourist with an architect background, and he can convey a mood like no one else, and it’s on a sketchbook too. I wanted to understand how he did that and he did not disappoint. In this workshop, all of his students received a Stillmand & Birn Zeta A5 landscape sketchbook, which is the smooth mix media paper because he is a Stillman & Birn ambassador.

And the final workshop was with Daniel Pagans who did not have any sponsor, and I must admit I learned the least from, but I did like returning to the basics of using just one colour to paint a simple scene. He gave excellent handouts and a good reminder of the power of just one cool dark colours when the focal point is painted first as a center of the piece. I enjoyed that.

Day 1 was the registration and opening reception, which was in the afternoon into the evening, there were snacks and drinks catered, where participants can buy more drinks after the first drink was included. There was a staging of a Hakka Maori singing and dancing and a couple of welcome speeches, and I was off on a very good start the day before where I joined Christina Wald’s group to WETA workshop Unleashed. I felt that this was the beginning of the symposium already because I met about 20 other sketchers who came along too. I did a few sketches that were not really good, but I consider the sketches my warm up. It was a lot of fun, and such a great way to start

Day 2 was the workshop morning and then a sketchwalk afternoon. I have started to make new friends and what a way to start the week. The sketchwalk was at Freyberg Square, about 15 minutes walk from the event place, a very nice large square with palm trees and cafes and restaurants. It is my first time sketching with hundreds other sketchers in one place, it was quite surreal. I wandered around after I did my sketch, and a guy confused looking came up to me and asked ‘is this a drawing competition? What is going on? There are so many of you sketching! “. Below is my sketch with graphite pencils

After this, I decided to find some dinner nearby with new sketcher friends, Jenny, Jacob, Nawel and another sketcher I cannot remember her name, currently. We ended up in a dumpling house, the dumpling unfortunately was terrible. It tasted bland, the soup was bland. Ah well.

Day 2 started early because I wanted to have a good solid breakfast before the workshop, I end up doing the very Asian thing, a simple instant noodle with eggs. And I was good for the rest of the morning. My hotel was a serviced apartment so i had a kitchen which was handy.

The weather sadly turned quite bad after a wonderful first day, it started to turn grey and windy, and rain of different qualities comes and goes the whole morning. Darman took us towards the City Hall area and the corner we had our workshop was quite windy that it became an exercise of painting in extreme conditions. My sketchbook would flap around, my hat flew away a few times, and I had to pin everything down, and move in from the kerb to avoid fine misty rain. It was challenging but it was still really fun. Darman showed us his demonstration like a master, he had his easel setup like a Tower of Babel, and I learned how he does his initial background wash, and the key is to not touch much of the painting with a brush at all. More on this later.

Marina Grechanik’s demonstration started off with a slow walk to Vulcan Lane, and we ended up on the outside of Occidental pub. This ended up being an extreme weather sketching again because it rained on and off the whole afternoon. Marina had a rain coat on her head while rain dripped on her face from the outdoor umbrellas above her head, but she did a great job in showing ‘fearless’ sketching with materials from gouache, markers, pen and pencil. There was not a lot of structure, it was more of a gesture to expressing what is currently happening. So while this was happening, I thought let me channel the demo into my own sketchbook, and I end up using squarely pencil an a bit of watercolour, and since I was standing under another umbrella not far away, but didnt bring any water brushes, I decided to use the water dropping on the table to sketch and the scene looks abstracted and was quite wet by the end of the demo. It was one of the most fun sketching I’ve ever done, it was extremely uncomfortable, and everyone was standing around her without knowing what to do. I went inside the pub, got a large glass of Savignon Blanc and while i was sketching, standing and sipping, this was the best case scenario considering the situation. After this ended, I stayed at the Pub for another hour or so, and Angela Williams a sketcher from Melbourne joined me. Afterwards we walked to St Kevin’s Arcade in a quite heavy rain to join a sketchwalk that ended up being cancelled, but there was a group sketching there.

My sketch of the scene of her extreme condition demo outside the pub, water for this paint is rain water pooling on the table.

In the evening, I join the drink and draw at the one designated bar for the symposium, at this point I was hanging out with a sketcher from Sydney called Kate, who also came alone and was a joy to hang with. Kate was the first one I talk to on the first day, and the one who immediately challenged me on a sketch off, quick drawing of people. I jumped on this because I really like the challenge. I met another sketcher called Jill who turns out to be an internship officer at FIT in NYC, the college I went to. And she’s living between NZ and NYC. I sadly do not have photos with these ladies.

Day 3 workshop is met by yet another gloomy and slightly wet day, but the temperature was always mild, which makes it a lot more tolerable. Daniel Pagans workshop ended up back on Vulcan Lane, the afternoon the weather did not improve so I decided to go back to the hotel and have a rest instead of going to the sketchwalk, and arrived at the sketchwalk location late, and didnt do any sketching and this was also the final sketchwalk, where they did a big sketch photo.

My sketch during the workshop when Daniel was demonstrating.

Afterwards we are all back at the AUT venue waiting for the closing ceremony to happen. The closing ceremony had more buffet snacks and drinks as the first one, and a stage was build so a closing Hakka dancing and singing can be performed, and announcements, raffle winners etcetera can be made. Here is our Patrick Ng and Teo Yi Chieh from USK Singapore

My marker line drawing of the closing ceremony

They were raffle-ing away about 80 different art supplies and one main winner wins a workshop pass to the next symposium, which was later revealed to be in Buenos Aires in October 2024. I did buy two raffle tickets at $5 each but didn’t win anything.

At the end of the evening, there was a lot more socialising and dancing but I was ready to go back to the hotel and have a good lie in after a pretty intense and fun few days. I did about 12 sketches through the symposium. I met countless new sketchers and started to give my new friends a limited edition print that I brought especially for this event. I felt it was a nice touch to give a beautiful quality artwork to selective people who I met during the symposium, I wrote each of them a very personal messages in the back. I love these kinds of connections.

Overall I think the structure of the symposium was great. I would have liked more workshops per day, one in the afternoon would have been good. I heard this was the past symposium structure but the last one in Amsterdam because of extremely hot weather they had to cancel the afternoon workshop and that structure stuck to this one workshop per day, 3 years later.

I now understand why a symposium like this is so addictive. It is life affirming to meet people like me, who constantly sketch, everywhere all the time. The vibe of the symposium was very warm and friendly, and while there are way too many people, and I could not meet everyone. I was always welcomed, greeted, and talked to by everyone I meet. I did see cultural clique forming for those who perhaps are more comfortable to speak in their own language other than english. I think that’s how things go in bigger groups situation. I felt quite secure in myself that I didn’t need to always stick to someone. I was comfortable to sketch alone, or to sketch with others near me and not talk, and I was comfortable to sketch together, to chat while I sketch and to make new connections. So in this way, I have the best of both worlds, the world of the introvert, and the world of the extrovert.

On the Ferry to Devonport with ladies from the USK New York Chapter, and Jakob from USK Copenhagen.

The next day was a Sunday, and I had the whole day before Tom arrives late in the night from Singapore. I slept in, and had a late breakfast and walked to the Ferry Building to meet Jenny and Jacob to go to Devonport, another part of Auckland by a 10 minutes ferry. We had a sketch of a large glorious tree there and walked up the two volcano peaks. Had a nice lunch, and saw a Folk dance performance at the pier. We bump into a symposium volunteer called Ernest at the book shop, and finally had to wait for 45 minutes for a ferry back, because the one we wanted to get on was cancelled. Back in the city, we joined a bunch of other sketches including the instructors at a large food court called Britomart and there was dinner and sketching. And after dinner, I joined a bunch of USK instructor for a night sketch at the Marina Viaduct, because I had time and I wanted to make more friends. So that is how I spend my Sunday night.

I had such a blast this week, it was incredibly fulfilling, I didnt sketch as much as I would like, but I felt that I sketched purposefully. I know when I am drawing I am at peace, and I am happy, either alone or with others, so purposeful sketching happens no matter where I am.After workshops with Oliver Hoeller, I find myself quietly questioning why I do a sketch, and sometimes the answer can be as simple as because I need to rest in focused attention, or something is attractive. I don’t always have a story that connects others to the sketch, I have a personal one and that is sometimes enough.

OK here is what you’ve been waiting for, the content of my goodie bags and the sponsors freebies.